Originally Posted by spearfish25

I've driven manuals for years and also had some 'smoothness' issues when starting out in my new 370z. I've now put about 170 miles on it, and have definitely gotten the feel of the shift. One thing I noticed is that the Z likes a little throttle as you release the clutch into 2. My first reaction to the 'clunk' initially was to go slower, engage the clutch, and THEN lay on the throttle....it only made things worse. Instead, make sure the throttle is JUST BARELY starting to increase RPMs when you're at the last part of engaging the clutch. I'm not suggesting to ride out the clutch as you overrev, just change your throttle timing a bit earlier than you'd otherwise expect. You'll get a nice smooth shift and the car just zooms off into 2.