downshifting

[starlabs]

A quick Google resulted in a few "illustrative" links re: heel 'n toe:

 

http://www.edmunds.com/ownership/howto/articles/45792/article.html

http://www.turnfast.com/tech_driving/driving_heeltoe.shtml

 

One day I'll learn, dagnamit!

[PhilT]

there's really no need for double clutching anymore (car has syncros, and why bother wearing out the pressure plate from all that pumping).

 

All drivers (regardless if you race or not) should know how to:

 

Heel-toe

Rev-match

Clutchless shifting

Double clutching

"O'Neil" shifting

Left foot braking

 

Keefe

 

I have to disagree with you there Keefe, apart from the rev matching which is taught by instructers when learning to drive, the other techniques are only necessary on the track. If, for example, you were to use left foor braking or heel & toe, during a driving exam, you would fail.

[forestir]

For me, it's not whether or not it's "necessary" anywhere, but, like golf, it's just another thing to perfect for the sake of perfecting it. For most of us, I'm sure that's the case.

 

We benefit from those that race and have to get it right.

 

I suck at golf--but a good shot still feels great and the pursuit is part of the fun.

 

Enjoy your car.

[Xenonk]

I have to disagree with you there Keefe, apart from the rev matching which is taught by instructers when learning to drive, the other techniques are only necessary on the track. If, for example, you were to use left foor braking or heel & toe, during a driving exam, you would fail.

 

The state drivers test is actually a joke.

 

At what state driving exam actually shows on paper about left foot braking and heel/toe shows that "using such manuvers will result to a direct fail"?

 

 

Keefe

[Xenonk]

For me, it's not whether or not it's "necessary" anywhere, but, like golf, it's just another thing to perfect for the sake of perfecting it. For most of us, I'm sure that's the case.

 

We benefit from those that race and have to get it right.

 

I suck at golf--but a good shot still feels great and the pursuit is part of the fun.

 

Enjoy your car.

 

 

Knowledge of car control is actually more life/death threatening than golf. So really I take this a lot more seriously than just "perfecting for the sake of perfecting".. it's really for the sake of survival.

 

Sure, you can drive without these techniques. Just drive really slow and never have to take such evasive techniques and manuvers... it's like a commercial pilot vs a fighter pilot. But shouldnt all pilots know how to recover a plane when the environment/mechancial goes bad? Half of car owners dont even check their cars to work properly.. at least commercial planes hold liable of their plane and pilot's actions and functionality, shouldn't you?

 

 

Keefe

[LotusSeven]

While we are on this, I am currently on my first MT car, so I have a few questions:....

 

When I run a search on google, all I am finding is clutchless shifting on motorcycles, so if someone could help me out I'd be very thankful.

 

 

Modern motorcycle transmissions are quite different than car transmissions designed for basic street use. Virtually all motorcycle transmissions use "dog clutches" instead of syncros and are sequential transmissions. The basic design lends itself to clutchless shifting. Many automotive racing transmissions don't use syncros (for strength and ease of very fast shifting) but do require some additional skill on the driver's part. Interestingly, purely mechanical sequential transmissions (not "paddle-shifted' automatics) are finding their way into some very high performance cars.

 

I'm looking at replacing a British, Mitchell Cotts Sierra 5-speed Type-9 with a Quaife, dog clutch, sequential 6-speed in my racecar. It would definitely improve downshifting speed, upshifting speed and 6 ratios to play with is always better than "only" 5. The downside is the $9595 pricetag!

[Sinister Subaru]

Downshifting isn't a problem as long as you rev-match.

[PhilT]

The state drivers test is actually a joke.

 

At what state driving exam actually shows on paper about left foot braking and heel/toe shows that "using such manuvers will result to a direct fail"?

 

Keefe

 

I agree that driving tests in NA are a joke, I learnt to drive in UK, where if you learn to drive in an auto then you can't switch to a stick unless you do another test. But almost everyone drives a stick anyway.

 

Everyone has to be able to display good clutch control, hill starts, reversing up a hill, around a corner etc. Many people, especially those who love driving do the advanced test : http://www.iam.org.uk/ which leads to a reduction in insurance premiums as well as just making them a better overall driver.

 

I don't doubt that the techniques you mention can make someone a better driver, but knowing how to perform them will not necessarily make them a safer driver on the road, and I can imagine scenarios where they could actually make the driver less safe if he/she thinks they can do them but hasn't quite perfected it yet, i.e left foot braking.

 

$0.02

[Xenonk]

I don't doubt that the techniques you mention can make someone a better driver, but knowing how to perform them will not necessarily make them a safer driver on the road, and I can imagine scenarios where they could actually make the driver less safe if he/she thinks they can do them but hasn't quite perfected it yet, i.e left foot braking.

