Who else has a notchy 2nd gear?
 

So i just replaced my tranny with a low mileage unit from japan, and i notice the 1-2 shift is still very grindy and notchy. Is this a pretty common problem for our 5spd trannies?

I have a stock usdm tranny with a Gotham Racing short shifter, and second is very notchy at times. I am curious however as to whether its is the shifter being broken in or not. just my 2 cents.

Mine is too. Double-clutching the 1-2 shift smooths it, but usually I settle for gently snapping it into 2nd.

I bought a spare syncrho set from mazdaformance.com for cheap and soon I'll be dropping to the tranny to fix that synchro and some other stuff. Switching to Redline and changing shifter bushings had no effect.

Dave

Same problem here. Car only has 35k miles on it and its really notchy....I was thinking maybe changing the gear oil would help...but from what dgeesaman just said that wont help either...

I still think replacing the shifter bushings and putting in NEO gear oil (see the other thread about it - I think it was 75-90HD or something) is a worthwhile idea.

But the 2nd and 3rd synchros are double cone (3 piece) design. They are designed for extra heavy duty, but I wonder if a little grit can get between them and make them notchy. We'll see when mine comes out.

Dave

Mine was notchy also when new (well, it was never really "old"), and switching to Redline synthetic improved the shift feel substantially.

I just replaced my dealer fluid with NEO (Thanks Glassman) and it really took out the notchiness. Real impressed. Strongly recommend.

Mine is notchy as well and also used to come with a large clunk right after I put it in 2nd...this was before I started rev matching. My pops rx8 has the same clunk and his second may even be notchy going in.

mine is a bit notchy too. i have a B&M short shift kit.

however, i drove a friend's car recently who had a factory shifter (no short shift kit) and it shifted a lot more smoothly. same mileage on both cars ~120k miles both running Redline.

Mine is a bit notchy in 2nd and 3rd. When I switched to Royal Purple it felt a LOT better, but it is still noticable.

mine was very notchy in the 93 and the transmission was rebuilt by mazda
its also been pretty hard in the 94 with only 47k miles and I just added a pettit short shifter and its even worse but I don't mind it I like the feel.

If I shift from 1st to 2nd very fast at high rpms I could make it grind on both cars even if the clutch was all the way down to the floor while putting it in gear

I say this is normal since everyone has the same description.

i have a notchy 3rd gear sometimes, well not really notchy but you can def feel some weirdness through you hand as you shift from 2nd to 3rd during normal driving..but it never grinded so i wont worry about it..:)

i have a notchy 2nd gear...but only when cold...goes away when the tranny oil warms up...

Mine is also notchy AFTER it has been mostly engaged.... seems similar to the 5th gear synchro problem that can be partially cured with better oil. Mine is smoother when i shift out of first, let the shifter go back to neutral, and then into 2nd (???)

Yeah thats what I ment be rev matching. I would love to not have this notchiness...At high rpms mine has zero problems

I have the same problem.I was thinking of rebuilding my tranny.

i thinks its that we need to put better oil in it. Everyone that i have talked to has said that NEO, Royal purple, or Redline has helped a lot.

I dunno how much that would help. My new 40k tranny from japan still has the same grind that my original 108k tranny has, and the JDM one has the shorter 5th gear so it is newer...doesn't seem like the problem has been resolved by mazda.

I have the same notchy 2nd gear, I added Mobil 1 and it helped about a month now its back to the old feel.
I'm going to change it to the Neo gear oil after the 1st of the year.

Last time i had the notchy prob it was on my Eclipse. I swapped the oil with penzoil Synchromesh and that helped out a ton....might try the same on the FD...

Right, this is because setting it into neutral essentially eliminates the need for synchros since the lay(?) shaft automatically gets rev matched by being placed in neutral. It's called double-clutching.

Rev-matching is not the same thing: rev-matching is having the engine RPM at the right speed so that going into gear avoids the clutch having to adjust the engine speed. Most of us do it naturally on upshifts. Rev-matching is what you're supposed to do on downshifts. Rev-matching makes the car engage much smoother, but unless you double-clutch, the synchros will still need to adjust the speed of the lay(?) shaft.

(I think it's called the layshaft - I'm too lazy to dig out my reference to check)

Dave

86K or so on the stock tranny, and 2nd is notchy for me (sometimes tho...I don't think it's always notchy). I've learned to live w/ it. ;)

Fluid changes were the very first thing I did to my RX-7 and I will attest to the huge difference redline made in my tranny. Before I had redline in 2nd gear was very knotchy especially when the tranny was cold. After putting redline in every gear became a lot smoother.

I believe that...but my ? is, for how long did things remain smoother?

What about those of you with a torque brace? Did it change any from before and after?