I've always wondered about this. Say you're cruising at 40 or 50 mph and you put in 1st gear and let the clutch go. Would the car still carry forward by it's own momentum even if the engine stalls? or would the whole car just suddenly jerk and stop right there in the middle of the road (with the wheels locked)?

 

You can't put the car in 1st gear at 40-50 MPH. There is a mechanism in the transmission that prevents your from shifting into first above like 10 MPH or maybe even lower like 5 MPH.


That aside, when downshifting I don't think the car can stall no matter which gear you shift into. The engine stalls when the RPMs are too low. When you downshift, the RPMs go up if you stay the same speed as you were going before downshifting. If you were going 70 MPH and shifted into 2nd, the car would jerk, the engine would be redlining, and/or the transmission will most likely suffer severe damage at 2nd gear.

Now, if you are going 10 MPH and shift into say 5th gear, well your RPMs would be so low that you would probably stall out... or you would just not be able to accelerate because the gear ratio would be so high.

 

Why don't you just try it and let us know what happens?






J/K DO NOT do that. My car won't even let me shift in to first unless I'm at a stand still.

 

i guess i must be doing it wrong or something b/c i have no problem shifting into first around 30mph...

 

Strange. It shouldn't allow you to. I think the mechanism can break or be removed from the transmission, so maybe that happened?

 

I can shift into 1st at about 20... I have a 4 speed though.... And I obviously wouldn't release clutch at that speed.

OP if you shift into first at a decent speed you can cause serious damage to your engine... do not want.

 

I don't think the EF's have this safety feature, NIKE. Could be wrong though.

 

I know my car hates going into gear while I'm rolling, unless i rev match it. I haven't tried at even medium speeds, you know, cause I like my transmission