heel and toe, how do i know?

[SHIFT_240sx]

hey guys, ive been practicing the motions of the heel and toe technique and recently have been trying to practice it while driving, i brake push in the clutch, tap the accelerator , and let the clutch out while still braking, the thing is how do i know if im doing it right?

[Chukidori]

When the car no longer jerks or pulls in anyway when completing a downshift. you are supposed to shift down when doing this...you didint mention it so just making sure you know...

The primary benefit of Heel-Toe is that it allows you to Cram your Braking, and shifting into ONE motion...this allows you to Brake LATER (Closer to the corner) saving alot of time...But better still, its smoother. Since when you clutch and hit the throttle , you are matching the engine rpms, to the wheel speed..that means there should be no drive line shock when you downshift and release the clutch which helps account for being able to brake and down shift late. No drive line shock means you can execute the shift under more lateral loads without upsetting traction too terribly bad....inessence it keeps the car balanced.

[sr20goofus]

your along the right lines there chukidori, bu i wouldnt say its to allow you to brake later into a corner, braking into a corner is only based on braking, not heel-toe.

Heel-toe down shifting is a driving technique to revmatch the engine rpm to the next gear for smoother/faster engagement. This engagement allows the car to be more settled during corner turn-in and corner exiting. My experiences with heel-toe are only track related, i dont really ever use it on a day to day basis, not neccessary.

heel-toe is exactly what it sounds like, but depending on your ankle flexibility or even foot size you may not physically be able to heel-toe. I personally use both sides of my right foot to hold the brake down hard and roll onto the throttle a tad to keep rpms up during braking, tho in hard braking zones i am 100% on the brakes for maximum stopping power, in other ares where mild-minimal braking is needed i use the roll method (heel-toe). Honestly you just need to practice this while your d4riving around until you get used to it, not somethign you want to practice and concentrate on too much on track (auto-x or road course) when u need to be concentrating on the track instead of your feet.

good luck to you sir

[SHIFT_240sx]

thanx for the feedback guys, ive got it about 70% of the time now and it just feels and looks cool, dont plan to really try it this weekend at the scca event but we'll see, thanx!

[jsilva]

If your 70% just driving around, you should be pretty good at the track. For me, heel/toeing while just driving around normal roads is never as good because your usually not braking nearly as hard as you would at the track. Its really hard to heel/toe under moderate braking. Give it a try at the track if you happen to have some empty track to play with.

[Brad Roberts]

The whole idea behind heel/toe is *very* simple:

In a downshift situation you DO NOT want the rear tires locking up as you let the clutch out during the motion of braking and downshifting. I *beleive* this point was missed by the people above me. To prevent the rear wheels from locking up (rear wheel braking w/ or w/out ABS) we blip the throttle to "revmatch" the downshift as was stated above. This revmatch does keep the chassis more stable and balanced (by not shocking the rear tires with engine braking)

I personally blip throttle downshift in road racing and AutoX (first gear downshifts in AutoX) Doing it on the street is pretty much a waste of gas..LOL because (as stated above) you are not hard enough on the brake pedal to get the proper feel for the procedure.

Many pro drivers will not blip down through all the gears in endurance racing to conserve fuel when things are getting close. Example: Turn 14 at Thuderhill in NorCal, we wont blip down from 4th-3rd-2nd, we blip once and skip the 3rd gear downshift and shoot straight for second Add this up for Thill 15 turns and it will save several gallons of gas!!

B

[thoroughbred3.0]

dude, look up a video of it on youtube. a picture is worth a thousand words, God knows what a video is worth...