Can you do heel-toeing in FD with stock steering wheel ?
 

Just as the title says. I'm about 6"2 tall and about 215lbs, and have big problems doing heel-toeing because of the big stock steering wheel. My legs are in the way :)

So do you change out for the smaller diameter steering wheel or do you have a way around it ? :D

I am 6'4" and approx 200 pounds and I can't reliably do it, I end up with my right knee in the steering column.

I'm about 6'1" and don't have any problems. However, it may just be my technique. I started with the sidestepping technique, but have since moved to using my heel on the brake and toe on the gas. So with my foot at about a 60 degree angle, it allows me to have my knee well to the right of the steering wheel. Hard to describe, but hope that helps a little.

TailHappy, I completely understand you, but I can't brake like that. I'm used to braking with left side of my foot and then blip the throttle with its right side - my foot is not banked or turned left of right (or at least not much) - if you know what I mean :)

I'm getting a 320mm or 350mm Momo wheel. What is the stock wheel diameter is anyone knows from their head ?

That's the direction I am moving to but so far am real uncomfortable with my heel on the brake. Past ankle injuries make this movement very difficult for me, whereas sidestepping is fine.

I have always wondered how to do this. I do the sidestepping technique. So, the other way to do it is to brake with your heel and blip with your toe? Or the other way around? How the hell do you modulate your braking pressure with your heel? I would go flying off of the road or lock up the brakes if I tried that.

Generally you brake with your toe and tap-dance your heel over. In the Spec7, thats what I do. Of course, I've got a backwards L shaped pedal, which makes it easier. In my street 7, because I have big feet and wear Van's shoes for the most part, I do the sidestepping routine. I think even if I wore my racing shoes I'd still have to sidestep because of the angle of the stock seat and larger diameter street wheel.

I'll tell you one thing: you won't learn how to do it and be badass the same day. You may even drop a tranny before you get really good at it. But, if you don't learn how to do it, you'll drop more tranny's. Six of one, half-a-dozen of the other, eh? :D

What is sidestepping technique ?

I use my thumb side of my right foot for braking and then blip the throttle with the other side of the foot.

Is this it ?

The Widefoot gas pedal extender thingy made it very easy to "heel and toe" (which is a misnomer since I use the right side of my driver's foot to blip the throttle) easy for me. I found it much more difficult before the pedal modification. PM WidefootRacing (I think that's his screen name) for purchasing details. The small model works great for me. Once you learn how to do it, you pretty much do it everywhere (track, street, wherever). :)

-Max

So you guys haven't ever run into trouble sidestepping the gas (you described it right, cruiser)? I started out that way since it seemed easier to get the feel for it, but once during hard braking when the brake pedal dropped farther than usual, I couldn't get my foot off the gas enough and it started over-revving...and the only way to stop was to let off the brake. Fortunately it was a situation where I just stopped braking to fix the problem, but I decided then to get used to heel-toeing.

I once read (maybe in the Skip Barber book) that your technique should depend on the car. Your toe, since it's most sensitive, should go on the most powerful pedal. So if you have a high-horsepower car, your toe should be on the gas, otherwise, it should be on the brake. I personally find that I'm more interested in a finesse movement of the throttle to get the revs right in comparison to a hamfisted application of the brake, so for me, the heel feels better on the brake.

As far as modulating the brake, I guess I'm just cheating since I have ABS to fall back on. But I love using the technique all the time, even if just pulling into a gas station, so I'm not always trying to threshhold brake. Guess I just find it good entertainment trying to perfect the technique.

Now, when you get bored of heel-toeing, try a heel-toe double-clutched downshift to really blow your mind the first few tries :D

The true mark of a true driver :) I practice on the street so that it becomes "normal" and then bring it to the track. My problem is that my ankle honestly hurts me due to past sports injuries and spending an afternoon at the track shifting all day gets to me.

I've found that left-foot braking has me less concerned with heel-toe these days. But the side-stepping technique usually works better for me. I found this helped a lot for me .... find a sneaker that has a wide sole. The "oops-I-slipped-off-the-accelerator" miss is no longer an issue with the 'new' mod. ;)

I actually use sidestepping in everyday life.
In 99% downshifts, I sidestep to do some rev-matching. And sure helps me on the track.

I don't think I could keep the current finnese with heel-toeing, turned either way. Maybe my heel is numb or something :D

I started with sidestepping, and kind developed a sidestep/ rollover technique. Sometimes I'll blip the throttle with my ankle.

