N80

I've been going to the track for about a year now. I've learned to heel-toe when downshifting. Most of the time it works well but sometimes it really goes south.

The problem I have is that I cannot actually heel-toe with this car's pedals. Instead I push on the brake with the inside part of my foot and roll it over to blip the gas with the outside part of my foot.

This method has a couple of inherent problems. First, since I'm braking primarily with the inside ball of my foot, in hard braking it doesn't feel like I can brake as hard as I could with my whole foot. Second, more than once my foot has slipped off the brake. It has never cause an incident but it has made me overshoot a turn just a little and have to take it wide.

Third, because the outside part of my foot is hanging off the brake pedal and overlapping the throttle there have been a couple of times under hard braking that my foot catches the throttle pedal as I depress the brake and both get depressed at the same time causing the engine to rev. Clutch is in so no harm other than getting rattled and messing up the turn.

So I'm curious, how do you guys heel toe in this car? Do any of you have a modified pedal set up? Do I just need to practice more or do I need to start over and try to learn to blip the gas with my heel.....I've tried and tried and just can't seem to make that work.

Any thoughts, advice or benefit of experience much appreciated.

mhoward1

You are basically on the right path. A lot of the way each person learns it depends on the length and width of your foot and the flexibility of your ankle.

One thing that I find that helps in some cars is placing my heel on the transmission tunnel and seeing if I can rotate my foot enough to have the full ball of my foot on the brake. I have pretty good rotation on my ankles and I wear a size 12 shoe so I have a lot of foot surface area to play around with. I will say though that most Z’s have the brake pedal too low and it makes it harder to do H/T. In the perfect world you build the pedal box to match you and your style, not change your style to match the car. That is not the real world though and in some cars you just can’t do H/T no matter how good you are at it. I think several people here have modified their pedal boxes.

Quick pointer for those just starting out though. Do your throttle blip right before letting your clutch out vs. when you change the gear. Modern syncro’s will do just fine in getting the gears lined up, but a good rev match at clutch release will keep the chassis settled and reduce drive train shock.

Highway Riding

iTrader: (6)

380RS pedal!

Naut

iTrader: (13)

^
Look into the 380RS pedal if you can, it made it a lot easier to heel-toe in the Z.
Before getting it, or driving anyone else's car, I find myself having to heel-toe like described in this video.
With the 380rs I can actually do it the way the video says not to (I don't really think there is a wrong way...), but still completely smooth during track conditions.

Sounds like you already have it down most of the time so maybe the extended area on an aftermarket/380rs pedal will help mitigate the brake/throttle overlapping in your case.

This is how I do it with the 380rs pedal.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKuqC...tailpage#t=27s

03threefiftyz

iTrader: (25)

I added the sparco gas pedal...offset it a bit to make things easier.

reserved

iTrader: (18)

Come to this event at VIR in September and we'll teach you

http://www.motorsportreg.com/index.c...0A4579FED1E812

Z1NONLY

iTrader: (2)

I actually overshoot the revs a little and (try to) catch the "match" point when the revs are just starting on the way down.

This seems to have simplified the coordination aspect of it for me because I am only braking when I let the clutch up. (The throttle blip is just a momentary "stab" with my heel)

I sort of avoid the issue of trying to operate three pedals with "precision". My crude approximation of precision only happens when I bring the clutch up. My ears and eyes guesstimate when the motor and road speed are in sync and thus when to bring up the clutch.

Even though overshooting (and waiting for the revs to come down) adds a little time to the process, I think I have managed to compensate for this by stabbing the throttle a tad early.

Junkster

iTrader: (3)

I found this video to be extremely helpful

[youtube]45k-obyB5wg[/youtube]

Duckeee

iTrader: (7)

its all on the technique and often times how the pedals are placed on the car for me. i find it pretty easy in the Z compared to a lot of the higher end european cars i drive at work.

Voboy

iTrader: (58)

Modify the pedals so that the work better for you. The oem gas pedal has holes so you can easily get a slim piece of aluminum to bolt to it. Or 380rs/r34 pedal

N80

Naut, I do it exactly like the top video shows.

Z1NONLY, I think I pretty much do it the same way..at least the part about slightly over revving and letting the clutch out when it sounds/feels right. I do not feel any shock to the drive line so it must work okay.

Thanks guys for the reference to the 380rs pedal. I may give it a try.

One thing that bothers me about the stock aluminum pedals is that they seem very slippery to me. I think they've gotten slick with use. I think that might be why it feels less secure with hard braking. Wonder if I roughed them up a little if they'd be less slippery. Or maybe I could add some non-slip tape?

Another thing I have observed is that I can do this better with a running shoe than with a narrow toed shoe. I'd like to try a driving shoe but most of them look too narrow.

Finally, has anyone tried bending the metal shaft the brake pedal is on to move it closer to the gas pedal?

Z1NONLY

iTrader: (2)

I forgot to mention:

The amount of brake-pedal force I am applying is inversely proportional the the amount of "finesse" I have with my heel/toes.

While I consider my heel-toe technique to be a bit crude, it is much better than when I had HPS pads with less bite than stock.

Late braking required a lot of "leg" and greatly seemed to hamper fine motor skills with my ankle.

After upgrading to HP+ pads which require much less force, my heel-toeing improved noticeably.

mhoward1

IMHO, always modify the gas or clutch and not the brake. If the gas pedal breaks you can still stop, if a brake pedal fails things go wrong really fast.

N80

Me too. Approaching turn one at CMP is where I tend to make the most mistakes.

Marty, excellent point! I had not thought about it that way.

Steven Sampaga

LOL i was thinking about this heel toe XD

NoQuestionZ

iTrader: (93)

Shoes help alot OP. I had some "driving shoes" with a rounded heel, but there was no material in the "arch" area of the foot, so there was no where to put my shoe, just the material where my foot was. My buddy drives in "skater" shoes (DCs) and he just smashes the brake and touches the throttle on the way in.

When I drive to work and Im wearing my flippy floppies I can do the "R34 vid" version really well, I dont suggest tracking barefoot! I do both at about 50% effectiveness.

Another thing (MY MAJOR DRAWBACK) is not braking late enough/hard enough. While spirited driving I dont push any limits, so there is no need for me to 100% brakes on in order to effectively heel toe. At the track(where there is room for error like you said) you just go a little wide or dont have the line you want.

Im at work and this makes me want to go practice!

*insert "Okay" sad face meme

N80

I've looked at a few different driving shoes and the toe boxes of many of them look too narrow. However, Piloti makes a number of driving shoes (not racing boots, no Nomex) that look like they have a wider toe box and even some built up tread area on the edges of the toe box specifically for heel toe.

They don't cost any more than a decent pair of sneakers so I might give them a try. And they don't look too bad either.....if you don't mind looking like a 15 year old Italian kid.

I can imagine getting ribbed about Piloti shoes at my next NASA event....

PDX_Racer

iTrader: (2)

I've tried several different methods, the one that works best for me in the Z didn't work well in a formula car nor in my old SpecV.

In the Z, I tend to use a very classic style -- using the outside of my foot. My knee also moves which helps get a larger blip (part of this is due to nerve damage to my right leg in an auto accident a number of years ago).

In the formula car, I found that I can "reach over" the brake pedal with my toes and blip the throttle by curling my toes.