"Tim (Fractal Footwork)" (fractalfootwork)
08/09/2015 at 17:00 • Filed to: Heel-and-Toe
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"Tim (Fractal Footwork)" (fractalfootwork)
08/09/2015 at 17:00 • Filed to: Heel-and-Toe | 2
| 22 |
I really want to learn how to heel-and-toe, but I am scared about messing up and ruining my gearbox trying to figure it out. I’m googling right now, not sure the best place to look for help. Or, should I leave the internet and find some actual human-being to teach me?
I understand the basic principle, blip the throttle so the engine revs match the road speed when downshifting under braking, but that’s quite a complicated sequence of operations if you’ve never done it before.
ADabOfOppo; Gone Plaid (Instructables Can Be Confusable)
> Tim (Fractal Footwork)
08/09/2015 at 17:04 |
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Lots of practice.
DipodomysDeserti
> Tim (Fractal Footwork)
08/09/2015 at 17:05 |
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Pedals make a big difference. Most street cars have their gas and brake too far apart to do it easily. Companies make pedal covers which add a little tab to the gas pedal which help. I got really good at it once I got my Abarth because the gas and brake pedal are very close together.
71MGBGT Likes Subarus of Unusual Colors
> Tim (Fractal Footwork)
08/09/2015 at 17:08 |
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I decided to try it one day while on a highway offramp. I screwed up but it kinda worked. I kept practicing, grinding gears, and reving way too high. Eventually, I stopped being terrible at it
AM
> Tim (Fractal Footwork)
08/09/2015 at 17:22 |
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Buy a Camry, I hear they do it for you these days.
Opposite Locksmith
> Tim (Fractal Footwork)
08/09/2015 at 17:29 |
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Everyone talks about pedal position being the end all be all of a car being capable (well that and having a clutch lol) of heel toeing.
The truth is that a lot of modern cars throttle is anything but optimal for HT. Some are exponential for the first few centimeters of throttle pedal depression, but flatten out soon after that, then some cars barely open up at all unless you floor them!
Irrelevant response over, I learned only from senna’s and maybe tiff needells footwork videos. And a few rally video where drivers absolutely DANCED on the pedals made me just have to learn
Supreme Chancellor and Glorious Leader SaveTheIntegras
> Tim (Fractal Footwork)
08/09/2015 at 17:33 |
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Tried on my dad’s XB and came to realize the position of the gas makes it nearly impossible. I intend to practice everyday on my next car learning to do it
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ADabOfOppo; Gone Plaid (Instructables Can Be Confusable)
> Tim (Fractal Footwork)
08/09/2015 at 17:34 |
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Don’t try and hurry it initially. Take it slow and practice the sequence one step at a time until you get comfortable. Having pedals spaced well also helps, so your car may or may not actually work to fully heel-toe. But you can still learn how to tap the gas before down shifting
That Bastard Kurtis - An Attempt to Standardize My Username Across Platforms
> Tim (Fractal Footwork)
08/09/2015 at 17:38 |
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Video games. I had a Fanatec wheel with a clutch and a stick shifter, I played racing games (mostly GT Legends and R Factor) that required a clutch...fuck around all you want and never break your car. Granted, you don’t get the feedback you do in your actual car, but at least you can get used to using your feet like you need to and coordinating everything.
Urambo Tauro
> Tim (Fractal Footwork)
08/09/2015 at 17:40 |
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The pedals in my SN95 Mustang are not conducive to heel-and-toe. The brake pedal is significantly higher than the accelerator.
I have no racing experience, and my car is merely a daily driver, so my desire for rev-matching is not for the purpose of shaving tenths off my lap time. Instead, it makes shifts smoother, minimizes clutch wear, and makes me feel good about myself. To be honest, I don’t practice true heel-and-toe when driving it, because I let off the brake completely when I blip the throttle.
So this makes me wonder... If I really was racing on a track, and dove into a corner, would slamming on the brakes push the brake pedal down far enough to perform a true heel-and-toe downshift? Or is the brake pedal too tall after all?
