RKD in OKC

Okay, here goes...

Loved driving the 928GTS in anger (autocross). Being a 5 speed a lot of the fun was heel and toe downshifts. Even do it on the street to make smoother shifting.

Well, 5 years ago, right after OCIC in Wichita, I stepped on a roofing nail in my back yard and got some kind of weird MRSA or penicillin resistant infection. The infectious diseases doctor told me on day 14 that they found something that was slowing it down and it was only a couple of days from them not being able to stop it. After another couple of weeks in the hospital and 4 surgeries they stopped the infection and started recovery. Stepped on the nail with my right foot and in the ball of the 4th toe. Lost the 4th toe and the knucle of my little toe. The attached the ligaments from both those toes to my middle toe. They used some kind of new stuff and grew back all the flesh on my foot that had been cut away. It took a year. As if that wasn't tramatic enough the MRSA in my blood messed up my blood veins and some organs. During my stay in the hospital I became a full diabetic requiring insulin. Had not had any problems before Also over the next year I started getting some diabetic problems that the doctors tell me are similar to diabetes, but were in fact complications from the MRSA infection. They involved my eyes, legs, and feet. The blood vessels were damaged, the walls would become week and start leaking. This is what causes diabetics to get sores on their legs and lose them and lose their vision. Have been going thru therapy and eye surgeries over the last 4 years to keep from losing anything but my vision did get to 20/100 with glasses at one point.

Since I did not have the health to drive my 928 I put it in the shop to get the oil burning fixed. It had gotten to where it was burning a quart per gas tank. They pulled the pistons and drilled the oil relief holes that were not drilled in the oil scrapper ring grooves. I did not push to get it done because of the health complications. Just before Christmas I got the 928GTS back wth the full bottom end refresh and a set of DEVEK headers an custom x-pipe! Woohoo!

Driving the GTS around town has been great even though going thru under 4K rpm break-in. This biggest thing I have noticed is I can no longer heel and toe. Have beaned myself on the forehead with the windshield a couple of times when I absent mindedly tried to heel and toe and ended up just stomping the brakes. My foot just won't rock or rotate enough the blip the accelerator. Learned using the side of my foot, but have also tried rotating my foot and using the heel on the accelerator. No dice, still just end up stomping the brakes.

Had a consultation this week with my wound care surgeon, sports doctor, and physical therapist. Was hoping maybe with some physical therapy I could once again heel and toe. Their diagnosis was just physical therapy wouldn't do much. It would require two maybe three surgeries and a LOT of physical therapy to be able to heel and toe again. And that it would likely take a least 3 years and would not be covered by my health insurance. So no more heel and toe for me.

Since heel and toe is half the fun of driving a 5 speed, how many 5 speed owners don't heel and toe?

bureau13

Wow, sorry to hear about all that!

I've never driven the car on any sort of track (I'm getting some pressure to go autocrossing with it, which I will probably do at some point) but I've tried to heel and toe...I just can't do it. Not sure why. I thought the proper way was to use my toe/ball of foot on the clutch, and rotate my heel over to hit the gas, but it...doesn't. I have normal-to-small feet, like a size 9, fwiw.

linderpat

count me in as someone who cannot figure out how to properly heel and toe. Would love to see a good tutorial (yes I've watched clips before). I just don't have the muscle memory developed for it I guess.

RKD in OKC

Notice how Sana's heel stays on the floor in front on the accelerator when applying the brake. That way the throttle blip is done by rocking the foot blipping the gas with the side of the foot.
The lets you manage the brake pedal with your calf muscle. If you braked with your foot vertical and then try to rotate your ankle over the blip the throttle you are using you thigh muscle to try to regulate braking. The thigh is a lot clumsier than the calf.


They say it is best to try bliping the throttle and just rev matching while slowing without braking. Than star practicing doing it while braking.

danglerb

I never could, blamed my size 13 feet, now getting older I have much less sensitivity in my feet so I figure heel and toe isn't going to ever happen. Kind of ends my personal fun on the track plans, but diverting those funds should pay for a few cruises, ah getting old is fun. I'm serious about the fun, I may not do what I wanted or planned, but I refuse not to have fun.

dr bob

Sorry to hear about the medical ordeal. Scary stuff.

Heel-and-toe usually involves brakes under the right foot ball and throttle under the heel. Toes aren't usually strong enough on their own to get much braking. Perhaps moving the throttle pedal a little left, closer to the brake, will help some. Or do some creative surgery on a pedal from an automatic car to gain some right-side pad to push on. This makes it an easily-reversible mod. I'd be adjusting the relative height of the throttle too, so it's just below the normal brake engagement point pedal height. Ideally for heel-and-toe it would be the same, but learnings from Audi and Volvo pedal placement has driven the decisions to lower the throttle. It takes a little more ankle rotation with the throttle lower but it's just a matter of getting used to the relative positions.

