Heel & Toe Downshifting

[No.1]

I don't want to know what it is, but i was wondering if you use it.

I admit that i haven't mastered the technique yet, but i am getting better at it.

Anyhow post your heel-and-toe experiences and fill out the poll so we can see who uses this useful (but not strictly neccessary) technique.

[Shinigami]

I'm not very good at it. I've tried it, but it's hard to practice when you've got an automatic. This is one of the reasons why I wanna buy a second car, a manual with no ESP so that I can play around with flinging the car and mastering heel and toe.

Any car where the brake and acceleration pedal are at the right height and depth, even when you've pressed/depressed one of them entirely, should make for a good one, but I haven't built up a good list of such cars yet...

Here's to the future *lifts glass*

[black_magician]

Every once and a while. can't right now since I only have my bike. it's a lot easier

[gucom]

the only time when i sort of "heel and toe" is when im pulling away on an incline, to apply some throttle while still keeping the brake on, and with my left foot letting the clutch come up :P

[saadie]

i do it every once a while .. when im in driving fast pulling G's in the crner mood :P .... which happens, like evryday :lol:

[tuffguy]

Why do they call it "heel & toe"? I never use my heel.

[saadie]

its called heel and toe ... beacuse thats the right way to do it .... :lol:

i used to do it with just the toe .... and yeh ... my foot slipped off the brake ..... scaryy :|

[fsandys]

With modern cars you're normally able to do it with 'side-footing' instead as the pedals are fairly close.

[nthfinity]

yeh, auto transmissions dont lend to proper heal and toe.... but you can blip the trottle when moving the shifter, and left foot braking.... even with a Jeep, i think it does lend to help keep the car stable when thrashing about through corners

[tuffguy]

With modern cars you're normally able to do it with 'side-footing' instead as the pedals are fairly close.
Yup, that's the way that I do it.

[ARMAN]

In tormal traffic its completely useless imho, just increase fuel consumption and if you dont drive just a little bit decent car it looks .. well childish 8) IMHO I was doing it just for the sound when the exhaust was rotten and it did gave some nice sounds but later realized how stupid it must have looked :oops:
On the track its a vital thing probably :) Dani probably can cofirm it :P

[TNT]

well with my pedals not being close enough i can't saw i have ever really officially done hoe toe shifting. but what is the real point to just save the clutch a bit longer?

[tuffguy]

I use it when I take corners at intersections. The purpose being to lessen the wear on the clutch when downshifting into a lower gear.

[saadie]

^^ lol .... why dont you only use the brake then ? ... no clutch wear what so ever :P

heel and toe is the best way for powered breaking .. at the end when its time to floor it .. your revs are high .... sooo yeh ... thast what it is ... and if you have a turbo ... its keeps up the boost

[tuffguy]

If I slow down too much and the gear's too high, it feels like the engine's bogging down. At that point I need to downshift, and a quick blip of the throttle while breaking will match the revs and make everything nice and smooth when I downshift.

Nothing too aggressive. I'm well aware of the price difference between brakes and clutches, but a regular downshift feels more stressful on the clutch than heel & toeing.

[saadie]

are your brakes totally worn out or what ? :? lol

or do you ahve an automatic transmission ? :lol: :?

[tuffguy]

You don't get it. If you're in 5th gear and you slow down for a 5/10mph turn, you HAVE to downshift to accelerate coming out of the turn. Revs in 5th gear at 5mph will be too low, so if you're downshifting into 1st/2nd you have to blip the throttle a little.

[saadie]

lol ok .. i get it

but erally .. bliping the throttle just covers the ugly sound which you think dosnt come when you dont blip hehe

i might be wrong .. :mrgreen:

[No.1]

You don't get it. If you're in 5th gear and you slow down for a 5/10mph turn, you HAVE to downshift to accelerate coming out of the turn. Revs in 5th gear at 5mph will be too low, so if you're downshifting into 1st/2nd you have to blip the throttle a little.

i.e. bringing the engine speed up to road speed in a given gear. :wink:

[dutchmasterflex]

when I downshift I always revmatch... depending on if I'm diving into a corner I'll downshift while braking (heal and toe)

..unless I need to stop on a dime I'll use my foot brakes, engine brake and hand brake ;)

Heal and toeing in an Automatic? Are you serious? ;P

[ZfrkS62]

I first started figuering out heel toe downshifting with my Z when the clutch fork split. I had to push it out of gear, rev up to the gear reduction induced RPM, then coerse the transmission into the gear. The trick was figuring out how to hold it at the right RPM, brake, shift and let off at all the right times.

I still heel toe every standard i drive. sometimes i still have to double blip the throttle to get the shift right. The Yoda doesn't have a tach so i'm kind shifting blind :?

[Mattk]

I drive an auto - there's really no point.

[PaulGT2164]

i do all the time, its nice cause my cars all respond well to it, and old habits die hard i guess lol :)

my everyday car my foot is wide enough it doesnt take much effort :)

[dutchmasterflex]

Well lets see your 600hp miata in action already ;)

[lorbmw69]

i use it all the time...it makes the ride a lot smoother. also i never use my heal...always side footing.

