Heal and Toe

[PeterL]

Good day all, as many of you are aware this is my first real season of lapping, I hope to cap things off on Oct 5th @ Dunnville (10-4).

I watch many in car videos and there is really no consistency in the driving style. It seems half of them use heel and toe and half don't.

This transcends from many different types of cars as well as tracks.

Are there significant gains to be made through heel and toe.

Is it more effective in one type of car for instance, rear drive with a propensity of locking up or type of track.

Most manufactures are now including the rev match in their fancy paddle shift transmissions whether they are single or double clutch. All RWD I believe.

Is this something that I may wish to practice and apply moving forward or in my lightly modded 2006 front drive Civic SI, will a simple downshift surfice?

[KeithC]

Most definitely it is something you will want to practice and perfect.

Not only will it give you time, but by not revmatching you will kill your transmission and clutch.

If you revmatch w/o heel and toe that's ok for the car, but you will definitely shave a decent amount of time by heel and toe. I taught myself by practicing on the street - not aggressively obviously - but whenever I needed to slow down for a light or stop I'd heel and toe the downshifts. Now it's second nature.

[MilesM]

Practice on the street is good advice. There's no pressure and it trains your brain.

The biggest benefit to heel toe and speed is smoothness. Keep in mind the trick to going fast managing your contact patches and keeping the tires at their maximum grip for as long as you can through a corner. Any sudden weight transfers like dropping the thing into gear and dropping the clutch is going to upset the car. In a braking zone if one wheel gets more tranny stopping power than another, the car is going to veer in one direction more than the other and you'll automatically have to compensate with the wheel upsetting the car and the balance. Next time through you'll hold back a bit thinking you were going too fast the previous lap and before you know it, you're dogging it through every corner thinking your fast. If you keep it smooth, you can add speed since tire and traction of the car stay consistent. Then you'll find the real limits of traction and times will start dropping.

For longevity, rev matching relieves a lot of the strain on the tranny bits and things. Less strain, longer life. :)

Inconsistency in drivers I generally attribute to a mental thing. I see drivers beating themselves up for one corner and writing off the next 3 corners till they get back in the game. Or thinking too much about where their car is now, instead of where they want the car to be. Or I've seen drivers so intense in their driving they forget to breath. Breathing is extremely important. Or not looking up - car goes where you look. Or not taking into account a good exit on one corner means a higher entry on the next. Or lastly, using too many markers, mental calculations, visual points, memorizing speeds in and out, trying to be almost robotic in their approach but mental fatigue just wears them out - driving becomes exhausting.

I much prefer the seat of the pants approach to driving. I clear my head, breathe, relax and listen to my hips. My hips pinned in the back of my seat tells me max g's, max braking, and I adjust my driving and line to what inputs I'm reading from my hips. I still use some visual markers but I don't live and die by them. I also find that sometimes just remembering timing is the smoothest way through a corner as opposed to balancing 5 different markers in your head. If you asked me where a braking point is or what gear I take a corner, I'd have to actually think about it, because for the most part I don't pay attention. You'll also find your endurance goes up - you can lap much longer before the mental fatigue hits you. Plus, you're more aware of your body, so even when the mental fatigue starts, you're aware of it.

Hope that helps.

[TodF]

You pretty much NEED to heel and toe to take it up to that next level, I find that since I've learned it I pretty much use it most of the time on the street and always on the track.

[Maxi]

good logic and description by Miles, imo.

I spent a lot of years racing my Civic (and other FWD cars) without heel & toe downshifts and i can't really say I'm much faster now in a fwd car by using this technique, but it does definitely take some stress off the drivetrain and makes for smoother corner entry if you're the type that tends to pop the clutch or release it while turning a bit. I guess i learned to time my non-heel & toe downshifts such that it didn't hurt may lap times.

However, doing a lot of RWD driving lately, including my G35 and my dad's C6 Vette, heel & toe is a necessity for speed in these cars. Without it, it's way too easy to lock up a rear wheel when releasing the clutch and this can really cause the rear end to step out, whereas the worse that can really happen in a fwd car is a bit of front wheel lockup, which will hurt braking performance but isn't going to cause a spin the way it can in a rwd platform.

Driving a lot of the expensive rwd stuff i do for the magazines, i had to really force myself to become proficient at heel & toe and it does really add a lot to the driving experience. I now really enjoy using this method, so much so that i do it on the street all the time in the G. I'm sure my neighbors must be wondering why i rev my engine while downshifting into first gear when pulling into the driveway. lol.

Anyway, to answer your question, i think it's definitely worth the effort for you to learn how to heel & toe well, even in your lightly modded Civic. But you can certainly learn to go fast without it, and then once you're getting the most out of your car and have built a lot of skill and confidence as a track driver, you can step up to mastering heel & toe.

