Do you Heel & Toe?

how many H&T downshifts can u guys do in sequence coming into a tight turn from a long straight? 4-3-2 back to back in a few secs?

how many of you rev match to downshift even when no braking is involved? i do it all the time.

 

I ALWAYS double clutch when downshifting.

Double clutching makes it unnecessary sometimes to heel and toe when slowing down, but I do sometimes double clutch and heel and toe. That's still a little challenging for me though

 

Do your gears grind if you don't double clutch? I'm not sure what the point is unless you've got straight cut gears and no syncromesh. Why do you do it?

 

Yeah, I do it.

"Hi, my name is Dubai and I heel and toe."

"Hi Dubai!"

"Sometimes I also double clutch...."

"It's OK Dubai, you're among friends."

"I know it's not strictly necessary, but it does save wear on the synchos...."

"C'mon Dubai, stop making excuses!"

"Hey, it's good practice for if I ever get a Hewland dog-clutch box...

"Sounds like somebody is in denial!"

Ok fine , I LIKE it, alright? When the shift lever slips smoothly into gear with almost no resistance, like a woman who is ready, well, there's not many feelings better than that! There, I said it."

Get on a 12-step program to learn to heel and toe and double clutch. You'll be glad you did.

 

I try to heel-toe whenever I'm driving the F-car or one of the Jags. It's really not that difficult. Most people use too much of their foot on the brake pedal, which makes getting to the gas pedal difficult and awkward. Best to use only the ball of the foot, or even just the big toe. Doing that also makes it easier to control the amount of pressure on the brake pedal to assure that you are not locking up. With pressure on the ball of the foot or the big toe, it's then easy to roll the side of the foot over and blip the gas.

 

That's a much better response than the one I was expecting.

("I heard the guy on Fast and Furious talking about it, and thought it sounded really hard core.")

 

You do it to match the rpms of the engine to the anticipated rev level in the lower gear. Especially when you are on the track and pushing your car's balance and tires to their limit, suddenly slowing the rear wheels when you let the clutch out can break the rear end loose and cause you to spin out. To maintain control of the car and keep it balanced, you have to do this. Also, at speed, if you let the clutch out in a downshift, you can seriously overstress the engine, transmission and clutch. You also want to assure that the internal shafts in the transmission are spinning at the right speeds. Double clutching (or for that matter just blipping the throttle with the clutch pedal down) brings the engine speed up so you avoid throwing the car out of balance.

 

You don't have to double clutch to do that. Just rev matching does the same thing. I rev match while shifting gears (I don't double clutch). Always a smooth transition.

I can't do heel-toe. The way the pedals are set up in my car (the gas pedal is pretty high up) and the width of my shoes make it very difficult. I've tried it once, but it took forever and I haven't tried it since. I dont' feel like burning the clutch.

 

What you are describing is not "double clutching." What you are describing is simple rev matching, which can easily be accomplished by a single application of the clutch pedal.
I don't know a single racer who drives a modern car that double clutches. Everyone matches revs, but double clutching is really only reserved for straight cut gears.

 

If your (race) car has straight cut gears like a Hewland, you'd better be good at rev matching and forget double clutching if you want to win races. Those guys can even shift without a clutch at all they're so good at rev matching.

Maybe truck drivers of yesteryear double clutch?

Ken

 

Are you sure they're not using dog type transmissions?

 

I meant on a street car. A friend of mine does that on his Integera; I'm too chicken on my Lotus even though I *think* I'm pretty good!

Ken

 

That's why I made the distinction between double clutching -- where you clutch in, shift to neutral, let the clutch out in neutral, blip the throttle, clutch in, downshift, clutch out -- with rev matching, where you clutch in, shift to neutral, blip, downshift, clutch out. I know the difference. I did a lot of driving in Formula Fords where you need to double clutch. In the Ferrari, I only rev match, not double clutch.

 

Okay, dumb question: How can you shift a race car fast enough if you have to double clutch? Wouldn't a transmission with dogs/synchros be faster? Does it have anything to do with straight cut gears?

Ken

 

I only double "clutched" once this weekend at the Glen. It was coming into turn one at 155 . I put on the brakes, blipped the throttle downshifted once, began my turn in, lost my power steering and went off the track and luckily came to a safe stop.

Then I double clutched.

First the left one then the right one. They were still there.

Bob S.

 

Almost all modern race cars have sequential transmissions, so there's no need to double clutch, but I believe you still need to heel and toe.

At the Skip Barber Racing School, we drove the Formula Dodges with standard H-gate gearboxes. We were taught that double clutching is the preferred way to downshift since the cars didn't have synchos. If you couldn't double clutch, then try to at least heel and toe since its better than nothing.

Once you get good at it, you can do it very very fast and do a few double clutch downshifts while braking before a turn.

Since my first Skippy school, I've been able to get used to double clutching in normal street driving as well. When I'm driving in Manhattan with not much traffic, I'll double clutch and downshift from 3rd to 2nd gear before turning at the next block (assuming there's no pedistrians to hit

After you learn the technique, you then have to learn your car's gearing - exactly how many revs you need to blip up in order to do a smooth downshift. I have the technique down, but can only rev match precisely about 50% of the time and get it smooth. If you do it right, the downshifts are smoother than automatic transmissions.

