Officially suck at heel toeing

[chuddsy]

Ever since I learned to drive stick i always downshifted and slowed down by pressing lightly on the brake and downshifting while slowly releasing the clutch. I've recently gotten into autocrossing and thinking about taken my car to the racedays with my friends. So i figured i'd better learn how to heel toe. I tried to practice at the local college parking lot...and well I suck. I'm sure it will take practice. But damn it i want to be a pro already haha jk. Anybody else out there heel toe and how are you at in now and how long has it taken?

[CanyonDriver]

yes i heel toe all the time, and it took about a day to get used to. just brake with the ball of your foot and blip the rmps up a bit with the side of your foot, and dont over think it.

[NHBPBiznitch]

hard part is finding somewhere to dick around and learn

[Sirbelch]

I can heel toe when driving with lots of spirit in the twisties, but I suck at it aound town.

[NHBPBiznitch]

twisties?

[Sirbelch]

Moutain roads.

[pkkid]

Practice makes perfect! I Heel Toe or just regular RPM match every downshift. Good practice and sounds sick. The throttle blips sound good from outside the car.

[emile]

Originally Posted by pkkid

Practice makes perfect! I Heel Toe or just regular RPM match every downshift. Good practice and sounds sick. The throttle blips sound good from outside the car.

thats what ive been doing. i think making rev-matching second nature helps a great deal with perfecting the heel toe. my feet are a too big for the space alotted between the pedals so i do the BOF/RSOF (ball of foot/right side of foot) method. they even make pedals for that.

as for the twisties, my drive to work on the weekends takes me through an uphill downhill mix which is fun to drive in the wee hours of the morning. hehe. i feel like itsuki practicing, lol.

[hc806]

jus a question... i am VERY new to manual driving... im just wondering... what is the point of heel toe'ing?

[j'sFG2]

^^heel toe-ing's purpose is to get car in the right gear while braking before making a turn, so you can apply acceleration through the apex of the turn.

i heel toe a lot in everyday driving, i have it to where i do without thinking, the trick is foot placement, try positioning the ball of your foot on the right edge of the brake pedal with your heel off the floor. Next, kinda roll your foot over (almost like you sprain your ankle) to blip the throttle to the right rev and down shift and let out the clutch.

[Gonzo]

Have you become proficient at normal rev matching? If not you've got to get that down first.

Heel toe is not easy to learn, and it does take pratice. It is also tough because you will try to practice it in normal driving but that is the hardest time because you are generally braking lightly. Heel toe is much easier to practice while braking aggresively so find a nice big parking lot or low traffic section of country road or something.

Go easy the first times. Try it slow (even though heel toe'ing slow will be sloppy since it is not meant to be done slow) just to get the motion and timing down. Keep practicing. Remember if you get "lost" just put the clutch in and gearshift to neutral. Rev to the rpm's to 10x whatever your speedo reads and then put it in 3rd to start over.

[chuddsy]

See my problem isnt being able to blip the throttle...its being able to break slightly while blipping the throttle. I end up pushing too hard on the breaks too suddenly as i turn my heel on the throttle creating a very unpleasant unsmooth ride. I can easily blip the throttle while im practicing at a light with my foot on the brakes, but at that point the brakes pedal is all the way down..

[Brewboy74]

Heel toe shifting is for aggressive track driving, it can be used in daily driving stituations but thats for someone who has been doing it for a long time and its second nature. So do as the previous poster stated and try being more aggresive with the brake and you will pick it up faster. Besides, you are wanting to learn it for the track anyways.........you won't be lightly braking there.

[Gonzo]

Just another note. You mentioned autocross. For most autocross courses you won't ever need to downshift. Usually you just shift into second before or after the first turn and you are there for the rest of the course. Usually shifting eats more time than just staying in gear.

Some organizations do long straights that let you get into third but not many since that's not really in the spirit of an autocross.

[jdmhondafreak]

Originally Posted by Gonzo

Just another note. You mentioned autocross. For most autocross courses you won't ever need to downshift. Usually you just shift into second before or after the first turn and you are there for the rest of the course. Usually shifting eats more time than just staying in gear.

Some organizations do long straights that let you get into third but not many since that's not really in the spirit of an autocross.

very true also although it is more of a drivers preference i seem to like thinner shoes like chucks, give more of a feel of the pedals also if you have wide enough feet or where vans, or some wide shoes,(that make your feet look swollen) you can just use the inside of your foot, or left side of your right foot to apply brake while you use the outside of your right foot to blip the throttle. this is what i did when first learning to heel and toe, now i do it like the guys up there do it, good luck be patient and practice

[DTNguyen107]

I dunno about others but I got tons of foot muscle spasms when I was learning how to heel toeing.

Just keep practicing

[Adlh29]

All my asian friends can do heel - toe but my feet are so big that it's near impossible for me.

[Gonzo]

Originally Posted by jdmhondafreak

very true also although it is more of a drivers preference i seem to like thinner shoes like chucks, give more of a feel of the pedals also if you have wide enough feet or where vans, or some wide shoes,(that make your feet look swollen) you can just use the inside of your foot, or left side of your right foot to apply brake while you use the outside of your right foot to blip the throttle. this is what i did when first learning to heel and toe, now i do it like the guys up there do it, good luck be patient and practice

Absolutely. Thin wide shoes are fantastic. You get more precise control and much more feel. I had an awful time driving with my hybrid tennis shoes/timberland type deals the other day. I was soo used to my somewhat thin tennis shoes. I was definitely revving too much since I wasn't used to their thickness and I could no longer feel the clutch very well.


I tried driving barefoot once. Brake and gas were ok. Clutch was not. I could feel the clutch better than ever before but I can't modulate it properly unless my foot is on the floor and since skin can't slide over the pedal, I would have had to hover my foot in the air when I wanted to use it, that just doesn't work for me.

I'd love to get some proper driving shoes myself. There are a few threads where people recommend them but seeing how picky I am about how a shoe feels I definitely could never order them online.

[chuddsy]

Originally Posted by Gonzo

Just another note. You mentioned autocross. For most autocross courses you won't ever need to downshift. Usually you just shift into second before or after the first turn and you are there for the rest of the course. Usually shifting eats more time than just staying in gear.

Some organizations do long straights that let you get into third but not many since that's not really in the spirit of an autocross.

Great even better. i thought id be doing a lot of down shifting before the turns. But i guess the parking lot tracks arent big enough for that. But ill keep practicing for the "just because i can do it" factor.

[KingMarineM16a4]

I took me over a year to get down. It's no easy and i'm far from perfection at heel-toeing. All the time is not necessary but every now and then to have fun is greatness.