Do you heel-toe on the street?

[93Flareside]

I hate doing anything but rev matching.

 

[SirEdward]

You probably can't, my A4 would decouple the throttle with brakes engaged.

It turns out it is possible to heel-toe on a Golf MKV. The throttle is still working while the brake is engaged. Cool. I also think I managed to complete a working heel-toe (though a very poor one). Not that it has any sense at road speeds, apart the smoothness and good noise.

 

[Spectre]

Can't heel-toe on any vehicle I currently own - they're either automatics (in which case it's essentially pointless) or they're motorcycles, on which you *can't*. When I drive a manual car, I often do.

 

[equiraptor]

It turns out it is possible to heel-toe on a Golf MKV. The throttle is still working while the brake is engaged. Cool. I also think I managed to complete a working heel-toe (though a very poor one). Not that it has any sense at road speeds, apart the smoothness and good noise.

Many cars with a brake-throttle override have a built in delay that is long enough to allow heel-toe and left foot braking. I've tracked a number of said cars and have never had an issue. I've been told our GT3 RS has one such system. If it does, it's never interfered with anything I've tried to do in the car, and I've not been able to find any strong verification the car has such a system.

Admittedly, the only Audis I've tracked were automatics.

 

[narf]

Take it to a safe place, apply a little throttle and keep it there, prod the brake with the left foot for a while?

 

[Redliner]

Can't heel-toe on any vehicle I currently own - they're either automatics (in which case it's essentially pointless) or they're motorcycles, on which you *can't*. When I drive a manual car, I often do.

I partly disagree.
It's not heel-and-toe per se? but when I had a motorcycle, I caught myself doing the equivalent when braking.

 

[Spectre]

I partly disagree.
It's not heel-and-toe per se? but when I had a motorcycle, I caught myself doing the equivalent when braking.

It's still not heel-toe unless you've rigged a foot throttle on your motorcycle.

 

[Mitchi]

Same with mein Audi. Got used to it when driving home from Ringmeet 2009 without a clutch.

I find it working but only when you're really hard braking, like <80% probably, and with a weirdly bent foot. Otherwise it's impossible in the B6.

 

[MacDubois]

I heel-toe almost always. At first I did it everywhere I could as I was trying to learn how, that was a couple years ago. Now it's just automatic, I do it without thinking. But I have wide feet and it's easy enough to roll the right side of my foot over and blip the throttle. It's definitely not necessary but on my 30 year old rabbit's transmission, every bit of smoothness is appreciated

 

[SileNceR]

In the E21 I do, locked rear diff and lots of compression in the engine means if I don't I run the risk of a compression lockup slide.

Manual cars at work? Only some older ones that don't feel like they want to go into gear without rev matching.

 

[PelicanHazard]

I can't; didn't learn because the Dart's pedals are poorly positioned for it. Gas pedal is well to the side and far behind the brake pedal, so I can't cover both without my foot being in a super weird and uncomfortable position that I can't control well, so I end up either jabbing the brakes or overreving the engine.

 

[Spectre]

I can't; didn't learn because the Dart's pedals are poorly positioned for it. Gas pedal is well to the side and far behind the brake pedal, so I can't cover both without my foot being in a super weird and uncomfortable position that I can't control well, so I end up either jabbing the brakes or overreving the engine.

So the Dart is laid out worse than my 19 year old diesel pickup?

 

[Handz]

I always heel/toe on the street. Sometime I am taking a quick left turn and need to downshift quick. Even when i when i am making a quick right turn on the street i heel toe downshift for a clean turn.

Heel/toe downshifting is a good technique to use. It makes for a smoother drive for passengers. Heel toe downshifting prevents wear on the clutch by rev-matching which increases the life of the clutch.

I have even modified the pedals on my mustang to make the heel toe process more smooth on the street.

 

[GraemeH]

Heel-and-toe involves braking which always equates to weight transfer. I think you're referring to just rev-matching.

I meant additional weight transfer on top of what I intent to apply with the brake.
Though if I'm approaching a corner and am slowing down early enough that I don't need to brake, I double-clutch/rev-match downshift yes.

After watching a bunch of those Japanese Best Motoring videos I ended up getting in the habit of double-clutch-heel-toe-downshifting, where it's brake->clutch down->out of gear into neutral->clutch up->blip throttle with right foot while braking and in neutral->clutch down->into lower gear->clutch up. Couple extra steps than just heel-toe/throttle blipping but it feels even smoother (it shouldn't have an effect on weight transfer vs. just normal heel-toe throttle blipping since any difference is done when out of gear anyway, but it makes the new gear engagement feel smoother).

 

[JakeRadden]

I'm pretty sure my brake pedal is too high for this to work on the street. I've been trying but there's no angle at which I can brake gently and blip the throttle reliably.

 

[SirEdward]

Ok, I managed to do it. I'm still bad at heel-toeing, and it really is almost useless on the street, on a diesel. But hey, it was interesting to learn.

 

[BlaRo]

No, I'm not a shitty auto journalist who brags about heel-toeing on Instagram while wearing free Piloti racing shoes at some Toyota Yaris press launch.

 

[MWF]

Not any more.

 

[LeVeL]

Heel/toe downshifting is a good technique to use. It makes for a smoother drive for passengers. Heel toe downshifting prevents wear on the clutch by rev-matching which increases the life of the clutch.

Heel/toe involves rev matching but heel/toe != rev matching. I rev match on every shift but I very rarely heel/toe.

 

[PelicanHazard]

So the Dart is laid out worse than my 19 year old diesel pickup?

Yeah. Same as Leadfoot's Focus, the pedals aren't quite in the right place for it. The Dart I can see as they're mostly sold with autos, probably parts bin pedals, but the Focus was quite surprising.