I love the sweet song of the V8 and the music that's part of a perfectly-executed heel-and-toe downshift. More than a few times lately, driving my Rogerbox S4, I've had that momentary longing for a clutch and a manual shift lever. It's not acute enough to cause me to actually go looking for one though. Instead I find myself looking harder at later models with PDK. The PDK "sequential" gearbox is way better at rev-matching than I am, executing perfect shifts every time, and doing it a lot faster than I can without abusing a 928 manual gearbox. Downside is the missing V8 music, traded instead for 4- or 6-cylinder sounds often muffled again by turbochargers. I keep my 928 quiet and drive it relatively gently, so it's really music I wouldn't miss much. Can I recommend that you schedule a test drive in a Cayman with PDK?

RKD in OKC

When I first learned heel and toe the lower right corner of the brake pedal wore a hole in the leather soled shoes in the middle of the ball of my right foot from using the brake pedal with only half my foot on the edge of it and rocking my foot to blip the throttle.

And you are not really using your heel or toe, but it sounds wrong says ball and side.

joseph mitro

I still heel/toe occasionally; having learned it while racing at Hallett 8 years ago. it's a different action on the street, though, since I'm not generally stabbing the brake pedal so vigorously.

vanster

When I first started racing about 4,022 years ago, we drove open wheeled cars without synchro's. We had to match revs just to get the car in gear without braking the box or the motor. The peddles were adjustable to the throttle and to our physical size and flexibility. My Lotus Cortina required heel&toe as well as the Alfa. This was all about keep the cars "on the cam". IMO the gear boxes in our cars don't seem to like being shifted quickly. I have a Han's shifter in my 86.5 which helps a great deal and in my opinion getting the exit correct is more important the getting the gear change quicker. We have so much torque and great brakes....just about being as smooth as possible. Brake pads are cheaper than motors.

Sidenote: I had GB change the bias as stock 928's have tendency to stand on their nose and lift the rear. It really really helps

Great Senna vid

Adk46

Few of my cars over the years have had pedals arranged well for "heel and toeing" (a misnomer, of course). Not the '91 Miata. Not even the '82 911 - and you really need to do it for a 915 gearbox, even when new. I'm not that fussy about which parts of my foot go where, as long as I can move the pedals. The Miata pedals were way too far apart - I bolted in a wooden piece on the gas pedal to shorten the distance. The 911 pedals are way too far apart in the fore and aft direction. I pondered the available adjustments, and decided to do something similarly kludgy pending better knowledge, or a fancy new adjustable pedal.

I've never been on a track - I just prefer gracefully rounding a corner, braking and downshifting at the same time, without fighting the synchros. I learned how to do it for a '64 Studebaker Lark.

What I'm saying is if you've never figured out how to do it, it's likely that you've never had pedals that allowed it.

vern1

Well if you are trying to hit the gas with the same foot that is on the clutch then that's a really tough one

For smaller feet especially, I find it easier to use the ball of my foot on the brake and just rotate my whole heel over to stab at the throttle. Your foot then is at a roughly a 45 deg angle to the floor. Find this much easier then the side foot rotation and much more stable

The other thing is that the pedals are not really set up for normal and even moderate street driving. If you are preparing to dive in to a corner at the track, then the brake pedal is down hard and even/level with the gas pedal and therefore its very easy to tap the gas. On the street your not usually in this situation (or at least shouldn't be) and therefore the pedals are at much different levels. If you want it more set up for the street then you could set the gas pedal lower. But I find the stock set up excellent for the track and workable for aggressive street driving

Snark Shark

I find the 928 pedals aren't positioned very well for heel and toe. You might try something like this to get the accelerator a little closer to the brake.

linderpat

I always blip the throttle on downshift to rev match. I just don't heel and toe with the brake.

bureau13

vern1 wrote:

Well if you are trying to hit the gas with the same foot that is on the clutch then that's a really tough one

DOH!

I do that too, mostly because it sounds cool lol...

worf928

RKD: Sucks about the foot and resulting health issues. My condolences and wishes for improvement.

I find that heel-toe work is one of the ways to enjoy a manual transmission. I'm on the fence about the new-fangled computer-controlled rev-matching systems in newer MT cars.

Have you considered modifying the pedals rather than yourself?