well, funny u say say that White R32,
because when the celica of the same engine and 6speed came out, there was a lot of complaint that changing from 1st to 2nd gear caused you u drop out of the 'higher cam',
and thus out of the good power range.
this did no favours to the 0-100 sprint for the car. The only way to get around this was to shift right at or just before the cutout, and rip the shift knob as hard as u can.