Originally Posted by soundman

A word of caution for those of you that just pull the clutch in and downshift 2-3 times while holding the clutch in...if you downshift too quick for the speed you're travelling, you can over-speed/spin the input shaft of the tranny even though you are holding the clutch in. Example: you're approaching a stoplight and you're going 50 mph. You pull the clutch in and start chunking the shifter and downshift all the way back to 1st before you're even close to a stop. This isn't good on the tranny because the input shaft is still spinning and if you get to a lower gear too fast, you can cause the input shaft to spin too fast. It's better to space out your downshifting as you decellarate if you just hold the clutch in rather than chunk 2-3 gears at a time. I prefer using engine braking instead though.