During normal driving, the heel rests on the floor, and serves as the pivot point to modulate pressure to the pedal. I suspect that true H-A-T footwork requires the driver to floor the brake pedal, providing a solid point for the toe to serve as the pivot. Without a solid toe-pivot, it would be very hard to have precise control over the throttle.
At any rate, I am content with rev-matching, even if it’s not true H-A-T. On public roads, I have no business slamming on my brakes anyway, unless it was an emergency. For daily driving, nice smooth rev-matching is enough.
Bytemite
> Tim (Fractal Footwork)
08/09/2015 at 17:41 |
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I would say practice hopping your right foot one pedal at a time. Master braking while downshifting, and then clutch in and blip at same time right when the gear goes in. Of course, this way you won’t be braking for the .5-1 second that you are on the throttle but you aren’t on the track so that won’t matter.
66671 - 200 [METRIC] my dash
> Tim (Fractal Footwork)
08/09/2015 at 17:51 |
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Practice with imaginary pedals first until you get the idea of how it’s supposed to work, I did this and then when I started I never grinded gears or anything to cringeworthy, I would just rev too high or too low and the car would lurch forward and whatnot.
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Opposite Locksmith
> DipodomysDeserti
08/09/2015 at 18:02 |
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The abarth isn't a fair comparison. I could heel toe the first time I drove one and I'm holding my breath every time I do in my WRX that I've had since high school, and I'm a few semesters from getting my degree haha
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DipodomysDeserti
> Opposite Locksmith
08/09/2015 at 18:11 |
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That's why I was saying the pedal position makes a huge difference. I had a WRX before my Abarth, and it was really hard in the subie. Sparco makes some pedal covers which help. But it was still hard.
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Opposite Locksmith
> DipodomysDeserti
08/09/2015 at 18:16 |
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No no I know sorry I'm just terrible at writing. Meant to be a glowing review of not only the abarths pedal position, but throttle progression
Master Cylinder
> Tim (Fractal Footwork)
08/09/2015 at 18:21 |
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I don’t actually use my heel, I brake with the ball of my foot and kind of roll my foor over and hit the throttle with the side.
I got a big ol’ pair of size 13s, so there’s nowhere near enough room to actually use the heel of my foot. My heel actually stays on the floor, which helps with stability IMO.
DoYouEvenShift
> Tim (Fractal Footwork)
08/09/2015 at 18:37 |
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I practice every single day! Also as stated earlier, a good set of pedals makes all the difference.
415s30 W123TSXWaggoIIIIIIo ( •_•))°)
> Tim (Fractal Footwork)
08/09/2015 at 21:42 |
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Oh come on it’s easy!
Nauraushaun
> Tim (Fractal Footwork)
08/09/2015 at 23:46 |
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I taught myself on the roads. I think once you know the theory (which you d0), you just have to teach yourself.
Break it into separate tasks:
Learn to rev-match your shifts on up-shifts. Try to time your change so that when you lift the clutch in the new gear, the revs match.
The next level is down-shifts. Practise shifting down through the gears, blipping the throttle each time trying to match it.
Then you just need to learn the heel-and-toe. You need to practise hitting the accelerator while braking. Don’t shift at the same time, do it in neutral so you can practise hitting both pedals. Maybe try it on empty and relatively safe corners - you don’t want to accidentally screw up your braking and die.
Once you can rev match, and you can rev the car while braking, you just need to combine the two! I don’t think you’re likely to ruin your gearbox. Currently you’re letting the car do the matching for you - if you’re doing almost-matches while learning, that’s less wear anyway. The only real risk is if you rev the shit out of the car then drop the clutch. Hopefully if you learn things in stages as I mentioned above, this won’t happen :)
My 300ZX isn’t great for it, the pedals are a bit far apart. But it’s not too bad, just gotta teach yourself. It seems un-natural at first, but you get used to it and eventually it’s not hard to rev-match every shift.
aevum
> Tim (Fractal Footwork)
08/10/2015 at 16:20 |
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Train yourself to brake with the ball of your foot (right underneath your big toe), as well as with the leftmost part of your foot on the middle of the pedal (you should see some of the pedal in your braking.
