Having difficulty heel toe

[Coheed]

My favorite car to heel-toe in was my Ford Festiva when I was in college. I bought it so my nice car wouldn't get banged up on campus. That festiva got a 5 speed swap from the newer aspire... I drove it every day like the Italian Job. I miss that old piece of crap.

[roflcopter]

So, sorry in advance to bring this thread back from the dead, but I figured it was better than creating a new one for the same question. I am not new to driving manual, but I have always just double clutched to downshift (not exactly a need to race going to work in the morning). My question really is if I sign up for NASA and do a local HPDE event, will my instructor have time/be able to show me how to heel-toe? I know I will need to practice a lot but I want to be shown in person the correct way to do something before I develop a bad habit teaching myself the wrong way. Thanks!

[GTB/ZR-1]

He could show you how he does it (people have different methods), but you probably won't be able to apply it, as it takes plenty of practice to do it correctly in the heat of battle, and the consequences of doing it improperly on track could be, uh.... Not good... Lol

[xwd]

On a track I'm pretty good with actually swinging my heel over since I have time to prepare and it's repetitive doing multiple laps.

I need more practice with autocross, I usually end up screwing something up like braking too much.

[Amadeus]

This wider gas pedal helps a lot:
http://www.srpracing.com/cat-fr-s.cfm

There was a thread on the forum but it's not active anymore.

[track_warrior]

You are not double clutching like you should newbie lol. I keed I keed.

I actually find the FR-S to be one of the easiest cars to heel & toe with. Now the Evo X was a pain in the ass to heel & toe with because of the tiny accelerator and how spaced apart the pedals were and the huge throttle delay, trust me man you are in heaven compared to many other cars.

[iLuveKetchup]

Originally Posted by lordtakuban

I also use the outside portion of my foot rather than an actual heel and a toe. Practice with it is all you need. Just keep working on it.

This came up on another forum.. copying & pasting my response.

While there is no one-way to heel toe, I really have to discourage people from braking with just the side/edge of their foot. Your foot can easily slip and it would be in the worst possible situation -- corner entry. IMO, braking takes priority so you should have as much footing on the pedal as possible. Just IMHO.

Here's video of my heel toe (0:34) at a local autocross.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndMP_Nvbikc&feature=g-upl"]NNJR PCA 8/19/12 - 60.936 - YouTube[/ame]

[ST185RC]

Originally Posted by iLuveKetchup

While there is no one-way to heel toe, I really have to discourage people from braking with just the side/edge of their foot. Your foot can easily slip and it would be in the worst possible situation -- corner entry. IMO, braking takes priority so you should have as much footing on the pedal as possible. Just IMHO.

Agreed 100%, favoring brake over smooth rev-matches. I don't "heel-toe" per se, I plant the ball of my foot on the brake so I get a good solid brake pedal contact and use it as my pivot. However else you can blip the throttle do it so that it's comfortable. For me, it's the right side of my foot. You can almost say I fat-foot the brake and gas. I barely twist my leg to blip the throttle for rev matching.

All I have to say about "heel-toe'ing" in the FR-S requires a bit more throttle as there's a very slight delay or deadspot in the accelerator travel so I have to mash it a tiny bit harder. When I first got the FR-S I noticed this right away when I had to blip the throttle a second time to have the RPMs climb enough.

Not something I was used to coming from all my previous cars driven by throttle cable. Now that I've driven the car a while, it's more natural and I can heel-toe rev-match perfectly 99% of the time. When I switch back to my Rav4 and I heel-toe, I slightly over-rev due to habit of driving the FR-S and direct throttle response vs DBW.

Love my first gen Rav4 btw.

[gmookher]

Adjust brake pedal height, problem solved. Was it a 17mm wrench? Takes two minutes, makes life so much better for the toe in heel toe...

[Gixxersixxerman]

I like the fact that my auto does it for me

That said.. I never could do a proper heel toe, close but like the op, I never quite got the revs high enough

[GTB/ZR-1]

Good footwork, ketchup--I only LFB 2 pedal cars.

My heel/toe varies per car, it seems. If the pedals are well-spaced/even height @ max braking, I do the method of 'straddling' the gas & brake. If the pedals aren't ideal, I use ketchups method. I drive all different types of cars @ some events, so it pays to be flexible lol

[Howardwei]

I have been getting better on heel toe and rev match. but usually i would be missing 2-300 rpm over and under. should i stop doing it? because occasionally i smelled something like a hot burning metal but then it goes away very first its happened twice before