Shift Patterns - Pick your favorite, or the ones you have experianced?

I have always appreciated having the reverse near 1st.  Seem to make more logical sense and clearly less horrific for a miss shift (not that you could slam a manual into reverse at 80 mph!).  Either way, as side-stepped, well gated reverse is always appreciated!

For a time I had to transition between the 4RDL (Ghia), the 5RDR (Corvair with T5), the 4RUL (64 Corvair) and the 6RDR (Speed 3)!  Yes, it was confusing backing out after changing cars!!

One that is missing apparently is the 2CV's which was (this one just seems based on cruelty!):

R  2  4
|    |   |
1   3

I'm a 4RUR kind of a guy.

I've always heard about the Datsun 5-speed dog leg 5RUL for racing or autocross then one day the bulb went on over my head and I understood the quickness of the 2-3 and 3-2 shifting with these trannys. 

What about "3 on the tree"

californiamilleghia said:

What about "3 on the tree"

I consider it the 3RUL pattern. Just closer to the wheel

Since I am a VW/BMW/Old Fiat guy the 4RUL and 5UR-RUL are the most comfortable to me. 

Honestly I drive so many cars I get used to them all. I am curious to see how I will adapt to the Dogleg 5RUL Porsche transaxle I am building my car around.

I've driven 5RDR more than anything else. Drove an old Fiat with four on the tree one time. Learned to drive in our Ford Falcon's three on the tree.

The current cars are 6RUL - Speed3, and 6RUR - Z06, but my favorite is:

1

N

2

3

4

5

6

Datsun240ZGuy said:

I'm a 4RUR kind of a guy.

I've always heard about the Datsun 5-speed dog leg 5RUL for racing or autocross then one day the bulb went on over my head and I understood the quickness of the 2-3 and 3-2 shifting with these trannys. 

I've raced both and frankly you can't live on the difference.

At some point you are going to have to go across the gate, whether it's the traditional 2-3 or the dogleg 3-4. 

I use a traditional box on the Datsun; I now use 3rd, 4th and 5th at the tracks I run. Before I installed the 5.13 ring and pinion I used 2nd, 3rd and 4th at these tracks...................they really aren't different.

My favorite shift pattern is a sequential box. When I went from racing motorcycles to cars I quickly realized what an abomination H pattern boxes are.

I miss my motorcycle powered race car almost entirely because of the sequential box.

The 5RUL dog-leg on the Maserati was my favorite just because of how weird it is.

I have a little bit of a hard time with the 6RUL pattern on the Mazda 5 because 5 and 6 seem like they're like one tooth different in size so I will often shift from 4th right to 6th.  But if I try that motion on the Neon or the Miata with their "normal" 5RDR pattern, the reverse lockout is bypassed and things get a bit grindy.  So even if I'm not going to actually put it into 5th, I move the shifter from 4th to 5th and then down to 6th just to prevent any bad muscle memory from developing.

NermalSnert (Forum Supporter) said:

I've driven 5RDR more than anything else. Drove an old Fiat with four on the tree one time. Learned to drive in our Ford Falcon's three on the tree.

I drove a JDM van in Jamaica with a five on the tree.

There's definitely a joke in here somewhere about Vanagon shift patterns. On my coworker's van, reverse has the shift knob moving under the steering wheel. Mine was never that bad but it was always "four in the air".

If we expand this to four wheel drive systems, we get the Series Land Rover. Push the yellow knob down to get 4WD, use the red knob to select high or low range, to get out of 4WD high range you shift from high range to low range and back and the yellow knob pops up.

Red block Volvo, reverse upper left, with mechanical lockout, and the button for the Laycock overdrive in the middle of the knob. 

Im so used to lower right now, which is on every other manual trans (V50, Sentra, C1500)  I own, that it took me a minute to remember and decide.

We just talked about Beetlebus shifters this morning. Stir it around, and see what direction the pile of E36 M3 goes when you engage the clutch.  Horrible things.

One down, five up. 

Done. 

Mercedes 540K

810 Cord

My favourite is 1 down, 4 up.

My current (M/T) cars have four different shift patterns (all 5-speed), and have had a few 4-speed patterns in recent years as well. I can't say I really have a preference, but I do make sure to leave each of the vehicles with the knob showing the pattern, so I don't forget :)

My F350's I had with 6 speed's didn't make the graphic you posted, unless I missed it. 

R  2  4  6

1   3  5

It was nice when doing things like parking or hitching up to a trailer because it was an easy jockey between 1st and Reverse. Though I think they technically labeled 1st as "Low". Wife has a VW 6 speed, track car is a BMW 5 speed and the backup/beater is a Subaru 5 speed. Think I prefer the German reverse position to Japanese, but not sure I could articulate why. 

Also, I'm not seeing the C7 Z06 shift pattern there.

1  3  5  7

2  4  6  R

I suppose that would be 7RDR? It works well. But really, 1↓5↑ makes me wibbly. 

Moto GP style on my motorcycle. It's the exact opposite of this:

Appleseed said:

Moto GP style on my motorcycle. It's the exact opposite of this:

I had my ZX6R setup that way and loved it, but took some real brain power to go between that and my dirt bike. 

My favorite is running a shuttle shift piece of equipment for a few hours and then hopping in the truck and stabbing at the signal stalk to go from Reverse to Forward. Makes me laugh out loud at myself. 

Everything I've owned so far has been 5RDR, except for the MGB, which was 4RDL with overdrive on the wiper stalk. Eventually my AW11 will be 6RUL if the C160 ever finds its way into the car. That will take some getting used to. Reverse next to first has never seemed right to me.

I've never driven one in real life, but rowing an Eaton-Fuller 18-speed pattern does require some attention in the trucksim...

I think I've only run across 5RDR and 6RUL. Anything with more than 3 "columns" of gears should have a collar to avoid accidentally pushing past the intended column though. Once drove a RunX with the C60 gearbox which had 6RUL and no collar, and it was way too easy to go for 1st and get reverse.

Apparently Porsche makes a 7 speed manual.  I have to guess 7 is a massive overdrive?

In reply to aircooled :

Ford also makes a 7-speed manual in the Bronco.  They call first "C" for crawl I guess since it's a bulldog gear, and then 2nd is called 1st and so on.  It's a really really low gear.