[Guillermo]

I have coached a lot of people how to drive on tracks. I have noticed that the few students who had mastered heal and toe on the street before their first track day had a great advantage in learning how to drive smoothly and fast on the track. Those who don't struggle with awkward downshifts that screw up their braking zones and turn-in points. I truly believe heal and toe is best learned ASAP because it's one of the few track skills and can and should be used while driving on the street everyday to greatly reduce wear and tear on the clutch and tranny.

I suggest being a passenger on the track with several of the smoothest and fastest HADA drivers to see the full advantage of heal and toe. When it's done well, within the braking zone the passenger will hear the downshift but not feel it :D

[JohnP]

Heel and toe is a must to be fast and smooth. Learn it ASAP.

One easy way to learn it is to think of a smoker butting out his cigarette. Put your toe on the cigarette (edge of your Brake pedal) and then twist your foot to put the cigarette out. When twisting your foot, your heal will press the gas. If your brake pedal and gas pedal are close enough you will be heel and toeing in no time.

JohnP

[MilesM]

To expand on Dave's comment - you can hide a shift with threshold braking in a fwd car. If you've got the right pads and setup and braking hard enough, the downshift will have little effect on the drive wheels.

To John's point, if you want the peddles closer, you can actually go under the peddle assembly with a plumbers wrench and a hammer/another wrench and bend the peddles closer. I've done that on both Martin's car and my old rexes. The plumber's wrench is to remove the pressure from the base plate where the peddles attach to the floor. It's actually quite flimsy in a honda. Then with another wrench or hammer is used to bend the peddle closer. I've had little luck with peddle covers and found they were more trouble than they were worth, even when I drilled holes in the peddle and screwed them straight to the steel.

[nrg3k]

I found that learning to heel-toe on the street was a big advantage to using it on the track. When you are on the track, its almost too late to start to practice. The best times to learn the technique in normal driving is when you are slowing for a normal corner that you know you won't come to a complete stop for.

Note there are two methods to the concept, and you will need to decide for yourself which works best.

Some people rotate their heel from above the brake peddle, to the right, and use the heel to apply some gas. Others swear by the idea of tipping the side of their foot onto the gas peddle, instead of rotation. This is sometimes easier, but leads to stomping on BOTH peddles if you aren't careful. I've tried both and prefer rotation to the side-to-side movement. I know AndrewW mentioned at our track school that he preferred the side-to-side movement instead of rotation.

DJM:>

[AndrewW]

i rotate about the ball of my foot on brake and use heel for throttle, might have been my dad using the other method, his ankle doesn't rotate so well after it got screwed back together.

Miles, even with a front driver, if you are at capacity in braking and then downshift without revmatch it will lock. Any additional decel forces over and above max braking will cause a lockup.

[pigeon]

Heel and toe is a must to be fast and smooth. Learn it ASAP.

One easy way to learn it is to think of a smoker butting out his cigarette. Put your toe on the cigarette (edge of your Brake pedal) and then twist your foot to put the cigarette out. When twisting your foot, your heal will press the gas. If your brake pedal and gas pedal are close enough you will be heel and toeing in no time.

JohnP
Thats an awesome explanation, and exactly what I do. It took me years to figure that out, I was always using too much of my foot on the brakes, and then when i'd try to rev-match I would end up pushing both pedals.

It wasn't until I got good brake pads that didn't require much pedal force, that I was finally able to heel-toe nicely. My old brake pads required the pedal to be floored before I was braking at maximum adhesion, now these ones are half of that.

[pigeon]

i rotate about the ball of my foot on brake and use heel for throttle, might have been my dad using the other method, his ankle doesn't rotate so well after it got screwed back together.

Miles, even with a front driver, if you are at capacity in braking and then downshift without revmatch it will lock. Any additional decel forces over and above max braking will cause a lockup.

Whats your take on left foot braking? I watch the pro's do it, and can definitely see its advantage.. but its friggin hard to do seamlessly.

[engsr]

He was doing that at Shannonville, turn 1 Pro. I was trying to figure out why he would brake AFTER he entered the turn, never dawned on me he was left foot braking.

What I got from Andy was that it puts more weight on the front tires, thus giving it more contact patch and more grip in the front, but still keeping the speed and momentum up.

I've tried it a few times at a slalom and it does help bring the rear of the car around while still keeping on the throttle. Don't know if I have the balls to try it on the track, though - in that case, I'll probably stick to a slight lift.

As for practice, do it on the street, haha. Seriously, that's how I got used to braking with my left foot.

