E. J. - 993 Alumni

Sounds like the cost for a little piece of plywood KC?

E. J.

Robin 993DX

EJ,

The way I heel and toe is to roll the other half of my foot on the gas pedal while I am stepping on the brake. For some reason I have a hard time doing it with my heel.

Tracquest was a blast, so was Todd Soreta. Todd is an absolute wild dude. (even at dinner)

Unfortunately I didn't participate as a driver during this event, but I am pretty sure when Todd come around again I will.

Now that my 993 is almost worthless I am not all that concerned about running it into a wall at Road Atlanta anymore. (A joke)

P.S. What's wrong with those boots? That's my 4th pair of that same model boots.

E. J. - 993 Alumni

Love the boots dude, only giving you a hard time. Tood is a wild man, I only spent one weekend with him at VIR last year and he showed that. I was hoping you were oging to say that you finally took your car on the track. Did you at least get to ride with Hank in the race car? How was that if you did?

E. J.

Greg Fishman

EJ,
That is how I heel/toe, with that pedal you don't have to roll your foot. Just blip the throttle with your heel.
I agree there are cheaper options but I got my pedal second hand and I would buy it again if I needed to, even at full price.
Greg

Robin,
You have got to get your car on the track. I can't believe that Hank hasn't gotten you out yet in your car. You must have some will power because if i hung around the track as much as you have there would be no way I could keep from getting out there. Life is too short, get out there.
Greg

H20NOO

I learned the heel and toe technique at the Road Atlanta race school many years ago. Since my feet are size 13E it's not too difficult! To make matters more interesting, try to heel and toe AND double-clutch.

While the heel & toe technique brings engine revs up it does nothing to bring the transmission internals up to speed. When the clutch is depressed, the engine and tranny are disengaged so blipping the throttle only does half the job. When the clutch is engaged, the tranny sychronizers do their best to match engine speed with gear speed. You can do it for them or at least help them...

Here's the process if you were downshifting from 3rd to 2nd. )Only double-clutch when downshifting as it's unecessary when upshifting)

Depress clutch
Put shifter from 3rd into Neutral
Let the clutch out
Blip the throttle with clutch engaged. This will bring BOTH the engine and transmission input shaft up to the SAME speed.
Depress the clutch
Select 2nd gear
Let the clutch out.

(now try to do it smoothly and quickly..

For the truly skilled, this can be done in nearly the same time as it takes to simply downshift. Ironically, we learned to do this in the Road Atlanta 300ZX track cars BECAUSE the synchronizers were wasted and normal downshifting was nearly impossible.

One other point... It is difficult to heel/toe my car on the street because the brake pedal does not align well (too high) with the throttle. However, on the track, where my braking pressure is much higher and the pedal travels a bit further, the alignment is nearly perfect for heel/toe driving.

That's your assignment for the weekend. Let me know how it goes.

E. J. - 993 Alumni

I know Greg, I was trying to leave you out of this discussion out of kindness. But since you are here now, do you walk with a crutch too?

(paybacks are hell - been waiting a long time for that )

E. J.

Flying Finn

Nice pedal Robin, I have to get one of those, since I 'heel and toe' almost all the time. And I do it with the heel, not like you do it, your way looks hard to me...

Greg Fishman

Ej,
I can take it as well as dish it out. You should know that I have lots of crutches in my car, gears, JRZ suspension, etc. Don't need any to walk though.
Greg

tom_993

I have the narrow version of the “Wings Engineering” pedal. It makes heel/toe much easier. It’s got the three adjustment screws so that you can get it just right. Some people actually use their heels, but I think most roll their foot over. Neither is “correct,” use what works for you. Note that with a wider throttle, you run a slight risk of hitting it during a panic stop.

Matt mentioned the sequence for a double clutch heel/toe downshift. In our cars, with good syncros, the double clutch is not necessary. Here’s the sequence for a normal downshift.

1) Full throttle on the preceding straight
2) Apply brake
3) Depress clutch
4) Shift into new, lower gear
5) While still on the brake, blip the throttle to match RPM’s
6) Release clutch
7) Release brake
8) Apply throttle for next straight

I believe some people deliberately “over blip” and release the clutch as the RPM’s drop. Note that you would start the turn right about step 8. This takes practice, but you can practice on the street. I do it for no other reason than it’s cool! It makes great sound when you’re approaching a turn!

Tom

Kevin Reilly

Here is a BMW web page devoted to shifting techniques. Pretty good reading, easy to follow and understand.

Shifting Techniques

Edward

Also worth mentioning is that the term "heel/toe" can tend to mislead since many don't really use the heel but both the left and right edges of the foot around the ball of your right foot.

I learned how to do this many moons ago in my Alfa Spider (and you think it's hard on a 911!) where the pedals were designed by some double-jointed italian with short legs and long arms --not a slam; all Alfa owners know this. Forget about trying to actually "heel" the gas pedal. I asked an instructor about how I do it and he said that many "heel/toe" as I do, depending on their pedal arrangement and shoe size.

On a side note, my buddy at the time had a '78 SC and I didn't find that very easy to "heel/toe." When I got my 993, I was thrilled (no, really, "thrilled" --sad,isn't it) to find that I could adjust pedal height to help -voila!

Though the race pedals really look cool, my limited budget goes only to truly necessary items...let's see, how much is that weekend at Buttonwillow again....


Edward

H20NOO

I agree with Edward. My feet are so big it's really not heel/toe so much as big toe/little toe! That's the way I've always done it.

Question... I wasn't aware the pedals were adjustable. Which pedal(s) and how difficult?

Thanks,

MC

Will

Kevin,

That BMW page is awesome. It has an explanation of what's going on in the transmission, as well as excercises to do in order further understand and perfect these shifts. Thanks!

Will

NickA

One point that may be helpful to those trying to learn/practice heel and toe: it can be significantly more difficult to learn how to heel and toe on the street (vs. the track) because you're not always braking with such high pedal pressure and/or the same pedal pressure. This is particularly true when you compare street driving to circulating a racetrack with the same corners, the same braking zones and (hopefully) similar entry speeds each lap. The height-adjustable Wings pedal proved helpful to me on the street, allowing me to adjust the height at which my the edge of my right foot would touch the accelerator pedal when braking...Food for thought...I know that this threw me off initially when trying to learn to heel and toe.

No financial or other relationship with Wings/just trying to help/this offer not valid in Wisconsin or Hawaii/etc./etc.

- Nick
ncamos@bellatlantic.net

Flying Finn

Do you guys 'heel and toe' in every gear if you are downshifting, let's say, from 4th to 1st or do you 'H & T' only when you hit the 1st gear? I tend to shift in every gear but is that unnecessary (& stupid)?