Heel-and-toe a 328?

Hi Val,

Interesting post. Just to touch on the basics, I wear a size 11.5 shoe. By "heeling and toeing" I hope you mean you actually use the inner, great toe side of your foot for the brake and outer, pinky tioe side of you foot for the gas. The 328 is the EASIEST car I have driven to heel and toe including my 330 GT 2+2 and E46 M3. It is possible to do this perfectly on the 328,

Dan

 

My experience in Ferraris is that its more of a ball of the foot for braking and then the right/top/side of the foot is rolled onto the accdelerator to blip......heel/toe is the generic term for the process, but in reality it doesn't work in most of the ferraris i've driven.....hope that helps.....

 

I have an 89 GTB and like all Ferraris I have driven, heel and toeing is very easy.

Dave

 

One of our sponsors, Hill Engineering, makes an aluminum gas pedal which is 1/2 " closer to the brake pedal. You'll be downshifting like a pro. I've got one and highly recommend it.

Tom

 

I am in the same boat, size 9 shoes, and can't heal-to-toe in my 89 328 either. This, despite being proficient at it in every other sports car I have owned, including non-syncro Forumla Ford's and my 1951 Land Rover 80". Ha!
Anyway, IMO the pedal placement is awful and rivals the original 911 for f**cked up pedals. The accellerator pedal is too low relative to the brake pedal. Anyway I bought Ultimate pedals including the 'heal-to-toe" accellerator pedal, but haven't installed them yet. Frankly, it looks a bit weird, and will have the effect of widening the pedal at the bottom, but not raising it which is what I need. I will try experimenting and see if I can make it work in the spring.
I will take a photo of the Ultimate pedal and post it.
Cheers, Lawrence

 

Go to the Hill Engineering site to see a picture.
What you are trying to accomplish is the following. Under hard braking, the brake pedal should be about 1/4" above the gas pedal and close to it. The action you want to achieve is a rolling of the foot to the right. It takes practice. Be careful that the brake pedal is not TOO low or you will also catch the gas when braking even when unwanted. Been there. Done that. Got the T-shirt.

Most street cars do not have adjustable height pedals. My race cars did and it makes life a lot easier. To be totally honest, I gave up on catching the blip in the Ferrari.


Tom

 

Size 10 shoes, no problem heel and toeing. Yes, it takes practice not to muck up the braking when doing so. Even after two and half years now, not 100% of my heal-toes are right on.

One thought I had: the accelerator pedal has a "free play" adjustment. You'll notice there is some slack in the accelerator (it's attached to a cable that leads back to the engine). Depending on how this is adjusted, the "bite" or beginning of the engagement of the accelerator pedal will vary. Although there is a specification for the amount of free play in the accelerator pedal, adjusting this may help align the pedals for easier heal-toeing...


--Mike

 

I had no problems with my '89 328 and I am an american size 8.5 foot and stand about 5' 7" (classic Italian size). Have your pedals adjusted and while you're at it you can adjust your steering wheel a good inch if necessary as well...you might be engaging the brake but just not enough to make your heel-toe downshift correctly. It sounds like you have not had troubles heel-toeing in other cars so start investigating how your driving position, etc differs in this car. I like the 328 a lot on track but am spoiled by the increase torque I have in the 355 and 360 but all in all I find the 328 to bring out the biggest smile on my face while driving it so keep practicing as the '89 328 can be a real blast and is amongst my favorite high volume Ferrari's!

 

I don't really understand how it can be easy for anybody-in my car at least. There is only so much that one can roll the foot. Perhaps it is footwear; I was using my Sparco racing booties and there is no way. I could try some brogues and see if that makes a difference... I hope to sort it out before this spring, so I can take the car on the track. I'm too mechanically sympathetic to have the revs anything but spot on on the downshifts. And I'm going to be slow enough relative to the M3's and STI's without giving up all the time entering the corner by braking-then-downshifting. I've found that proper heal-to-toe technique really separates the men from the boys at track events. Hopefully there is some adjustment as others have suggested. I might try installing Ultimate acc pedal, which will raise it 1/4", and not install the brake and see if the 1/4" is enough-but then I wouldn't have a matching set of shiny pedals.

 

There are adjustment screws on all three pedals -- several on each, actually.

The spare parts catalog can help you track them down, as they're not all right at the pedals. (Although it looks like there should be one in the neighborhood on each pedal.) For the brakes, you might have to go under the fiberglass cover under the front hatch, and look under the brake access plate for the pivot arm adjustment. (It might be harder on an ABS car -- you might need to look from underneath.)

My 328 virtually begs me to h/t it. Heck, with size 11.5Ds, it's harder to not h/t.

Yes, footwear is important. I won't go near the Ferrari with my winter boots on (duh), but even synthetic soles (Florsheim "TechSole") tend to be a bit too massive to only hit one pedal at a time. I find that slightly soft (natural leather) soles work the best for me, as they give me some feedback on the pedal force I'm applying. (My consistancy must be good: I wore out two sets of Florsheim Imperials with holes in the leather soles right where I work the pedals.)

So maybe it's just a matter of my big feet. If you have narrow (B-width) shoes, you might need to change the pedals to get them closer together horizontally. (They're pretty close on mine, now.)
But vertical adjustment should be in the linkage and pedal board.

 

The throttle pedal moves a lever inside the kick panel next to it, which pulls on the throttle cable. I'd guess that the adjustment would be under that kick panel.

After car 76626, the cable adjustment changed, and it looks like the new arrangement has another cable adjuster there. But I checked on my (older) 328, and the cable has a little slack, even with the pedal hard against the upper stops -- so there must be a stop on the lever arm ... inside the kick panel.

Sorry -- I know what a pain it is to remove that kick panel. Maybe one of the mechanics around here knows how to reach it from underneath. But it looks from the spare parts catalog like it's an inside job (no pun intended).

 

I have no issues at all h/t'ing my 87 328. Now I'm curious if the 89's have a different pedal arrangement. I'll place the ball of my foot on the brake, blip the throttle with the right side of my foot. No problem.

 

My car is an 89. I wear 9 or 9.5 narrow. I have driven earlier ones and see no difference. I think there is something ususual or screwed up with your pedals. I did drive a QV once that seemed to have different pedal heights/alignment form others I owned or tried so this does happen. BTW I owned a QV for a while with my 328 and the pedals worked the same.

Dave

 

I was considering this issue on the weekend when I picked up our 328 GTS from its service.

Up until now I've not really had a lot of luck heel and toeing our car (but then we've only had it 2 months). I decided to play about with the h&t thing on the way home and I found that if I keep my right heel on the floor while operating the brake pedal, it is very difficult to blip the throttle with just a roll of the foot. Even if I swivelled my foot, it was still difficult.

If when braking I picked my foot up off the floor and stuck it on the brake pedal, it was very easy to blip the throttle with a roll of my foot.

The brake pedal has a curve in it. If my heel is on the floor, I'm using the lower part of the brake pedal which is curved and places my foot in a strange position relative to the throttle pedal. If my heel is an inch or so off the floor I'm using a different part of the brake pedal, my foot is in a different position relative to the throttle pedal and h&t is actually fairly easy.

Don't know if its of any help, but just what I found after some experimentation. Even if it doesn't help anyone else, I'm happy I've found a way to h&t easily in our car.

Steve

 

Call John Tirrell at Independant Ferrari Service (IFS) near Boston. 508 238 4224. He does a pedal conversion specifically for the 328 to assist H & T.
Beautiful and effective. I have a set on my 1989 328. Works!