[AndrewW]

Learned the left foot braking thing from John P at a Shannonville solo1 back in the day. I now left foot brake most all corners that don't require a downshift, there is less delay between throttle/brake application, it's just a matter of developing the feel you have with your right foot with your left. Driving the Tundra around with left foot on the street helped tune the feel.

when fighting understeer like I was in corner 1 in the S2k, I'll use left foot braking to transfer a little more load to the front wheels and rotate the car. but it's just a very very light application for a very short period of time, doesn't take much.
One thing I've found is that left foot braking with good control is next to impossible without a supportive seat. Somehow all my cars tend to end up with bucket seats in them though haha.

[AndrewW]

Karting helps too, was just thinking about this. The indoor karts that don't really need brakes most of the time are difficult to develop with, but after a day out in the 125cc shifter yesterday with 4 wheel disks, definitely helped develop left foot braking. This thing makes a touring car feel like chilling on a couch, my ribs and neck are soooo sore, need to run at smoother tracks than sutton!!

[Maxi]

Haha...so Sutton was a workout? How'd Andy make out? You're making me glad I didn't go :p

I also do some left foot braking in Turn 1 on Pro. I find it settles the car as you go over a bit of a bump right at the turn-in point, plus it helps get rid of a bit of turn-in understeer that seems inevitable in that corner.

I developed left foot braking feel the same way Andrew did -- in my street car. Definitely NOT a good idea to try it for the first time in Turn 1 Pro at full speed. Would be very easy to apply too much brake pressure and end up backing the car off the track on the outside, where that wall ain't too far away.

[AndrewW]

Dad did really well, and Ren too!!! they're both feeling ok today, however I am not doing so well haha. I really wanted to run more and more but the fatigue was so bad at one point my head fell back from a lack of neck strength to keep it upright. Whiel looking at the sky i figured that was time to pack it in haha. Have to do some weight training and get in better shape.

[Maxi]

LOL! I guess karters wear those neck rolls for a reason too.

I'm usually sore from indoor karting, so I can only imagine how I'd feel after a few stints in a shifter!

[Slowpoke]

When starting autoslalom, I noticed that a lot of fast drivers were heel-toeing on the street and track, but not autoslalom. They said they didn't have time on tight slaloms. So I basically "threw away" half a season forcing myself to heel-toe everywhere. Street, slalom, track. It was well worth it in my opinion, as what G mentioned is so true; getting in with a student who can already heel-toe, they're steps ahead already. Once you can do it seamlessly in slalom, you'll know that you've got it.

Now I even try to heel-toe my Legacy, which is a whole other problem, because it's an automatic with a wide brake pedal. :rolleyes:

I do the side roll because my tall-guy knees don't twist well, but also because my car has a wide transmission tunnel and I have a long foot, so my heel would hit the transmission tunnel before I could reach the gas.

If you're going to use the side roll method, make sure that you set up the pedals to the point where the gas is below the brake, under even the hardest braking forces. That will help prevent standing-on-two-pedal mistakes. You can use a torch to help bend the gas pedal and even angle it down on the left side to prevent catching the lip. Using Motul RBF600, SS brake lines, and maximizing your booster engagement point (it you have a booster) really helps keep the brake pedal up high.

Oh, one other thing! I keep forgetting this because it was done so long ago and I think of it as a natural feature on my cars. Fourstar modified my brake pedal by welding a long threaded rod on the back of the pedal. They then welded a large nut onto the brake pedal arm. So I have completely adjustable brake pedal height. A lot cheaper than a fully separate pedal set. Best money I ever spent on the car by far....

[PeterL]

To expand on Dave's comment - you can hide a shift with threshold braking in a fwd car. If you've got the right pads and setup and braking hard enough, the downshift will have little effect on the drive wheels.

To John's point, if you want the peddles closer, you can actually go under the peddle assembly with a plumbers wrench and a hammer/another wrench and bend the peddles closer. I've done that on both Martin's car and my old rexes. The plumber's wrench is to remove the pressure from the base plate where the peddles attach to the floor. It's actually quite flimsy in a honda. Then with another wrench or hammer is used to bend the peddle closer. I've had little luck with peddle covers and found they were more trouble than they were worth, even when I drilled holes in the peddle and screwed them straight to the steel.


Thanks all for the insight, I'm now using heel and toe to pick up milk.
Off to Dunnville this Sunday but will likely wait till next season to apply this at the track.

This lead me to my next question, as my 2006 Civic is set up ideally for heel and toe, contrary my buddy Tim's 05' Civic that has Grand Canyon sized spacing between brake and clutch.

Maybe we can see about fixing this at a monthly meeting, I'll bring the tools.
Though I should probably ask Tim first, thanks again to all that chimed in.:)

[TimS]

incredibly informative read...

as Pete said, there is quite a bit of space between my pedals which makes it very hard to heel/toe...i'd be more than happy to offer up the little em2 for a little demonstration at a meet and get that sorted out...

