Question about heel-toe shifting

[Cactus]

Please don't flame me about The Fast and the Furious. Just like me question about double-clutching, I am looking for information on a driving technique, not trying to be all up in someone's face about how ubercool I think my car is. On to heel-toe shifting.

The idea is that you have the clutch depressed, then with your right foot operate the brakes and the gas to match RPMs for a downshift, correct? As I drive now I depress the clutch, brake, then when I am done braking rev the engine a little bit if I need to match RPMs for a downshif. The advantage seems to be to me that if one could learn to do it proficiently then shifting in corners could be considerably quicker.

My questions are, does anyone use this method and is there any real benefit to using it?

[chessboxer]

i thought it was more of a rally thing, but i;m not really certain.
and i dont do it, but i am only one man. i mean, i cant do everything and i cant go on pretending you love me. i put everything into this relationship and its all become too one sided.
meh, im a tool.

[Ronald_Type-R]

I've been using this technique for a while now (4 years or so) and I'm getting better and better at it...And no I don't rev match after I'm done braking...I revmatch while I'm still braking, that's why I'm using my heel on the gas pedal and toe on the brake pedal....IMO it benefits a lot because....Well, it's hard to explain, but the thing is, if you downshift without matching the RPM, the tranny would pull your car back a lot and thus slow you down...Sometimes it will slow you down too much, and maybe you don't want that...The thing is with heel-toe, the only thing that would slow down the car would be your brakes, because if you can heel-toe properly, you can actually downshift and the car won't jerk back or get pulled back at all.....Therefore, you get to control where and when you want to stop slowing down by just using the brakes.......

Please forgive me if I can't explain this properly, it'll be so much better if I just show it..Hehehe....Well anyways, what Im trying to say is that, with heel-toe, if you do it properly, you'll only have to worry about how much you have to brake to slow down the car, when to stop braking, and when to step on it once you're out of the corner....You don't have to worry about the synchros trying to match up the gears and therefore pulling the car back to a speed that you might not want....Hence, smoother cornering without jerking back from the synchros...

Hope I help a bit..If not, please let me know, I'll try to explain it in different words...hehehe

Ronald

[h22sparkle]

Yeah just be careful not to do it too often or else youll over-rev. Or worse comes to worse ruin the engine and mess up the tranny

[deevergote]

Yeah, I've tried it, and it really isn't easy! Maybe for smaller guys, but I'm 200lbs, pushin' 6'.

The problems I can see with learning it is that your clutch can take a beating... You won't be fluid at first, so you'll probably be burning the clutch a bit. Also, it is quite hard to control the brake and gas properly. As sparkle said, you can over-rev... Or do the opposite and brake REALLY hard.. NOT good if you're trying to do it while turning!


I know that it is a valuable technique, and I've seen pros do it (not just on Initial D). I haven't really been able to figure where it would aid my driving practices. I already use the clutch and brake simultaneously to slow down quickly (brakes and transmission together cut braking time in half). That's about as close as I get to that!

[Sho Nuff]

The problem for me is getting more ankel twisted so that i can get both at the same time. I think it has something to do with the way you sit and your seats.

[Ronald_Type-R]

Yeah when I first started learning to do this, I found that the whole ankle twisting part was a bit awkward......But after a while, you'll find the right position for the right foot, and about 2 months or so after that, you'll get used to it.. It's really so much fun, makes shifting soo much smoother and faster downshifting too... And plus once you get good at it, your synchros will last longer too....

Ronald

[deevergote]

That's true! I guess I wouldn't want to do that... Street driving benefits from it though. I can brake hard to take a nearly-missed turn. I really want to get into road racing (official, not illegal). Maybe then I can really appreciate every aspect of tuning and driving my car. Drag racing is kinda cool, but my car will never be competitive due to the weight factor... I can be fast among my peers, but I'll never be fast enough. Not that I think I could dominate in road racing, but at least there are more factors involved. A CB7 has more of a chance in road racing than in drag.

Sorry for the tangent...

[skubydobdo]

yeah heel-toe is a little difficult to get used to in the honda, with the gas and brake kinda far apart from each other. Some sports cars have them realy close together, which makes it a lot easier, unless you have a wide foot, then it's hard just to get the gas down!!

[wed3k]

Originally posted by skubydobdo
yeah heel-toe is a little difficult to get used to in the honda, with the gas and brake kinda far apart from each other. Some sports cars have them realy close together, which makes it a lot easier, unless you have a wide foot, then it's hard just to get the gas down!!

far apart?

with my pedal covers i can push the gas and brake with the sides of my foot and i only have a size 9 foot. im kinda scared to try it on city streets though.

[92accordf20a]

i dont know bout u guys, but my gas pedal sits alot lower than my brake pedal( i would guesstimate 2").. so that kinda makes it harder for me...

[f22-dohc]

hey ronald, we should cross ref....

i've been doing this too for a while....and used it lapping. its great!!!!

anyone know how to transfer hi-8 to avi??? i need some crazy ass vid card huh?

[skubydobdo]

actually, i did that a bit ago. If your camcorder has usb output, use that and capture to windows movie maker or whatever you want. I think wondows movie maker codes to mpeg, but i can't reemeber. Just hook it to computer, then open movie maker then click capture. Hope that helps. Quality is not good, but hey it works!!

[MRX]

ok i've been heel-toeing for a long time now due to previous poor idle qualities and getting a vss code everytime i let off the gas. I have obx-r pedals so it makes things a bit wider and easier to work with but here goes. When coming through to say a 90 degree turn with alot of road to make the turn. Say ur in 3rd gear going 60 mph. Well u can't very well take the turn at 60mph so u start braking down to say 47 mph (at the last second b4 the turn). You have ur foot angled on the brake but resting on the gas pedal. A split second later you're whipping through the turn and its now time to downshift cause ur revs (still in 3rd gear) are around say 3000rpm or less which is no good for racing. If u were to downshift at this point the flywheel would have to catch up to the gears which takes a split second more than u want it to in a race. So u depress the clutch and at the same time hold about a 5000-redline rev (takes practice), shift into 2nd all while still braking. Engage the clutch and let off the brake at the same time, steer and catch traction with only the gas pedal. And no u can't really mess anything up by doing this. You'll just be a much better driver. Take ur time and figure out how much throttle u have to give to get the car in the 5000rpm+ range without over-revving. A good way to lead into all this is at every stop sign or stop light look at the rpm ur at before u start braking. Press in the clutch and start heel-toeing to come to the stop but keep the exact same rev that u did b4 u started braking. Hope this helped

[pwrusr]

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