Now i have a 87 T2, but im 6'4 225. Take your shoes off! That really helped me alot! I can not at all heal-toe with shoes on, cause of the back heal of the shoe, but without shoes its no problem at all. So give that a try, or if u dont want to buy expensive racing shoes which dont really have a heal, buy some cheap wrestling shoes:)

I'm glad I'm short...5' 7" (okay so I'm 5' 7 3/4 " or 5' 8" with shoes :D) and I have absolutely no problems with heel and toe driving in the FC or FD. Damn...you guys are really big!

I can heel-and-toe downshift in my 74 REPU no prob!!! Mazda got it right in that truck :)

5'11" 210lbs.

I haven't tried it, but have you guys looked into the D-shaped wheels, with the flat part on the bottom? Mazdaspeed sells (or used to sell) one.

Those things are probably a bitch to turn quickly if you need to move the wheel for more then 200-220degrees in one direction. They would rock if FDs had only had 1turn lock-to-lock.

Argh! Doesn't that piss you off to no end?! I'm starting to learn to roll my foot, but I feel like I'm learning a bad habbit. Typically in any other I'll do the correct heal-toe technique keeping your toe on the gas and heal to quickly blip the throttle each downshift.

Speaking of bad habbit, I actually used to downshift my auto Accord at ever downshift with my right foot while using the left for the brake (no clutch!) :D The auto shifter stick had every gear 1-4...too bad the car's dead now with it's second engine, go figure! :)

k, i'm a newb, so don't hurt me too much, but i thought the point of heel-toeing was a quicker double clutched downshift, but after readin gthat i guess not. So what exactly is the advantage? Besides being able to stress the gas and brake at the same time.

Soryr for the stupid question, i'm hoping eventually to start autoX and/or road racing, just trying to learn.

When you are downshifting you brake with the ball of your foot and blip the throttle with your heel. This matches the rpm of the engine to the speed you are going. When you let the clutch out when you begin to go into the turn it is a much smoother transition so as to not upset the traction of the car. Smoother you can be the faster you will go because you won't lose traction.

The Decompression of the engine will also aid in braking power on a straight. I made a thread about this a long time ago when I first got my car and the two ideas I got was bolting a racing seat to the frame (no sliders) and some trick little sparco steering wheel thing that makes it go a bit up I suppose. Since I allready probably don't fit in the car with a helmet anyways, the race seat option seems like a good idea. If anyone else has experience with this, come forth :)

yeah....to it's just a rev matching technique without the added bonus of a double clutch...i understand the smoothness concept, io just always associated rev matching with double clutching

use the widefoot adapter and all your problems will be solve:D

According to the skip barber book, one racer said you don't really have to double-clutch if you over-rev on your rev matching (and they were using syncro-less trannies). I guess there's always enough friction to get the gears moving. I had a bad tranny for a while, so it really let me know when I double-clutched and rev-matched correctly. Was great practice, but the credit card sure hurt a while after the new tranny was finally put in!

yeah, truth is double clutching is just so you can rev match the input shaft to the secondary shaft. modern transmissions just don't need this help. since there's no need to completely disengage the clutch on a modern syncro tranny downshift, the primary shaft "spins up" with your blip and you've killed two birds with one clutch....so to speak. it's still necessary to rev match though, to prevent the sudden engine braking from upsetting the car under heavy braking.

barber school "officially" teaches double clutching, but the instructors tell you to forget about it the moment they've stopped talking about it.

happy blipping
fabian

You sure about this? I'm not extremely familiar with trannies so I don't mean to question you other than for the sake of my understanding. However, when my synchros were bad, it would NOT go into gear without a properly matched double-clutch, whether upshifting OR downshifting. And even on my new tranny, you can feel that it goes right into gear a lot easier with a double-clutch....in other words, you can feel that you're not using the synchro as heavily.

Case in point. The most obvious to me is trying to shift from 2nd to 1st while still moving, say 10 or 20 mph.. Do it with just rev-matching, and you can feel the synchro working to spin up the shafts. Then do it with a double-clutch and it'll pop right in.

So bottom line, I can see where double-clutching isn't necessary with synchros, however it sure seems like it's a lot easier on them, and anything that'll make my golden tranny last longer is OK by me!

If you are double clutching on the upshifts aren't you going to have a slower lap time than if you weren't?

Double clutching on upshifts ? You don't need to IMHO... you already have higher rev-speed then it will be in higher gear.

