When I went to the Spenard-David Racing School they were VERY adamant about not being sloppy or lazy. You absolutely should put the ball of your foot on the brake pedal. As I said, if you don't get your rev matching done, you won't die. If you don't get your braking done you might.

 

Okay, what exactly is the point of heel toe shifting? is it to have your tranny help you slow down? I heard that was bad for it? Or, is it for when coming up to a turn, you break and heel toe shift so that your in the gear you want to accelerate through and out of the turn? I don't quite understand why you would do it going to a stoplight either.

 

I can't argue with your logic George and I have to admit it is not as clean to try and use half your foot on the brake and the other half of the ball of your foot on the gas. After seeing the footcam this weekend in the ALMS race I was inspired to try to teach this old dog a new trick.

Don

Yieldsign, if you are referring to me referring to trying it tonight, I wasn't really doing it just trying to get the feel of using my foot in a different way...I wasn't successful by the way. I don't how practical it is to do it on the street under normal braking.

 

It's to be in the correct gear. The only time you should really use compression braking is if your brakes have gone south.

The reason to do it coming up to a stoplight is practice. Practice. Practice.

 

"Okay, what exactly is the point of heel toe shifting? is it to have your tranny help you slow down? I heard that was bad for it? Or, is it for when coming up to a turn, you break and heel toe shift so that your in the gear you want to accelerate through and out of the turn? I don't quite understand why you would do it going to a stoplight either."

Combine it with double clutching and you reduce the wear on the synchros.

 

Even with skinny feet (I have fat feet myself), I couldn't see the need for pedal extensions for heel-toe braking in our cars. I learned how to do it in my RX-7 (I actually had to do it as the syncros were worn to all hell and otherwise I couldn't downshift while decellerating), and the pedals are spaced just about perfectly in that car, and, well, you know what they used as a benchmark when designing that car and for some inspiration, so the pedals are nearly identical on the 951.

The technique is really easy...it just takes a little practice. While braking firmly with the ball of your foot, rotate your heel out over the accelerator and roll your foot to the side with a bit of haste, and your throttle should blip nicely. With some practice, you will be able to blip perfect rev-matched downshifts (I had to in the rx-7 or else it was a big nasty noise). My friends still don't understand why I do it when approaching stoplights or driving spiritedly on secondary roads, and the girl I am dating looks at me like I am on crack whenever I do it, but at least I have the satisfaction of knowing that I can drive kind of like a race car driver...oh, and it will make you faster mid turn as you can downshift faster and get on throttle faster exiting a turn...so there.

 

Double clutching will reduce wear on the synchros, but it's unnecessary in a modern gearbox.

 

Agreed!

More thoughts on heel-toe-downshifting: If done correctly, the decelleration 'attitude' of your car shouldn't change when you perform the downshift. (IE: a blindfolded person sitting in the passenger's seat shouldn't notice that you've downshifted). All the braking should be done with the brake pedal - the heel-toe-downshift just brings the car into a lower gear that you will need since you've slowed the car down.

Many folks use the clutch & tranny to slow the car down. While it is 'effective' it is also an expensive way to slow down! Brake pads and rotors are much cheaper and easier to replace than a broken tranny!

-Z-man.

 

ABSOLUTELY!!

Very well put Z-man.

A little while after I started driving with a manual gearbox I took my father for a ride and he told me that I was doing well, but now I should work on being smoother. I didn't know anything about heel/toe and damned sure my dad didn't (he has no interest in cars except getting from here to there). I started right then working very hard at being as smooth as possible.

 

Not certain it was mentioned the need for "heel/toe". It is used to bring the RPM's up to the lower gearing. If not the engine "over revs" and that is the MAIN TIMING BELT killer!!
It is also more difficult to do on the street as the car is not up to speed most the time unless out on the Interstate. The exits are a great way to practice heel/toe. Also when on the track things happen very fast and one needs to be certain the ball of the foot is squarely and firmly planted on the brake with the heel only free enough to "punch down" on the gas pedal. This is a timing thing and when busy on the track you can and will get out of sync at times. It is that time that can beat you up! Having only half the ball of your foot planted is not a good thing as you never know in the heat of concentrating it can and will slip off the brake. You do not want your foot slipping off as it can only go to the right and then find you just floored the gas instead!
Bottom line it is how much you practice not the pedal style used. My 2 cents.......Dal

 

Yep.

And if you screw up your blip, you just do it again. Or if you have multiple gears to go down and you miss your blip, blip a second time even more and skip a gear. I've had to do this before on the race track. It's funny though, I find I'm smoother on the track than on the street. Probably the intensity level. It's something you never stop practicing.