Having difficulty heel toe
 

I'll start off by saying I'm definitely no pro. In the past I have been able to heel toe in a focus and civic si though. Even if they weren't the smoothest of shifts I was always able to get the revs up. In the BRZ I am having a hard time, when I twist my foot to hit the throttle it seems I can't hit it very much. The revs hardly rise, I'm so frustrated because it seems in the si I couldn't miss the pedal now I can't seem to find it :(

Put your foot on the gas, then pivot your toe over to find the brake. Depress gas. (do this car off). Rinse and repeat a bunch to establish some muscle memory. They drive it like that all the time. I heel toe on every downshift, and I downshift every gear at every stop. You have to build up comfort and familiarity to be able to to it well.

Remember- there is no one correct foot position. You do what is comfortable for you works for the car.

I also find braking with just the big toe works best, especially on modern cars.

I'll often twitch my whole leg just to get enough throttle if I have to.

The big trick is to be able to always fully control and modulate the amount of braking force consistently while heel & toeing. Little lifts On the brake while doing it are no good.

If need be, practice in a safe, empty parking lot until you get the reflex down pat. Every car's a bit different but I'm sure you'll get it real quick if you can find a good place to practice. :)

There are loads of examples on Youtube, watch a bunch and try and identify one that works with the pedals of the BRZ and matches how you preferred to roll/move your feet with the Civic and Focus.

If it takes some time, no worries. If you've done it before, you can do it again :)

If you believe everything you read here (and I am NOT referring to the folks above me, they're completely sensible and helpful) all driving techniques are mastered in 15 mins. Funnily enough that isn't the case.

this would be a good starting vid :)

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8By2AEsGAhU"]Ayrton Senna's Heel-and-toe - YouTube[/ame]

Yeah I'm having the same problem, I think it will get better once the brakes pads have worn down some. It's also a lot easier to heel toe on a track since you are always hard on the brakes, on the street when you are barely braking it is tougher.

I found that I need to wear wider slippers to do it in a way that's in the video above (blip throttle by rolling the outside of the foot onto the gas pedal) during street driving. In narrow shoes I can only do it literally with my heel.

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.

just remember that the more important action during this operation is the BRAKING. make darn sure that your foot isn't going to slide off the brake pedal when you rotate to hit the throttle.

Between racing cars and teaching others to race I've found that some approach to this technique can also have a lot to do with the car.

Example: In my old street car I used to "roll my foot over". The ball of my foot on the brake and the outside of my shoe (5th metatarcel) would hit the gas. In my race car, since I push down the brake very hard and am slowing the car very fast I need more revs SOONER and thus I hit the gas pedal with my actual heel. And finally.. When I used to own an S2000 I would do both. In street driving, I would never be entering a corner like I would on the race track so I would just generally "roll the foot" but if I tracked the S2000 I would use my heal as I was harder on the brake.

Give it time. Keep at it. I also need to add; during street driving I general don't heal toe, I double clutch to reduce unecessary wear on synchros/clutch.

And just to really make things difficult... my 70 year old father who occassionally co-drives my race car actually does both!!! He heal-toe, double clutches while racing. Boggles the mind! :P

I gave up on heel toe years ago with my big feet and screwed up ankle. I can usually half and half it sometimes for a quick rev match with no problems and that's about it.

heel toe + double clutch just takes time. i can do it fine, however i'm (obviously) doing quicker downshifts with only heel-toe.

That was sort of my point. I can heel-toe-double-clutch but on a race car that has synchros.... Well, you get the point.

My Adidas Adi Racers just bit the dust, and I was looking for a new track shoe. I've always enjoyed driving in my loafers, so if loafers and white socks are good enough for Senna, they're good enough for me! :D

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. :)

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!

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

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.

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.

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.

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]

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.

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...

I like the fact that my auto does it for me :party0030::scared0016:

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

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

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