 

$0.02

 

Ok, that makes more sense to me when you learned to drive from the UK.

 

I can understand the skills applied, but remember, as you practice more of it, you "should" get better at it.. and knowing how and when to use these techniques is part of the driver's job to make the operation of the vechicle safer, but the car can last a lot longer than the typical "I just drive the damn thing" attitude.

 

That's why there's the invention of automatics, some people are just not that skilled to deal with it and thus use the term 'convience' to step away from this to avoid learning something that just doesnt seem important to them. When you walk away from daily practice, it can be very harmful to 'keep your skills sharp'.

 

and that's my $8.12 worth of opinions.

 

 

Keefe

[tantal]

I find it really hard to heel-toe this car. Pedals just aren't right. If I'm at a light I can do it, but I can't get my foot placed right coming around a corner or something.

 

what is O'neil shifting

 

+1 no heely-toey. Need miata for that:D

[trabbic]

I heel/toe and rev match all the time on the street. I was teaching my girlfriend how to drive stick and after a pretty "rough" lesson. I was making a left hand turn (that she informed me about at the last second!) and I had to brake hard, and was not in the right gear so I rev matched with my "heel" (actually the right lower side of my foot) and was in the perfect gear and able to accelerate without any undue movement of the car.

 

My girlfriend happened to be looking at my feet and said "what the heck was that? Do I have to learn how to do that?" She did say it was smooth though!

 

As far a cluthless shifting, that scares the hell out of my friend and he would never do that, but I did it all the time (once or twice a week for about 96,000 miles) with my 93 Saturn SC2 and never had an issue with the synchros. It has been my experence that you are more likely to damage syncros by shifting too hard and fast.

 

And correct me if I am wrong here, but i did a lot of research about the Subaru "glass" transmissions before I bought my car and every horror story I heard was with older models (<2003). I could find no mention of broken trannys in Legacy's or even in recent WRX's (besides roasted clutches).

[-TT-]

[robust]

the problem with heel toeing is having too big of feet rather than too small. your right heel hits the center console wall. moving it too far left can interfere with your left foot/clutch.

[Xenonk]

the problem with heel toeing is having too big of feet rather than too small. your right heel hits the center console wall. moving it too far left can interfere with your left foot/clutch.

 

 

It's your job to position your feet that you feel most comfortable with.. some people with big feet can position the toes dead center to brake pedal and use the side of the foot and "roll" the foot onto the throttle.

 

Small feet will need to "stretch" it a bit. People with smaller feet are really practicing the real meaning of Heel-Toe. For smaller feet, the toe or the ball of your foot needs to be on the right of center of the brake pedal. The ball or toe that is on the brake, this becomes your pivot point. You will swing your heel over the throttle and blip the throttle accordingly as needed.

 

At any case, I cant see anyone with a triple-E wide foot like me and hit the clutch and brake at the same time. If anything, people with wide feet like me will end up being careless and hit the gas and brake at the same time using one foot. You dont aim for the left side of the brake pedal, you aim for the center or right side of the brake.

 

Just read post #9 for the link to my video of heel toe.. the file is called footwork. You will see how I place my feet in a WRX.

 

 

Keefe

[Xenonk]

My girlfriend happened to be looking at my feet and said "what the heck was that? Do I have to learn how to do that?" She did say it was smooth though!

 

And correct me if I am wrong here, but i did a lot of research about the Subaru "glass" transmissions before I bought my car and every horror story I heard was with older models (<2003). I could find no mention of broken trannys in Legacy's or even in recent WRX's (besides roasted clutches).

 

I am teaching my GF rev matching.. heel toe can come later.. and once I get her to under stand this portion, i will teach her the race line. There is no sense in teaching someone heel toe if they dont understand what rev matching feels like or what the purpose is.

 

As for the tranny, people just abuse the heck out of it.. I had a 2002 WRX and right now I am co-driving a 1999 RS with 90k on the stock clutch as it probably has another 30k on the clutch left.. both cars had no clutch problems or tranny problems at all. The WRX had 65k+ miles and that has about 5k+ miles of racing or track abuse, it had another 15k miles on it before I decided to change it (but I never got to that point).

 

As most people go from 2WD to AWD, there is 2x the amount of opposing forces that the tranny will feel/deal with. So people who just chirp and drop clutches on a 2WD, well, it's going to get a REAL beating on an AWD using the same driving style/habit.

