Heel-toe struggles

[HKusp]

HB makes an excellent point about cars being deliberately setup for engine braking. Although the braking force it provides is small compared to the actual brakes, there's margin left in the rear axle in order to make sure the car is balanced front to rear while braking hard in gear with the engine high in the rev range as it should be on a track. And again it's not a lot of margin, if you try to add 3000RPM to the engine with that margin instead of doing a throttle blip, you will cause the rear axle to briefly lock up if you're braking as hard as you should be before corner entry.

That's another reason why I'm so bothered by the Steeda video, the guy is holding the clutch pedal completely to the floor for like half a second every time he downshifts. So he's just braking and coasting that whole time.

Just as a sanity check, I went out on my lunch break and heel-toed the truck to see how hard it is.

Yup, still works.

"If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball!"

Those are some wide-ass feet!! Lol.

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[Lorne34]

I purchased the Xeneering Blip Module for my 350 as I simply wanted to focus on learning the track and having fun. I only track about 2-3 times per year and mostly at Road America where the speeds are very high and I've learned how to brake properly on the straights and execute the downshifts (with the help of the blip module) without upsetting the car.
If you want to improve lap times and really get into the sport then H/T would be a needed skill to learn. I'm not sure how many years I am going to continue to do track days.
As i said, I just want to go fast, have fun and not damage the car. The blip module allows me to do that. It's never failed to execute properly when using a combination of brake/clutch.
On the street I use throttle blip only down shift rev match if needed... never H/T as I am never going that fast when coming up to an intersection that I need to brake and heel/toe. I just leave myself plenty of margin. I should probably learn how to heel/toe in regular spirited driving.. maybe when I am fully retired I will have the time.

 

[Spart]

Those are some wide-ass feet!! Lol.

There's a little bit of camera trickery going on due to the upright seating position in my truck making the angle funny, but yeah they are a wide sized Asics.

The worst thing is I have heard constantly that people "can't heel-toe" because they have wide/big feet. Those conversations usually go like this:

Chum: Man I wish I could heel-toe, but my feet are too wide.
Me: Man that must suck, especially when the pedals are cramped. Must be easy to accidentally hit two pedals at the same time.
Chum: Yeah, that's really annoying when that happens.
Me: Right so now do it on purpose and you're heel-toeing.
Chum: SurprisePikachu.jpg

A lot of these people just have excuses, they don't actually want to learn.

 

[exvette]

2016 occasional track car and I’m struggling to perfect heel-toe downshifting.

My leg is too long for actual heel-toe with the pivot. My knee hits the steering column if I twist my leg counter-clockwise like that.

So I’ve been trying to get the ankle roll method to work, tilting the right side of my foot over to blip the throttle. But the gas pedal is too far away to reach. Nylon spacers didn’t help so removed them

I then installed the Steeda heel-toe gas pedal and that helped but created a new problem - now I can’t go full brake without accidentally pushing the gas pedal as well.

Has anyone successfully worked through this? What did you do?

try moving your right heel a little to the left. a trick I learned at Spring Mountain

 

[RedStallion27]

I hate to keep being mean in this thread, but that's the method that OP specifically said he was having trouble with. He's trying to bridge the pedals instead of rotate his foot to use his heel.

This is a much better video to explain the style of heel-toe OP is trying to implement:



Also, in that Steeda video the driver's shifts are way too deliberate and slow. I wouldn't hold that up as an example of what to do. Holding the clutch pedal to the floor for like 0.25-0.5 seconds every shift isn't ideal. The heel-toe is diabolically slow for track work by someone in a head-to-toe race suit.

These cars shift better than that, you can do a full shift in the time that guy spends with the clutch pedal to the floor.

Here's @honeybadger doing it properly (pedal cam top-right)

Thank you. I wouldn't say I'm having trouble with the process or timing. The reason I started this thread is regarding the foot/pedal placement challenge in this particular car. But I am soaking in a lot of the advice from these posts, which I really appreciate.

@honeybadger at 1:20 in the video you had to move down two gears for a tight turn. You downshifted, let the clutch out, pushed the clutch back in, downshifted again, and then let the clutch out again.

Would you mind explaining to a rookie why you didn't just move the shifter down two gears while holding the clutch down?

 

[honeybadger]

@honeybadger at 1:20 in the video you had to move down two gears for a tight turn. You downshifted, let the clutch out, pushed the clutch back in, downshifted again, and then let the clutch out again.

Would you mind explaining to a rookie why you didn't just move the shifter down two gears while holding the clutch down?

Great question. I've observed two reasons to do this in a heavy car like ours:

1. It keeps the engine braking in the sweet spot, so you have the right amount of reverse torque on the wheels as you enter the corner. If you wait too long to shift, your engine isn't helping slow you down much in 4th gear at 75mph. If you do it too early, good chance of chirping the tires/over rev.

2. This one is only applicable when you get comfortable and consistent, but it also helps reduce your chances of mis-shifting like going into too low of a gear too early or going into 4th when you meant second, etc. The muscle memory you build going up and down the box the same each time is important when you need to focus elsewhere.

That said, I don't go down the gears in something like a miata. Brakes zones are just too small and you end up over-slowing. When I drove a mostly stock NA miata at COTA- I'd go from 5th straight to 2nd - you only brake for like 80ft in that thing

 

[SHOdaddy68]

Thank you. I wouldn't say I'm having trouble with the process or timing. The reason I started this thread is regarding the foot/pedal placement challenge in this particular car. But I am soaking in a lot of advice in this thread, which I really appreciate.

@honeybadger at 1:20 in the video you had to move down two gears for a tight turn. You downshifted, let the clutch out, pushed the clutch back in, downshifted again, and then let the clutch out again.

Would you mind explaining to a rookie why you didn't just move the shifter down two gears while holding the clutch down?

Sorry to jump in on this one....... the quick drop of 2 gears takes advantage of the engine braking during threshold braking in preparation for the tight turn. If he would have simply skipped a gear it would have saved a little time but would have over-revved the motor. That's what you call a "Money shift" in the racing community because it can grenade the motor.

 

[Spart]

@honeybadger at 1:20 in the video you had to move down two gears for a tight turn. You downshifted, let the clutch out, pushed the clutch back in, downshifted again, and then let the clutch out again.

Would you mind explaining to a rookie why you didn't just move the shifter down two gears while holding the clutch down?

You asked HB, but I'll tell you why I do it.

My blips are pretty practiced for the RPM spacing of ONE gear. Trying to do two doesn't engage the muscle memory easily.

There's also the issue of increased synchro resistance (shift effort.) Instead of trying to change the RPM of the input shaft by 2000RPM, you're now asking the synchro to do a 4000RPM speed change. Increased synchro resistance increases the likelihood of a mis-shift, IMO.

Then there's the motion. I'm very practiced at doing 4->3, and 3->2. I basically never do 4->2 even on the street.

You could train yourself to do it, and I'm sure some enterprising souls have.

 

[Lorne34]

I've had nightmares about down shifting one of these at high RPM's
.

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