RIGHT ON!!!! I agree with you 100%.

 

But I think the question is, if you were to take two drivers with equal skill, or teach dick to heel/toe...who would be faster?

 

Am I the minority here? I rev match 24/7, whether during sprited FD driving, or when lugging the FB around town for errands and what not. It's a lot smoother, you can definitely take corners much faster since you won't upset the car's balance, and while it's easier on your clutch, only ONE person in this thread mentioned the tranny - the most obvious component getting SLAMMED when you're not rev matching. That's a great way to accelerate wear and tear on your entire drive train.

Yea me too. I remember when I first tried to heel & toe in the FD, the results were disasterous. I can't turn my leg like that at all...there's no room. And my shoe was all over both pedals lol. I took the premise, and "discovered" sidestepping. Works like a charm. And yes, it helps that I have size 11.5 shoes

I'd think whoever was most comfortable and skilled in his method would be the faster one. It's not about what is or isn't the orthodox method - it's what works for you, and makes YOU faster...but that's been said already.

 

I heel toe every single time I drive my rx7, weither its just to the store, auto-x, whatever. I know it has helped my auto-x times by a noticable amount. The smoother I get at heel/toe, the faster my lap times get, so I'm guessing it helps a little

 

Trail braking does not mean you must wait longer to get on the throttle; trail braking merely takes advantage of your tires' abilities by combining some of your braking with your turn in. This means you can wait longer to brake and it also allows you to control weight transfer on the front by playing with how quickly you transition the car off the brakes. The ability to adjust weight transfer on the fly during turn in is a very key advantage to trail braking.

The friction circle insists that if you are not trail braking you are not taking full advantage of the tires. Not trail braking would be the exact same scenario as insisting at corner exit that until the steering wheel is pointed completely straight down the road you cannot begin to speed up the car. Crazy! Just as you blend your acceleration and steering at the exit, you blend your braking and steering at turn in. Mario Andretti once said about his F1 title that one advantage he had was that all the other drivers thought the brakes were for slowing the car down.

Check out the friction circles below. This is an isolated map of one particular corner at an event last week. My wife who did not trail brake is on the left and myself who trail braked like mad is on the right. Her strip charts and friction circle show that she brakes in a straight line, comes off the brakes and then turns the car in. The entire time the car is transitioning from max braking to max cornering she is not fully utilizing the ability of the tire and if you're not utilizing the tire fully you are giving up speed. Notice on her friction circle how there is essentially a straight line from max braking at the bottom of the circle to max lateral g at the right of the circle. Compare that circle to the one on the right which uses nearly the entire potential of the tire from initial braking, through turn in, apex and acceleration to track out.

You can examine the lateral and accel graphs closely to see the difference as well. Her graphs show maximum braking just before turn in, mine shows maximum braking during the entire transition from turn in to about halfway to the apex. During that time of transition I can use the brakes to fine tune the rotation of the car down into the apex.

 

There was a great article in SportsCar magazine (SCCA) about this a few months ago. As I recall, the conclusion after much instrumented testing was that trail braking - early to mid apex was a faster way through the corner, but straight line braking, late apex gave you a faster exit speed. So, if it is the corner that leads to the 150 mph straight, exit speed is a priority because you gain more time (than you lost in the corner) by being faster through the straight. Otherwise, trail brake if your car is comfortable with it.

 

Just because you trail brake doesn't mean you must change where you apex the corner. That wasn't really what the article discussed. The real gist of that article was a description of different lines through corners and what the results of various approaches were. They compared the classic line, (brake in a straight line and then turn in with the widest possible arc through the turn) a hybrid line (essentially making the first half of the corner a parabolic line) and the minimum distance line (getting the car down on the curb early and hugging it all the way around the corner). Trail braking was involved in some of the lines, but it in and of itself was not what they were testing and not what the tests were setup to compare.

 

There's too many variables for each corner to say that one way is always faster than another. It comes down to the drivers skill, what platform he's driving, most important what tires he's on, type of corner and what's after it. Tight hairpin, S curves, Grip level, topography (off camber), how bumpy, elevation drop off, asphalt/concrete transition, rain, etc.. Saying trail braking at the limit is always faster is not neccessary true. Plus if you got a car with a good amount of downforce you have to compensate for the non linear loss of downforce through the corner.

On the question of H&T, well it depends on what your driving. Left foot braking and power shifting may be faster. But on a FD, it's defenitely needed unless every corner perfectly matches your gear ratios, which never happens.

My main problem with driving in my FD is my focking massive legs getting in the way of me steering and side stepping. It would be a whole lot easier if I was the world's tallest midget/jockey. I need to get a 350mm D wheel and a non adjustable seat that lowers the leg position, then I'm golden.

 

I have a TII, never have any probs doing the heel and toe, plenty of room, and the pedals are close together. I have size 12 paws, and am 6'1", 235lbs, so if I can do it, anybody can, just takes practice.

On a FD, darn near impossible. Steering wheel does not tilt, so it makes it pretty much impossible to do it the traditional method. I agree with using a D-wheel, and getting racing seats that mount lower.

Not sure about FBs.

 

fb's are not really well setup for heel toe when stock.
alot of fb guys use the side of their foot to blip the throttle.

most people mod their pedals somewhat..
anyone much over 210lbs and 6 foot probably wouldnt really enjoy driving an fb that much, they certainly wouldnt be comfortable.