 

 

Keefe

[SWortham]

As most people go from 2WD to AWD, there is 2x the amount of opposing forces that the tranny will feel/deal with. So people who just chirp and drop clutches on a 2WD, well, it's going to get a REAL beating on an AWD using the same driving style/habit.

That's what I've heard. And I've actually become very smooth driving my FWD car over time. I used to slam it into gears when upshifting, drop the clutch, etc... habits I picked up from driving a Mustang. But something tells me that my driving will be better suited to the LGT now.

[trabbic]

Xenok: My current girlfriend has "get to the hospital" skills. I am working on that though.

 

I tried to get her to by a manual 2.5RS, but she did end up getting the Automagic. (Which is VERY SLOW to respond, in that car.)

 

I also came from two front wheel drive cars, and had a habit of hitting second gear Very hard. I am now learning to feather second and third a little to smooth things out and speed them up a little. Even when I drive my friends 93 Mustang Cobra, I hit second, third, and fourth HARD.

 

I do, I admit, drop first pretty hard in this car when I am racing it (on the strip, of course ) 5,000 rpm and AWD make for a HARD launch. *puts fame retardant suit on* I guess I will learn the hard way about the durability of this transmission, I know I am not the only one!

[forestir]

I'm finding that right-hand turns in the city demands some smoother driving from to avoid any bobbing/lurching feeling. This is where I think I'd benefit most from heel-toe downshift to 2nd and being in-gear through the turn, vs trying to engage while exiting the turn.

 

Seems our underdamped suspensions need pretty smooth inputs. All in all, worthy skills to develop.

[robust]

as it is now, my feet are big enough so that if i try to put the ball of my foot on the brake, be it left, center or right, with my foot tilted horizontal my right heel hits the wall of the footwell.

 

in my last car, 98 RS, the pedals were close to being level vertically so i could just tilt my foot ever so slightly with the ball of my foot on the brake so as to roll onto the accel.

 

but i can't do that in this car since the accel is so much lower than the brake (either my heel hits the floor or the ball of my foot can't control the brake since my foot is tilted so far (very hard to explain online). i need to get a pedal set and get the new gas pedal drilled into the old gas pedal and the new brake pedal replacing the current one, that should level it out some.

 

and yes, my foot is large enough so that if i have it fully or almost fully horizontal, if my heel barely touches the footwell wall to the right of the gas pedal, the toe of my shoe obstructs the clutch pedal.

[Xenonk]

I'm finding that right-hand turns in the city demands some smoother driving from to avoid any bobbing/lurching feeling. This is where I think I'd benefit most from heel-toe downshift to 2nd and being in-gear through the turn, vs trying to engage while exiting the turn.

 

Seems our underdamped suspensions need pretty smooth inputs. All in all, worthy skills to develop.

 

 

typcially in the US or any country that has left-hand drive cars, right turn radius turns are tighter than left.. (unless you are doing a left u-turn which is the same radius).

 

and you are correct, the suspension is there to not only soak up road conditions, but to help minimize the driver-input errors as well. If we were all good drivers, we would all have near racing suspension setup as a stock suspension setup from the factory.

 

From my experience and the way I was taught:

 

Never downshift during a turn!! Do all your braking and downshifting in a straight line prior to committing into the turn. You can always power out of a turn. Trail-braking is another technique that most people don't know and can be very dangerous to practice if the fundamentals are not established.

 

 

Keefe

[Xenonk]

as it is now, my feet are big enough so that if i try to put the ball of my foot on the brake, be it left, center or right, with my foot tilted horizontal my right heel hits the wall of the footwell.

 

in my last car, 98 RS, the pedals were close to being level vertically so i could just tilt my foot ever so slightly with the ball of my foot on the brake so as to roll onto the accel.

 

but i can't do that in this car since the accel is so much lower than the brake (either my heel hits the floor or the ball of my foot can't control the brake since my foot is tilted so far (very hard to explain online). i need to get a pedal set and get the new gas pedal drilled into the old gas pedal and the new brake pedal replacing the current one, that should level it out some.

 

and yes, my foot is large enough so that if i have it fully or almost fully horizontal, if my heel barely touches the footwell wall to the right of the gas pedal, the toe of my shoe obstructs the clutch pedal.

 

 

You shouldnt need to tilt your foot that much. Also, use the side of your feet and put some more brake pressure to reach level with the throttle pedal. That will solve it.

 

And it's ok if your heel hits the floor. By doing so, you have created a fulcrum edge from the toe to the heel of your foot.. you just have to get use to flexing your ankle left and right of the fulcrum edge I am talking about. it's like standing on a very thin balance beam, you'll end up falling left or right of the beam that only your toe and heel are touching, just concentrate falling to the right.

 

Keefe