 

Synchros use mechanical means to match shaft speeds. That limits how fast you can change gears. There are times when an experienced driver can double clutch faster.

Not when starting out, of course. Look how much trouble the uninitiated have spelling or saying "Ferrari" or "Testarossa". But after a while, ...

The big problem people have with h/t or dblclutch is that they look at an experienced driver and try to match the pace. Wrong. It's a matter of getting it right. Doing it quickly comes with practice.

How do you get to Carnagie Hall ... in a hurry.

I tend to h/t the 328 even on the street -- it practically begs for it.

I can h/t the EVO, but between the hydraulic damped clutch and the turbo lag, it hardly seems worthwhile. It's nearly impossible to get a smooth gear change on that monster, and you've got time to read "War and Peace" waiting for the turbo boost. Of course, once the boost comes on, you reach the next shift point in about a second and a half.

It's like the difference between an F-104 Starfighter and an F-4 Phantom II; one is a thing of grace and beauty, the other is proof that even a pig will fly with a couple of big honkin' afterburners up its butt.

The Ferrari is a dance. The EVO is hunting bunnies with a bazooka.

 

Heel/toe is for matching revs while downshifting entering a turn. All you need in a street Ferrari on the track or not. Double clutching is virtually useless in this application.

Double clutching is for downshifting old non-syncro gear boxes ala the old British cars like MGAs. It involves popping the car into neutral, de-clutching and revving, re-clutching and dropping the car into gear, blah blah blah....

Hewlands and other true racing gearboxes don't require either. You simple lift an 1/8" off the floor for a split second with the loud pedal and yank it into the next gear on upshifts. The lift releases the pressure on the dog rings in the box and allows you to shift ultra fast with no clutch. To downshift, left foot brake and use your right foot to blip the gas to release the dogs (preffered) or heel/toe if you're so inclined. Neither up or down requires the clutch, but it does require skill (sequentials are slightly easier, but the same principal applies minus the need to row thru an H pattern).

John

 

It seems easier to heel toe on the track than on the street. On the street, I have to think about it, but on the track it seems to come naturally. Maybe because on the track, you are pressing the brake harder so it is easier to line up with the gas pedal.

 

Thank you. Nice to know at least one person on here knows what he's talking about

Yes, Virginia, when going from 5th to 2nd in a hurry under braking, it can in fact be faster, as well as kinder to the synchros, to double clutch rather than just yanking on the gear lever and waiting for the synchronisers to do their work. Yes it takes practice, which is part of the reason I do it even when not absolutely neessary, to stay in practice.

I suppose my initiation to DIY tranny speed matching came when I was 16 and the clutch linkage in my car broke. A friend gave me a lift home and my father said "What? You couldn't drive it with no clutch?!" and went and did just that all the way across town. So naturally I had to learn to shift without using the clutch at all. Yes it can be done, no don't try to learn on your Ferrari.

 

Really? It's obvious by your statement that you have NEVER driven a manual transmission, two wheel drive car on ice/slush in any sort of traffic.

You see, you really don't want to stop your car if you can at all help it in such conditions. You want to keep your momentum going forward, especially when moving uphill. If you have to stop you run a really good chance of just sitting there and spinning your wheel (with a standard differential) or wheels (even a LSD is worthless if neither wheel has traction). Being able to rev-match or double-clutch from 3rd or 2nd to 1st makes a big difference as you are not upsetting the traction of the vehicle, you're still moving forward (creeping instead of stopping), and you still have excellent vehicle speed control thru the throttle.

 

It's second nature at this point, i don't have to, it's just for my own sh$ts and giggles. I'm assuming it saves the sychros a bit as well It's a borg warner T5.

 

I double clutch a 4-3-2 but frankly there is no real point other than me feeling like it at the time. Most of the time i'll skip 3rd out and go from 2nd to 4th. It's also a bit smoother to skip 3rd out but when you get the 4-3-2 double clutch right it's a nice feeling.

 

For those who asked.....

On the Elise, the brake pedal is so mushy that during hard braking the pedal ends up inches below the gas making h/t impossible for me. This is an almost universal complaint about the car. All 7 Fcars I had/have were set up perfectly for h/t.

When approaching a tight turn on a track where I may be going from 4th to 2nd, I skip 3rd and just go to 2nd once I have slowed enough. This makes hard braking easier and one less shift to screw up. This is one advantage of a stick over paddles.

Yes, I learned double clutching on an 18 wheeler 30+ years ago. Also learned to drive with no clutch.

On a track, the speed of a shift is not really important when downshifting since you should be decelerating as hard as possible anyway. What is important is smoothness, both for the car's mechanicals and to keep the chassis as settled as possible.

No one ever does perfect h/t's all the time, no matter how much they practice. That's a big part of the fun. Of course, you can buy paddles and let a computer drive for you.

Aside from Fcars, the only other car I have had that was set up well for h/t is my Subie STI.

DAve

 

LOL, 5th to second...yeah, I do THAT every day! LOL I wish I did! Your point is well taken of course.

Ken