 

I find it very comfortable. I don't know what Series 2's used for a pedal box, but the Series 1 had a vastly better pedal arrangement than the Series 3's.

Also, most FBs have brakes way out of adjustment or behind on maintenance, resulting in a brake pedal that is actually below the gas pedal under heavy braking. This can be remedied, but so many people with these cars have either never driven another manual trans car, or have never driven a properly set up car, that they simply think that this is the way things are.

 

I heel-toe in my front drive POS if Im hammering it through corners to go easier on the tranny and engine, and because I dont like the lurch when you let the clutch out in a lower gear when the engine should be at high rpms... and its not.

Hell, I had to double clutch because the syncros were so damn beat up. Once my stepdad started driving it a lot he ended up bending one of the rods in it... lol.

Anyway, shitboxes aside, any reccomendations for driving shoes? I often find the ones with the thinnest most flexible soles tend to do the best, but those $15 dollar walmart shoes I used to drive in had the laces break so Im wearing my iversons every day... which have big fat stiff wide soles.

Also... now* that i remember to ask, anyone know WHY the **** with automatics the brake pedal is SO high up and the throttle is so far down?

 

If you don't need the fire protection of a real driving show get a pair of wrestling shoes.

 

I can heel and toe in my FB fine. Since the steering wheel doesn't tilt, you need to position the seat so that your leg has enough room to twist.

I've got a stock steering wheel as well...and that thing is huge. I'm sure it'd be easier if you had an aftermarket, smaller wheel.

I wear size 9 or 9.5 shoes. I'm not sure which one.

 

brakes are not for sissys.

 

converse slip ons are great driving shoes, and cheap too

 

"Heel and toe" often get's confused with or lumped in with "double de-clutching"... the latter really only being necessary with a non-synchromesh transmission. All heel and toe means is that you blip the throttle while braking. Not very controversial. I've heard of people just dragging the car (RX7) into gear, and with the lesser inertia of a rotary the ill affects may be less noticeable, but I don't know why you'd do that. Heel and toe isn't that hard. Double declutching on the other hand takes some practice. When you do it right, however, you look like... Jackie Stewart. :-)

Also FWIW, I don't "heel" toe. I toe and toe. Brake with big toe and ball of foot, "rev" with pinky toe and sise of foot. I can't imagine getting anything done with my heel.

 

Basically everybody at the track with a stock-style transmission is heel-and-toeing. I do it every time I slow my car even in the street just for practice so when I'm at the track it comes naturally to me.

I practice trail-braking as well. Don't just drop the brakes as soon as you start turning, practice rolling them off as you roll on the steering. Then roll on the throttle as you roll out of the wheel. (which usually happens more quickly)

There is a way to not heel-and-toe, btw. It works better on some transmissions than others. Right as you let off the gas after a straight you gently pop it into neutral. Point the shifter at the gear you're going to need at the exit of the turn, and apply and hold a mild pressure on the lever towards that gear and when the RPMs drop to the right level the shifter will just pop right in.

On some cars it will pop into place just perfect and some cars it will grind a little. Obviously if it grinds don't do it. Also don't force it. If you get it right it'll do it almost by itself. Don't try it going into 1st because on a street car 1st is too low to downshift into unless you're stopped.

 

+1. Good to know others do the same, I also usually side step rev match unless I feel lazy as hell like after a lot of city driving. Its smoother, you put less wear on your synchros, clutch, etc. It drives me nuts seeing people just jam it into a lower gear when entering a corner hard, usually the same people that bitch about grinding gears. I do it every chance I get because the more you do it and get used to rev matching without looking at the tach the faster you get, at least the way I see it.

 

Also adding to that I think its extremely important to be able to rev match properly when driving or racing an RX7 just because the engines' high RPM powerband. I know in my car I find myself pulling 6000rpm downshifts entering corners just to keep from falling out of the powerband when exiting. It helps when you have a slow car with not so much torque

 

Yeah, the way I learned, was by being my dad's chaufeur on long drives in his company Ford F150. The truck was just a work mule, (base V-6 5 speed), but it had some of the best placed pedals to practice heel-toe downshifts on. half of the time, we would drive out in the country and go about 80-90 then need to stop at a stop sign... so I revmatched and we srugged off speed very fast and very smooth, my dad ragged on me a few times when I was just begining, but eventualy he was very impressed with how fast I learned the technique..

 

^ weren't u in that initial D movie? ^

 

little pedals.. big feet i cant heel toe in my fb i have to toe.. sidefoot if i even want to try and even then its useless

 

Say whut now? Shure, I saw Initial D once... it was ok... but I have no clue what you're talking about there. Was that an attempt at a joke that I missed?

 

IIRC, this is a "safety feature" to keep drivers from accidentally hitting the throttle when they are jabbing the brakes. Kind of the "anti-heal/toe" setting. For most drivers, it is probably best that when they are in a panic situation, the first pedal they encounter will be the brake.

There were a series of "unintended acceleration" lawsuits a while back (against Audi?). At least some of these cases were attributed to people hitting the throttle instead of (or in addition to) the brakes due to the pedal layout.

-bill