2nd gear
 

So I think I broke my tranny. I downshifted to 2nd gear coming off the highway and I don't think it was in gear all the way when I released the clutch, it grinded loud as hell and started a nice loud knock. It does it slightly in every gear but in 2nd it grinds in and knocks loud! Smh I guess it was its time to go after 250k miles! Funny thing is when I blew my diff someone told me my tranny is next but I didn't think so soon!

I assume it's a 5speed?

Yea 1.6 tranny, Idk if there's a difference between that and a 97 1.8 but thats what I'm getting next!

Did you downshift through all the gears or go from 4th or 5th, revmatch, and straight to 2nd? Your listed symptoms and highspeed-to-slow transition is just like what I did at Infineon turn 11 - braked too late and felt I could skip blipping down through the gears and just rev match and go to 2nd.

BOOM!

Just thinking of the inertia at play in the rotating masses of the drivetrain makes me face-palm now and was well embarrassed when I figured out what I did at the track ending my session. Funny enough I was on a road trip and continued on up the coast without second gear lol. First-third shifting in San Francisco is annoying :)

I blew up a clutch in a civic doing the exact same thing but I was upshifting, I was about half way into the gear when I released the clutch and boom the clutch was roast