Yeah, just to clarify, I'm talking about double-clutching upshifts on a tranny that was essentially destroyed. Bearings seized, bad synchros, etc. It got me by until I could get it replaced. But my point is that double-clutching made it work, but rev-matching didn't.

You're correct in that normally you'd never double-clutch an upshift, and I don't either now that I have a functioning tranny. However, it still seems easier on everything to double-clutch downshifts when possible.

And back to the original topic - what technique of heel-toeing do you recommend for FD with stock steering wheel ? I'll be going to track again in 10days and I want to practice a bit. Sidestepping doesn't work for me, as I move my knee towards the steering wheel because the brake pedal goes too deep to successfully brake and blip throttle.

Maybe I just need some wider gas pedal...

you'll never successfully heeltoe if the pedals are too far mismatched. if the brake pedal is "too deep" than you need to resolve that problem first. a wider gas pedal helps. i personally use the side of my foot for blipping, not the heel....but that's just my preference.

get your pedals adjusted, than use whatever technique works consistenly for u.

good luck
fabian

Can the brake pedal height be adjusted ?

No one knows anything on that sparco wheel hub thingamabob? Anyone in here bolt a low sitting racing seat?

Chronos, I didn't understand your question: Are you asking about if you get more room from a Sparco wheel? I do in my Celica, which has a Sparco 383 in it, because it's smaller. MUCH harder to see certain sections of the speedo, though. :)

Also, I guess I don't understand how rev-matching with the clutch pressed in makes any difference at all. With the engine disconnected from the input(?) shaft, you're not getting any spin-up. I fail to see how anything short of a double-clutching heel-toe provides any benefit. :confused:

Hey, look! First post! :)

Keep in mind SYNCHRO transmissions don't need this help. A non-synchro race box (dog box, crash box, etc) will need to be double clutched on the downshifts or you're going to need a lot of gearboxes!

what is a dog box exactly? the teeth on the gears are not helical but rather straight right?

i thought dog boxes don't even need the clutch to be disengage... u just ram it in there.

I am 6' - 0" 185. Heal toe was a bitch. I had to lean to use my heal on the brake and use the ball of my foot to blip the gas when double clutching on down shift. I have since changed to a Sparco Completion steering wheel and a wide foot small gas pedal adaptor. I also bent my brake pedal a bit. No prob now.

Bent brake pedal ? :D
Can you post some pics ?

I should be getting my new Momo wheel in 2weeks or so. Can't wait!

Which gas pedal adaptor did you use ? I think I'll just get one from Momo also...

Typically the teeth are straight as you said but "dog" refers to how the gear is engaged. I can't find a good pic but the dogs inside the gearbox which lock the selected gear to the shaft are much stronger and completely different in design than a synchro. Compared to a synchro tranny a dog box is noisier, harder to shift for "normal" drivers and must be double clutched to downshift. In return the dog box is much stronger, shifts quicker and normally is easier to disassemble for ratio changes.

You know what it sounds like when you backwards at about 25mph, right? Immagine that noise ALL the time when you're driving...don't even think about straight gears unless you're not planning to drive your car on the street.

try taking shoes off! The bottom cushion of the shoe gets in the way

No way I am driving bare footed :D

then buy racing shoes, or for cheaper u can prob get yourself a pair of wrestling shoes, they work pretty much the same:)

Don't be silly :D

I have good shoes for racing with minimum bottom cushion. Its just the fact that I'm a big guy. FD was probably meant for midgets :) But that won't keep me away ;)

I have the same problem. Never had this problem in my old FCs or BMW, bu the cockpit on the FD is small. I'm going to get a smaller wheel - either a 350mm Momo or I might try the one of the D shaped Sparco wheels. The Sparco wheel might block some of the gauges though. Need to check that out.

I can still heel-toe with the balls of my feet on the brake and my heel modulating throttle, but it is annoying especially in a tight turn with my hands hitting my thigh while turning...

Alberto, I know where you're coming from. I have same problem, except that I use sidestepping technique for downshifts. I also need to adjust the brake pedal after I change my brake fluid. I think it goes in too deep.

Just got my FD back (FINALLY!) and I performed a number of heel-toes tonight. Do you guys get a chirp when you release the clutch after you've blipped? Maybe I'm not blipping hard enough...it is quite a hastle with that steering wheel in the way, and I downshift quite fast.

I'm currently following another thread about installing a racing seat onto the floor of the RX-7 so it sits much lower than the stock seat. I think this is the answer, and it will also give me better visibility out of the windshield as well probably. :)

Done correctly neither the tires or tranny will lurch, that's the whole point.