Once you feel comfortable with that, dont focus on using your heel so much as focusing on just “rolling” your right most part of your foot to blip the throttle. I have been in 100s of cars and regardless of pedal position, this technique works for me.
Once you feel comfortable with the blip while braking, its time to do the easy part. Clutching. There is no way to slow the whole process down to get the hang of it. You just kind of have to time your hand and your left foot properly.
Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice.
Carpe Diem Racing
> Tim (Fractal Footwork)
08/11/2015 at 07:52 |
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I learned to heel and toe by doing a few things.
- rev match when shifting. Double clutching helps as you get a sense of “about how much” to hit the throttle. This part without braking, like if you’re easing to a stop you can rev match to shift from, say, 4th to 3rd, while you’re clear in front so you don’t have to brake.
- in a parking lot, parked, I’d try to rev to a certain rpm, idle to 2000 rpm for example, or 1500 to 2500 rpm. I had to overcome my fear of revving the engine. I also wanted to muscle-memory myself so I could consistently hit 2500 or 3000 rpm. No street racing, more like being able to shift into first gear while in a parking lot rolling forward without grinding gears.
- for true heel and toe, meaning aggressively braking while shifting, nothing beats a good highway off ramp. You can always bail out of the heel and toe just by skipping the rev matching element of the procedure. I found that initially I had a hard time with fine control on either pedal so a hard brake with aggressive downshifting worked well (hard braking, lots of revving). As I got better I could do more subtle moves, like shifting into first approaching a stop sign.
- comment below/above on not using heel/toe hits on truth. I use the left of the big toe area of my right foot on the brake and the outer side of the same foot on the gas pedal. It’s almost as if I’m straddling the gap with my foot, however it works out. If I’m in a massive brake situation I focus on stopping/avoiding, not shifting into a lower gear.
- I am a size 7-1/2 foot, medium, and except for (ironically because it’s an iconic driver car) a 1983 Porsche 911SC owned by my best friend’s dad, I never had a problem heel-toeing. Even with massive brake/throttle pedal height differences it’s okay. I’ve driven, typically for short distances because I didn’t own the car, everything from Corvettes to Ferraris to Civics to Sentras to GTIs to Passats to a 350Z and now a pair of TDIs (I owned all but the first two). I couldn’t deal with the floor mounted pedals and massive, massive brake-throttle pedal height differences in the 911SC.
- Practice for every day driving. Pull into a parking spot, heel toe into first gear to pull forward. Heel toe on exit ramps. Heel toe for stop signs, red lights (with no traffic in front of you, at least at first), if only to be in first gear when you roll to a stop.
- I heel toe habitually. I didn’t realize that one of my cars didn’t idle properly at all until my mom borrowed it. With her it stalled at every stop. Apparently I was heel toeing it to keep it idling, without thinking about it. That should be the goal, to heel toe without thinking about it.
I don’t race, did a couple autocross runs, one intro track day, but I enjoy driving. Been driving for a while now. I don’t remember how long it took for me to get fluid with heel toe, maybe 6 months?
Hope this helps.
this is not matt farah's foxbodymiata
> Tim (Fractal Footwork)
08/11/2015 at 22:42 |
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Work on rev match downshifting
without brakes first, start blipping every single coasting downshift while daily driving to practice, and also because it’s just way more fun. Once you have a sense as to how many your car wants on a downshift, you can start to add in braking. The trick is to just focus on holding the brake pedal steady, and then going about a normal downshift (though to be really smooth you may need to brake slightly harder when your clutched out, because you will loose engine braking). When you’re learning, if your worried about grinding or over revving, just let the clutch out slower so you can slip it correct your over or under revving.
WhiskeyGolf
> Tim (Fractal Footwork)
08/12/2015 at 21:34 |
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I try to do it whenever there’s a clear slow turn, like an open advanced green light or yield turn. At first I would blip with my heel but that proved to be difficult to get down so now that I have proper shoes, it’s super easy to angle my foot and blip at the top.
Strangely I find it’s a lot easier to do when I drive quickly... the brake pedal drops pretty far below the accelerator so I usually haul ass into a turn and brake hard.