Surely it can be that difficult to design a paddleshift to push and pull a gear lever?
A. If only it were that simple! Semi-auto gear shift is far more complicated than simply operating the lever. To make an upshift we must cut the engine at precisely the right moment and for exactly the correct duration for every shift, it’s simply not good enough to rely on fixed timers that remain the same for all shifts. Relying on fixed timers will almost certainly result in missed shifts and probably lead to gearbox dog damage. Downshifts are even more complex. It’s not, as most of our competitors seem to think, just a matter of pushing the lever and blipping the throttle. For smooth, reliable, and non-damaging downshifts it’s necessary to very carefully control the engine speed during the shift. This can only be achieved by constant monitoring of the tacho pulses and gearbox position sensor, then controlling the engine speed by the application of throttle blipping and engine cutting. We invite you to do a bit of Googling and find out which paddleshift systems monitor the gear posi
