Question about Heel-Toe.

All over the world, Nissan products are involved in road racing, track days, time attack and autocross.
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hannibal
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Joined: Wed Sep 11, 2002 2:38 am
Car: Red Line to Glenmont
Location: Washington DC

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HashiriyaS14 wrote:I do a normal heel-toe, with the toe on the brake and the heel blipping the throttle.

I initially found the toughest part to be maintaining constant pressure on the brakes while blipping, something that won't really strike you as important until you try a downshift while coming up fast on a corner.

The whole point of a heel-toe downshift is to accomplish the downshift as smoothly as possible while braking, and so maintaining a very constant amount of pressure on the brake is critical.

The way I practiced was to begin coasting up to lights in neutral, toe on the brake, keeping pressure as constant as possible, while blipping the throttle with my heel in neutral. When I could do it without affecting my braking force at all, I started using the technique whilst actually downshifting.

Of course, this is really one of the last steps, you have to be able to competently perform a regular rev-matched downshift in your car first (i.e. not while braking) in order to be able to later integrate the braking component.
I learned to heel-toe the same way.

However, my foot is physically too big to keep even pressure on the brake with my toes and be able to blip the gas with my heel. My heel ends up hitting the floor/tranny tunnel, and my foot forms a bridge over the gas pedal. I do it 'goofy' stlye with the ball of my foot on the brake and the toes/side of my foot on the gas. Ive used this backwards method in every car Ive owned except my Vanagon. It had enough room to heel-toe properly.




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