No Power In 5th Gear
 

I took my 2000 GT out today for a drive down some back country roads and came upon one of the longest and straightest roads I've come across in a while. I came to a stop and decided to see what she could do. I shifted from fourth to fifth at about five thousand RPM at about 120 and kept on the gas. The car has nearly no power in fifth... I sat at 120 and three thousand RPM or so for the longest time before I ran out road. This even happens at slower speeds... Normal or not?

Sounds like me, but I burnt my clutch plate or something. I was being stupid and having fun, but screwed up my clutch in the process. So maybe you did the same thing some how?

Although would the clutch have anything to do with the power you are recieving? isn't it just to switch gears?

Sounds like your 5th is an overdrive, like everyone else's. My dad's Cobra is slow in 5th. :)

No idea, it's what my mechanic told me. Before I burnt/screwed up my clutch my 5th gear was faster then what it is now. Now it seems slower and like it almost wants to skip.

Your shifting/gears has a lot do with power. I can't explain it that well, because I suck at it. LoL That's why an aftermarket clutch kit is better. Shifting wise and more power out of it. It doesn't gain HorsePower or Torgue, just uses it better. If your clutch is burt or skipping it wont grab as good, so that means less power. Which is what's going on with my fith gear.

Before I got my Mustang my GEO metro clutch was going out, it worked it's way down. Went from 5th not working to 4th barely working then it went out and then 3rd barely worked. That's when I gave up on it and got a Mustang and I need the higher gears for the highway.

Edit: Hopefully this made sense. :/

Something is not right....you can't bve at 120 mph and 3,000 rpms.

If the clutch is slipping it will not transfer the power from the flywheel through the transmission and you won't get the power to the wheels. Gears won't "go out" from a failing clutch, but you can eventually burn the synchros out if the clutch isn't engagind and dis-engaging correctly causing a failed gear or a broken transmission.

What you're experiencing has nothing to do with the clutch, I can't imagine that it would anyway. 5th gear in out cars is more of an "overdrive" gear, especially with stock rear gear ratios. It will eventually start pulling more, but it isn't designed to really put anymore power down. Now in my car with the 3:73's or others with 4:10's 5th gear is really put into use and actually pulls pretty good, but with the higher gear you lose more of the top end.

Actually that sounds right unless my car has been screwed up ever since I got it. When I went to California last Summer (few months after I got my car), I started to race with these Motorcycle guys. I was doing 120, well I was doiung 120 almost the whole way through California. But I took some pictures of the dashboard thing and some of the bikers. In one of the pictures that had the miles per hour and RPMS, I was doing 118 or so at around 3,300 RPMS.
So that sounds right to me, unless my car has problems. I did screw up my clutch plate recently from being stupid and my 5th gear is worse then what it used to be.

What's overdrive anyways? I want to get lower end gears, but I do a lot of highway driving, so it would suck. :/

Hum....I have had 4.10's so long, I don't remember what stock gears are like. maybe that is right.

Well you were in overdrive which is not ment to really make the car go faster. You also shifted way to low in the rpms. You can take 4th gear to around 140-145mph with stock rear end gears.

I just took the car around the block again to check it out and unlike before, fifth had a lot more pep. Earlier in the day, just crusing at 55 in fifth and stomping on the throttle would leave me at that speed for the next minute where now I can get up to 70 and 80 in practically no time at all. Not sure what was causing this earlier, but it seems absolutely fine now.

This is the first manual car I have actually owned myself, but I've driven manual vehicles every now and then in the past and to my knowledge my clutch seems just fine; I'm hoping that's not it.

As far as the word "overdrive" goes, what is this actually? Just basically a cruising gear not meant to yield any power?

Yeah I don't know what overdrive is either.

Anyways I'm glad everything seems fine now. But this actually just hit me. Did you have anyone with you? Any weight in the car? Was it warmed up or anything? Low gas?

Your clutch would only be screwed up with you did something, which can be a lot of things. But I kind of doubt you did. Do you know how to drive a manual or still learning?

I messed up my clutch by doing a burn out. Another way is not knowing how to drive a manual or how to shift right. Ect... But yeah you should know if your 5th gear is acting weird. I've noticed mine is, but that's just because I screwed it up.

I've known how to drive manual for quite some time and I've always been a naturally good manual driver whereas some people are simply a joke from the get-go. I've done a few burnouts but I believe my technique is ok... with the clutch depressed, rev it up to about 4k, dump the clutch, hit the brake, and feather both until the car doesn't move. Sound good?

ya i havent really known 5th gear to be any kind of useful other than low gas consumption gear. but ya its just an overdrive gear for like highway driving n shit. i have a spec stage 2 clutch in my car n still 5th is pretty slow. its just not a gear for power unless of course you get gears like WN said

Yeah that's fine. What's how I screwed up mine. My first time I did it I went up to like 6k because Dustin said so or something. It worked out just fine, but I stopped to soon because I was so nervous. Then the second time I did it in the wet just recently and I think my foot caught the clutch at the same time of hitting the brake. :/ So I fucked it up.

How do you like it compared to stock? I'm thinking of getting King Cobra. Yeah 5th gear is pretty slow, but you know when something isn't right.

If it was your clutch you'd have problems getting the car to change gears. Unless you somehow messed up the syncros in the trany, that's not your problem. Like Spike mentioned with the stock rear end gear ratio 3.23 on our year car, you can take it all the way up to 140-145 in 4th. The gear ratio in the trany is 3.37 in first gear 1.99 in 2nd 1.33 in 3rd, 1.00 in 4th and 0.67 in 5th gear. Seeing as how the drive ratio in 5th is less than 1 to 1 (making it an overdrive) it's easy to see how your car would not pull very hard if at all in 5th.

its pretty good but the problem was when i got my car the clutch slipped so bad i couldnt do anything but drive it home so the spec 2 has a pretty good hold and everything. i have a clunk when i shift but i dont think its my clutch. either my u-joints are fucked up or my rear end is going bad.

I have a tiny clunk every now and then in between 1st and 2nd also..

That could just be the transmission physically moving. They have rubber mounts and could be worn out.

As for the 5th gear issue. Don't even try to do any hard acceleration in 5th, no point. When I was on the Memphis Motorsports Park last month I was hitting 130mph at the end of the straight in fouth, didn't even think about fifth.

Thanks for all the help guys... you've been invaluable already!

sounds like he got 2.73 rear gears instead of 3.73 gears huh.

And not using 5th to go fast? What? My car HAULS ASS in 5th. 150mph comes awful fast with the 5.4 and 3.55's.

talkin bout 5th gear on stock gears, its got almost no power to it until high rpms but by then we'll prolly hit a speed limiter

Just tested it out on the way home and fourth pulls great to about 140 which is redline and then fifth got me up to about 145 after a little while haha.

Damn just had to try it again after taking the girl home... I've been breaking my clutch in and I'm just about 20 miles shy of 500 so I decided to just cut the shit and make sure my accelerator works. Almost forgot what a fricken adrenaline rush pulling to 140 in fourth is!

lol, just be careful with that throttle on highways, dont forget that deer still exist.

not to hijack your thread and sound like an old man, but i am totally against people doing shit like that on public roads. Why not just wait and take it to the damn track where you can pound that beast to the ground until they kick you out. Two of my friends were killed and killed two pedestrians because the back end got loose and lost control and hit and tree doing 100+ and the car exploded into pieces. Hate to see another person lose their life for a couple seconds of excitement.