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That's how you drive an F1 F355! Love the fact that you can and should blip the throttle on the 355 F1 makes it more engaging than the 360 onwards F1.
that is pretty amazing..! I blip the throttle regularly on down shifts on my manual car, with throttle input only.. but when I try to do an actual "heel toe" action.. I seem to mess it up all the time.. I cannot get my foot to keep the same pressure on brake while attempting to blip throttle.. the end result I just end up pushing/jamming on the break harder as I try to roll the side of my foot onto the throttle lol.. so the F355 F1 TCU was not engineered to blip on downshifts on its own..? or does/will it at certain RPM..? it seems it has to be timed exactly/perfectly when pulling the downshift lever.. if not it seems could cause more harm then good..? would love to try a 355 F1.. those shifts up and down seem plenty fast to me..!
I had similar issues and found that I could really only do it well if driving the car very hard and braking very hard which then puts the brake pedal on a similar plane as the throttle making it much easier to do.
Don't literally use your "heel and toe"- try ball of foot and side of foot. In a 355 make sure more narrow shoes. When warm enough wear flip flops to the car, the drive barefoot. Heel/toe (ball and side of foot) makes you one with the car and you'll never want to be without a manual Ferrari in your stable
The 355 is the BEST car that I've experienced for heel/toe even on the street. Sound, pedal distance and it's a Ferrari! To be fast on any track with a 3-padal you must master this dying art/skill of driving. Not something I would recommend practicing of F cars if you're not familiar and also to be safe I only do it from 4th, 3rd, 2nd. These gated shifters are older and just imagine going from 5th to 2nd at high speed. Money shift, as they say.
Fantastic. People who say the 355 F1 system isn't engaging enough, either haven't driven one or aren't driving it properly. Timing the throttle blips is great fun !
Yes, pedal placement is perfect. More of rolling your foot over, hinging it on the brake pedal. So much fun
That's why my Challenge car has a R-1-2 lockout. 1st and 2nd gears aren't generally used on the track. Once I get underway and I'm in 3rd gear, I flip the lockout plate down. I flip it up once I've pitted in and I'm headed for the garage... . Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Pedal location is fine on the 550 Maranello, but brake pedal travel precludes safe heel toeing. I solved that problem by adding a 1 centimeter spacer under the brake pedal... . Image Unavailable, Please Login
I'm on my phone but when I get to a computer I'll check out the orig poster's F1 video. All of these ferraris (355, 550) are very much driver's cars that have that special something missing from the perfected modern cars, with all the pluses and minuses which that entails
Years ago I bought a modified throttle pedal that makes rolling off the brake to the throttle even easier. Don' t have a great picture but you get the idea. Sorry IPad inverts pictures Image Unavailable, Please Login
Same thing here. Under normal stoplight light braking, the whole manoeuvre becomes an awkward mess for me... throttle pedal isn't at the same level as the brake pedal, and apart from the lateral movement, foot also needs to be angled to reach it. This results in a fairly uncommon (and certainly suboptimal) footwork I've resolved that heel & toe makes sense and is fun only when I go out for some spirited driving, rather than A-to-B commuting. Then again, that's my personal opinion... I assume there are some die-hard fans out there that enjoy executing it even in traffic jams!
Actually you are right because of the dynamics of HT and when you are supposed to use it. The goal in racing is going as fast as you can usually at higher to near redline most of the time and threshold braking. That means at threshold braking your brake pedal and throttle need to be near level. If you can HT great at street speeds you will probably not have optimum positions at race speeds. That's why Barry is right about the 550 where you gotta have that 1cm thicker brake pedal. As a racer I have to HT and transfer to left foot braking too since I trail brake alot. Try that without upsetting your chassis. This is why you lucky guys with a F1 gearbox are seconds faster than those with 3 pedals and why 3 pedals is going the way of the dinosaur. In fact even slushbox automatics shifting slower than F1/DCT are now beating 3 pedal cars as the autos car getting faster and rev match down shifts. If you are 0.1secs faster per turn because of the F1 gearbox then you are 2 secs/lap faster as your average track like CoTA.
This is how I drive my 355 F1. There was a thread arguing that you didn't need to blip and that the F1 system does it for you. IMO the people holding that position don't know how to drive spiritedly and aren't pushing their cars hard enough to see the benefits.
Barry - thanks for sharing the lock-out plate. I'll look this up as I'm interested even for street use if the switch is an easy flip back/forth. Is there a specific site I should look?
Joe, My gate lock-out was fabricated years ago when the car was raced. It's just a piece of thin sheet metal with a curved extension/handle on a piano hinge. Originally, it was a R-1 lock-out which I had converted to a R-1-2 lock-out with a thin sheet metal overlay secured by three Allen fasteners. Hill Engineering sells a R-1 lock-out. Classic Coach and Independent Ferrari Service have R-1 lock-outs which they've had made for their customers with F355 Challenge cars. I've seen both and they're similar to mine and could be easily converted. Barry . Image Unavailable, Please Login
One drive in a 355 F1 and I could tell the throttle needs to be blipped for downshifts. I don't think any car with an old-school cable throttle can do this for you. I blip the gas pedal on my F1 for every single downshift. The car needs to be driven with the mindset of a manual transmission. Otherwise, the clutch will go FAST.
Yes agree totally. My feeling is most clutch wear is due to reverse and stop and go traffic. As Dave said trying to get clutch to engage asap and then idling while engaged is a good thing. Having the computer continually slip it is a bad thing. Just common sense and as said above drive it like a manual and good clutch life will be the norm. My feeling is original owners, when these were new, drove them like an auto transmission and they got a bad rap the first few years.
100% in agreement, Grant. I've never once blipped my F1 on a downshift and the clutch is like new. The F1 system shifts so fast that the revs really don't drop significantly on a downshift.
In a car with a manual gearbox, I would use the heel 'n' toe method of down-shifting. In a car with an F1 transmission though, I would just use left foot braking.
