I've been driving a manual since before I got my license (circa 2001, IIRC), and regularly practicing heel-toe downshifting in daily driving since about 2006. Even so, I recently participated in the two-day Porsche Sport Driving School and picked up a few pointers from the instructors that have certainly helped improve my driving and shifting in particular. So I figured I'd pop in and see if I can offer any help.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DriftFreak
Thanks for the replies. When you brake how do you know when to clutch in or do you clutch in the moment you hit the brake pedal? I try to clutch in at the last possible moment, which gets harder in higher gears as I don't know how low of a speed they can go without damaging the transmission.
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For the longest time, I had been clutching-in too early. I'd downshift and coast when approaching a stop, but generally throw both feet down (brake and clutch) at about the same time when I got ready to actually stop. That's something the PSDS folks slapped me around for. At least for heavy, track-style braking, they said it was much better to brake hard and then clutch-in as you start to taper off the brake, or when the engine speed drops to ~1500rpm, whichever comes first. Now, I generally don't clutch-in until I'm almost completely stopped.
Of course, don't ask me the
reason for why they made that recommendation... they had one, but I can't for the life of me remember what it was.
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Originally Posted by Simon99
I wanna learn to hell toe that bitch. Am i in the good thread ?
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The best advice I can give on learning heel-toe is to practice while sitting still. Go through all the motions with the car stopped and idling. Getting the timing down is critical, and it's a lot easier to practice that when you don't also have to worry about stopping or dodging ditches.
Firstly, you need to figure out how much pressure it takes to correctly (and repeatedly) blip the throttle up to ~3000rpm without fumbling with the clutch or shifting or steering or any of that other driving stuff. With the car idling in neutral and your foot on the brake pedal, practice stretching the outside of your foot over to the accelerator and quickly blipping it. You don't need to be smooth, and you don't need to sustain it, just concentrate on how much movement is needed to consistently jump the tach needle to ~3000rpm. Yes, you'll look like a tool sitting alone in a parking lot revving your engine, but you'll feel like The Stig once you get this sorted.
Once you've got the accelerator movement down, it's time to work on timing - the most critical part. There are essentially three steps, or rather groups of actions:
1) Braking and clutch-in.
2) Throttle blip and gear change.
3) Clutch-out.
The clutch pedal part is pretty easy, so you don't necessarily have to practice that while sitting still. I'd focus on getting your right foot and right hand to work together. Start out stationary, with the clutch depressed and the gearshift in third. Apply pressure to the brake. Practice moving the gearshift smoothly from third to second, blipping the throttle as the lever moves through neutral territory. Do it quickly, but don't rush it - concentrate on being fluid. Speed will come with time.
Once you've got the hang of those movements you can start working on it while moving, bringing the clutch work into the picture. Once more, the process is (1) brake firmly, and push the clutch in; (2) downshift and blip the throttle simultaneously; (3) smoothly (but quickly!) let the clutch out. The goal with that last step should be to release the clutch before the revs fall back down. And keep in mind that your rev-matching doesn't necessarily have to be perfect - really any RPM above idle/coast will be beneficial for smooth downshifting.
One last note on the subject of heel-toe: it's not mandatory. Hell, it's not even necessary 98% of the time. Even the Porsche instructors (all of whom were current or retired professional racers) said so. It's a nice little bonus when you can nail it just right, but the far more important part of the puzzle is the
braking. If you fumble the downshift, worst case there's jarring feeling and a slight momentary loss of traction. If you screw up the braking, you might end up in a ditch or another car's rear end.
Always make sure that braking is your number one priority.
I've tried my best to put my process into words; I hope it can be helpful to some of you. Feel free to ping me if you have further questions or need better words.
