Cool Article On How To Heel Toe

Nice guide, however I doubt most Autospies readers (well the bloggers anyway) have even heard of heel-and-toe downshifting.

Most of them drive cushy Automatics round surburbia-America.

I heel-and-toe downshift in my FIAT every so often, however Italian cars are known for having their pedals close together. So it takes practice.

It's even harder in a Renault!

— Matthew1 (View Profile)

Posted on 8/19/2007 11:01:03 PM | reply to this comment | Votes: 1   

I think the best comment made was the notion that not all cars pedals are created equal. Some cars are aptly set for heal-toe driving... some are not. This is probably the biggest factor to a beginner's success. I'm not surprised that heal-toe double-clutch wasnt mentioned, it's not as fast a shift for the track but man-o-man, on a street car your clutch will thank you.

— Threepoint1415926 (View Profile)

Posted on 8/19/2007 11:17:45 PM | reply to this comment | Votes: 1   

Threepoint,

Just and FYI, most people will not use a heal-toe double-cluch anymore...which is extremly tiring on your legs and forces your hand to be off the steering wheel for too long a time... unless your are driving in the vintage circuts, a professional WRC individual, or a Mack truck. Otherwise your syncros will do extremly well without causing undue fatigue of extreme loss of RPM that double clutching causes.

I'd like to see an article on left foot braking next. Now that's hard to get right.

— Spectator (View Profile)

Posted on 8/20/2007 10:53:05 AM | reply to this comment | Votes: 1   

Hence, why I said I'm not surprised that it wasn't covered... it is harder to do. But it's still my shift technique of choice for my old 911SC because those single clutch down shifts wear out my clutch faster than I can blink. Synchronizers do have a shelf life on a 20 year old car and I would spose even a modern car. I've not had the pleasure of driving a modern Porsche around the track but I imagine that the parts are more stout these days so owners can smash on the pedals all they want. I realize there is more hand and foot operations to the double clutch technique but if you have the motions down, and you're operating the clutch properly, double clutching is still the best way to keep your clutch happy so it can continue on it's marry way. BTW, there shouldn't be much of any loss in RPM if you're going through the motions fast enough, the blip in neutral doesn't require you to fully engage the clutch and your engine should still be at a high RPM when the clutch is engaged in the lower gear. If it's not, blip it again, the clutch is still moving faster than the engine.

— Threepoint1415926 (View Profile)

Posted on 8/20/2007 12:27:53 PM | reply to this comment | Votes: 1   

You think we're bad drivers? visit Mexico City, anywhere in South America, China, Hong Kong, or Philipines. In Manila, 99% of all cars are damaged. Granted the population density is much higher but we look like professionals compared to those people.
It's true, there are some terrible drivers in the US especially here in Orlando (Ugh!). However, as a whole, i'd argue that only the europeans are better.

— MF6453 (View Profile)

Posted on 8/21/2007 9:14:59 AM | reply to this comment | Votes: 1