can someone explain how heel-toe technique works?

 

heel-toe gives the driver better control since the balance of the car won't be upset during downshifting. Now while I am in no position to comment on how the technique can be beneficial to the car otherwise, I can comment on how its done.

basically your right foot is onthe brake and left foot on clutch when braking. Hence your two feet are busy and you cannot blip the throttle to rev match when downshifting. To solve this problem, your right foot would have to balance both the gas and brake pedals. To accomplish this:

1) depress brake pedal
2)depress clutch pedal
3)Simultaneously, BLIP throttle to rev match with right edge of right foot with the big tow still on the brake pedal and braking AND downshifting to a lower gear. This means right foot on both brake and throttle pedals.
4)release the clutch and you'll feel like a race car driver

Reason I got a manual is to play around with my feet and developing my leg muscles . Another fun thing I like to do with my foot that I just learnt is double clutching which was required in the past when cars had no synchros....procedure goes like this: Clutch in, shift to neutral, clutch out, blip throttle, clutch in, select desired lower gear, clutch out.
The ability to double clutch and heel-toe are the only reason why I choose a 6-spd

 

It's relevant to manual gears and not automatic.

When you change down a gear (eg. to enter a corner) the engine rpm need to rise to match the new gear for any given speed. If the throttle is not used, additional braking can be felt as the clutch is released, bringing the revs up by the momentum of the car.
In fast driving situations, this can upset the balance of the car, therefore it is ideal to have control of all 3 pedals simultaneously, clutch, brake and accelerator. Because it's not pratical to grow a 3rd leg, it's necessary to use one foot on 2 of the pedals - hence the right foot is used to control both the brake and the accelerator - in practice it tends to be the outside of the foot that does the throttle rather than actual "heel and toe"!

Pedal positions usually need fine tuning to make the most of the technique, not only the width apart but also the relative position height-wise. I'm not sure I'd even bother trying to set the 5 up unless I intended to track it (unlikely with a diesel engine!).

Any of you guys in California - check out the link I posted higher up. I expect one of the Caterham guys would be only too happy to take you for a blast, then you'll understand why I find heel and toe in a big saloon (sedan to you folks stateside!) rather pointless!

Edited to say I really must post faster!!!!

 

It is a simple theory, but very hard to master. Heel-n-toe is primarily done while downshifting. The reason to do it is to rev match the rpms of the car when shifting from a higher gear to a lower gear. If you have ever driven a manual car and downshifted agressively without using any throttle, when you let out the clutch in the lower gear the car jerks while the rpms of the car shoot up right when the clutch releases. This is natural but historically not great for wear and tear on the car plus if in a turn when the gear grabs it can make the car unstable.

So to make downshifting more controllable you can apply throttle to the car while the clutch is engaged with a short stomp on the throttle pedal (called a blip) to make the rpms climb, then simultaneously release the clutch. If done perfectly, the rpms of the car will be the same when the clutch was engaged as when you release the clutch, thus no jerking, just a smooth downshift.

Now to heel-n-toe is a variation of what I just described above. If you try to blip the throttle while downshifting while also braking, you need to use your right foot to brake AND apply throttle at the same time, so you use the toe to brake and the heel to blip, thus heel-n-toe.

Whew, lots of typing, but I hope you now understand. I love to do it but rarely do becuase it is a very hard thing to do, and to do well! You need the right shoes and the right pedal config to allow your foot to move across both pedals with ease and to be effective. I usually downshift before I brake and blip at that point so when I brake I am already in the gear I want to be in. Many times I dont blip the throttle at all upon a downshift and ease out the clutch to keep the car in control.

Hope that helps.

 

ok thx guys , triple explanation . And I won't be using it in the e60 (steptronic), but i'll maybe give it a try in the e36

 

here you go read this instead! One of best I've read...

http://www.318ti.org/notebook/shifting/index.html

 

here you go read this instead! One of best I've read...

http://www.318ti.org/notebook/shifting/index.html
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thanks for the info...good read indeed!!

 

thanks for the info...good read indeed!!
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You going to try the excercises?

 

Heel-and-toe actually helps even on an SMG -- used to do it on my M3.