[Matt]

You basically do what you can with what you've got... My Mazda has incredible pedal feel and sensitivity so at partiall brakes i can still just rock my foot between gas and brakes and at full out turn 5 braking it is just a little twist of the leg.

In my Honda (*curse swear bitch gripe, etc*) the pedals are so pathetic that i actually have my toes pointed on the brake pedal and it is so far down that i have to use the top of my ankle to blip. Yeah... it IS as awkward as it sounds.

[Slowpoke]

This lead me to my next question, as my 2006 Civic is set up ideally for heel and toe, contrary my buddy Tim's 05' Civic that has Grand Canyon sized spacing between brake and clutch.


I'm guessing that this was a brain fart and you meant gas/accelerator, not clutch? Don't try to change the spacing between the brake and clutch unless you want to work on left-foot braking. Brake to clutch distance is irrelevant to heel-toe. Heel-toe you're concerned with the distance between gas and accelerator.

And this is NOT what you want to be starting with, but just because it's so cool to watch, double-clutched heel-toe downshifts under race conditions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iXu5_ty3Zs

[PeterL]

I'm guessing that this was a brain fart and you meant gas/accelerator, not clutch? Don't try to change the spacing between the brake and clutch unless you want to work on left-foot braking. Brake to clutch distance is irrelevant to heel-toe. Heel-toe you're concerned with the distance between gas and accelerator.

And this is NOT what you want to be starting with, but just because it's so cool to watch, double-clutched heel-toe downshifts under race conditions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iXu5_ty3Zs

Yes you are right; I did mean the distance between brake and accelerator.

Now if anyone does have video of someone performing heel and toe using the brake and clutch that would be interesting to see.

I’ll check if there is anything posted on clubrsx.:D

[TimS]

I'm guessing that this was a brain fart and you meant gas/accelerator, not clutch? Don't try to change the spacing between the brake and clutch unless you want to work on left-foot braking. Brake to clutch distance is irrelevant to heel-toe. Heel-toe you're concerned with the distance between gas and accelerator.

And this is NOT what you want to be starting with, but just because it's so cool to watch, double-clutched heel-toe downshifts under race conditions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iXu5_ty3Zs

cool video...check this out (if you haven't seen it already)...i found this on an s2000 forum and sent it to Pete which started the little hamster in his head...

the old man's crazy! no helmet, top down driving at crazy speeds around the nurburgring...they have the cabin as the main shot and two small shots of his footwork and the tach...its a bit long...but well worth it...

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7662325404894830688&q=s2000+nurburgring&total=64&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0

[nrg3k]

is that Keiichi Tsuchiya driving? he's wearning loafers!!! lol

[engsr]

^ I remember seeing that on the old board - it was part of a history of the Type R video. I was saying the same thing - loafers, top down, AND no helmet, haha. Crazy.

[MilesM]

You know, Hanif races in steel toe work shoes.

[1999_ITR]

Nice video.. I agree with everyone else learn on the street. I think most people learn that way.

I think after a while it just becomes natural. I heel toe in my daily driver all the time cause I'm so used to it from learning on the street. It actually feels weird to downshift any other way. Running shoes, dress shoes, boots...Doesn't matter.

[HBomb]

You know, Hanif races in steel toe work shoes.

I used to... No longer - now it's soft-soled shoes or runners... I woke up and smelled the burnt rubber :)

[Matt]

I switch it up... i usually coast down to stops so heal-toe is not needed, but any time i'm on the brakes from speed to a red light, always heal-toe. I switch my driving style up all the time on the street because i've practiced so many different techniques. I think it is helpful to learn many and then they will come naturally when you need them.

There was mention of left foot braking... i used to do that all the time in autox, but i've never done it on a track (except the really tight turn on DDT at the far corner). Is there benefit to doing this instead of a slight throttle lift in a high speed corner? Weight transfer is directly related to vehicle speed change, so i expect that i'd get the same slow-down from a given rotation with either way...

[Theo]

My biggest tip would be to get "Heel-Toe" out of your head.

I've yet to drive a car that I can't "Big Toe/Little Toe". I keep the ball of my big toe on the brake and the ball of my little toe above the throttle when I'm breaking.

As I depress the brake with the ball of my big toe I roll my foot over to blip the throttle with the ball of my my little toe just before the down-shift. I don't know if this is un-orthodox but it's worked for me for a while.

I've only been able to play with left-foot braking in Automatic or Semi-Auto Cars. Until I can get my 3rd Leg to reach the brake I don't think I can pull it off in a manual gearbox car. With 3 pedals and 2 feet I can't figure out the math.