[PaulGT2164]

well after it dyno'ing at 634RWHP
i have sold the miata (i didnt feel like putting more money into it (stronger limited slip, stronger clutch, rx-7 tranny)

a customer of the dyno shop seen the numbers, and offered me a fair price for the car, and considering I just officially started a business , i took the offer :)

i will miss it, but i have a couple other projects going on (32 ford roadster...i will post pics, but its just the steel repro body currently, and i am unsure of how to use a custom shot, cause its just the body so far...) that and I have the rx-7 i just purchased a couple months ago, as well as several other customer cars i will post pics of.

</back on topic lol!>

[tuffguy]

lol ok .. i get it

but erally .. bliping the throttle just covers the ugly sound which you think dosnt come when you dont blip hehe

i might be wrong .. :mrgreen:
completely wrong

[gangajas]

I have tried it, but I have never mastered the technique. When I watch Best Mototring videos I feel frustrated. :)

[dingo]

I do it all the time, I find it very difficult to drive smoothly without doing it. I just started practising once I got the Rex, and thankfully the pedals are perfectly placed for it and now I've mastered it (IMO).

An added benefit is the nice sound when downshifting. ;)

[nthfinity]

once I got the Rex, and thankfully the pedals are perfectly placed


yeah the pedals are placed superbly in that car!

[dannyroz]

I do it everyday...to impress the ladies :twisted:

[RC45]

I do it everyday...to impress the ladies :twisted:

Uhm - not that kind of "heel n toe".... :twisted:

[nthfinity]

I do it everyday...to impress the ladies :twisted:

Uhm - not that kind of "heel n toe".... :twisted:

well, perhaps the ladies dannyroz is speaking of have enormous viscera's for a human penis, where he has to use his heal n toe to impress them :P

[Wutputt]

I almost always revmatch when downshifting. But due to the position of my brake and throttle pedal on my daily driver, I can't heel and toe.

[bultaco_metralla]

Yes every time!! You can check the sound in the last video I made, but i need to practice more cause i cant "hurry" ( i try to mean APURAR LA FRENADA ) the brake time !!! Im very near to make it unconscious and hrry the brake time :D :D :D FREAKMODE LOL!!

BTW wich is the downshift do you like more?? me from 3rd to 2nd, i love the roar of my atmospheric engine!!

And one more Question... How did you learned it?? First i learned to do it without braking and when controlled it went to brake also!! Had to say i learned this with my old Fiat Uno ( my ex-car ) so all the pains didnt get to my Hyundai Getz!! LOL

[saadie]

^^ you mean the roar from yor gearbox :lol: ....

wel ...... since 3-2 is the most intence point ...... usually .. soo yeah its my fav :P :)

[dannyroz]

I do it everyday...to impress the ladies :twisted:

Uhm - not that kind of "heel n toe".... :twisted:

well, perhaps the ladies dannyroz is speaking of have enormous viscera's for a human penis, where he has to use his heal n toe to impress them :P

I just seem to attract chicks with foot fetishes :wink:

But the real reason is that I show chicks the difference that heel and toe shifting makes when driving normally (not fast) and then when I get to the winding roads I do it once more at a quick pace to show them how the difference in downshifting "saved their lives"...then we proceed to my bed and finish the job :twisted:

[Svensson]

I rev-match nearly all the time. The only exception really is when I'm coming to a complete stop (because there is no need to accelerate again in a lower gear). Every once in a while I also double-clutch, but that's about 10% of the time. The only time I always double-clutch is when I'm downshifting into first gear, for example when I'm approaching a really steep speed bump. The reason for this is that from my experience, you're making the synchromeshes of the 1st gear work very hard when you aren't double clutching. That's why 1st gear is
often very hard to select in older cars...

In my opinion heel&toe is something that can add a lot to the joy of driving. To me, a perfectly executed rev-matched downshift can give a lot of driving pleasure and it adds to the feeling of being connected to your car. It also makes the driving feel a lot smoother. When I'm driving in a car with the pedals too far apart for heel&toe, I always feel like I'm downshifting very jerky.

I've been doing it since I've had my first car, which was a Peugeot 205 Rallye 1.3. Because it had double twin-choke Weber carbs and quite a light flywheel, it had a really good throttle response, which is important for proper heel&toe-ing. The blipping sound also encouraged me to do it over and over, so I became quite handy at it.

Now I drive an Alfa Romeo 75 2.0 TwinSpark and I'm lucky that it has just the right pedal-placement... :D


For those of you who don't know heel&toe, watch this video. Besides rev-matching. the driver is also double clutching on every downshift, quite impressive:
:arrow: Double Clutch Downshifts - YouTube

Another nice video with really fast heel&toe-ing in a 997 GT3R:
:arrow: http://www.gscdownloads.com/leh/sebring/GT3RSatSebring.wmv

[No.1]

Nice post Svensson :good:

I agree with doubl de-clutching going down into 1st - i always do it in my car

[skituner]

when my family used to have a 2004 mini cooper i would to it around almost every turn it makes driving so enjoyible and the mini's pedels were setup perfectly for it. i still love asking people twice my age with nice cars if they know how to heel toe and they have no idea what im talkin about :lol:

[Svensson]

Nice post Svensson :good:

I agree with doubl de-clutching going down into 1st - i always do it in my carTnx :wink:

What's really nice, is that you can feel when you've executed a proper double-declutch downshift, as the gearstick really slides into the lower gear very smoothly, instead of protesting or even grinding... :?