Heel & toe, is it really necessary?

[Stelios]

Hello everybody!

I know this might not be the suitable forum but ill post here since my main tests were done in Assetto Corsa.

I have been simracing on and off for about 5 years. I never raced really seriously, just for fun.

Lately i have built my ricmotech RS-1 with the triple monitor add-on (pimp my ride i have lowered the monitors, which you cant see in those pictures). My rig has made me a lot (and i mean a LOT) more consistent, even though i sitll have a 23" monitor on my left (instead of the other 2 x27").

Previously i was using the flaps or the seq shifter of my g25, never the H shifter.
I decided to learn to use the H shifter, which felt very natural to me from the very start since its the same as my real car, and with that learn some heel and toe, and try to understand the benefits of doing it. Using iracing (mazda mx5) and the AC tech demo i really don't find a reason to heel and toe in every downshift as many people do these days. I mean, there are huge possibilities you screw the downshift and i am not sure that it benefits that much concerning the risk.
In certain situations, i agree its required, especially when braking hard and the car is not in a straight line, and you have to go from 4th to 2nd for example, but generally, i think heel & toe is overrated.

Or maybe not. Maybe someone can help me understand better why heel n toe is better.
My test was only 1 hour long and the cars were admittedly slow, maybe it is more useful on higher powered cars? I dont know. But downshifting manually, when the revs were at the appropriate level seemed to do the job fine.

Thanks for reading and sorry for my bad English!

 

[William Levesque]

Not an exact representation but this is basically my technique.

Ok, mine on the G27 is more like this:

Yo, rev matching is a basic skill for driving an h-pattern car at its limit.
With my ClubSport pedals it is no problem, but in the cars I drive in real life, I find the distance between brake pedal and gas pedal too big. It surely is possible, but it doesn't feel very comfortable.
What do you guys think? Does it work good for you?
I am talking about BMW and BMW MINI pedals in particular.

Unfortunately I don't have a lot of real life experience, but I have driven a base model 2003 Sentra, so far from being as good as the German-style pedals. Took me a while to get used to the pedals, but eventually I could do it consistently. It looks a bit more like Eifion's picture, maybe a bit higher on the brake pedal. As far as your pedals go, I tried the Mini's at a standstill and found it quite easy... It does require maybe a bit more heel than other pedals.

 

[Kevin Ascher]

I tried the Mini's at a standstill

Alloy racey version or standard?

 

[William Levesque]

Alloy racey version or standard?

Alloy racey version

It's true that the standard ones aren't too great, but it should be doable ?

 

[Kevin Ascher]

Alloy racey version

It's true that the standard ones aren't too great, but it should be doable ?

I have standard ones in mine!
It is possible, sure! But you have to take care not to slip from the brake because you have to use the very right side of it, and that can be potentially dangerous.
Once, I got the chance to try it in a friend's Lancia Delta Integrale Rallye car, you just had to move your foot 5 cm and you could heel and toe

 

[Hampus Andersson]

Yes, the whole idea of downshifting when braking is to shorten the braking distance, because the engine helps to slow down the car.
And yes, ideally you hit the throttle to match the revs, but of course I don't think a human being can match the revs ideally to the same amount. Usually it's more or less the same

modern brakes have more then enough power to slow the car down, it's actually the most powerful thing on the car.
a regular 3 series, if you were to convert the braking force to acceleration you'd have something in the order of 600 horses roughly.

heel and toe is for two things, saving clutch/gearbox and making sure you are ready to go on corner exit.
IRL its possible to not H/T but it's inefficient and only shorten the clutch-life by always "dragging" up the engine to the gearbox speed.

 

[Ian Strom]

but in the cars I drive in real life, I find the distance between brake pedal and gas pedal too big.

We have very different problems. In the case of my old car my feet were just too big and collided with everything around them... :facepalm:
You are practically sitting on the floor too, so tilting your feet farther forward is easier said than done. I still liked that car, I just did not heel&toe in it.
I could probably Heel&Heel if I tried though.

As far as simracing goes, CSR Elite pedals are pretty easy to heel&toe with.

 

[William Levesque]

As far as simracing goes, CSR Elite pedals are pretty easy to heel&toe with.

That's not even arguable ! I got a set a few days ago, moved the brake pedal a bit to the right (Still in the same holes, but slid more right) and it just does it by itself, LOL !

Also stiffen the clutch and throttle for better feel...

For the brake's load cell I run (on iRacing):

GT cars: 3.0
Nascar and lesser race cars: 4.0
Slightly modified street cars (like the Mustang or MX-5): 5.0

 

[Mr Whippy]

modern brakes have more then enough power to slow the car down, it's actually the most powerful thing on the car.
a regular 3 series, if you were to convert the braking force to acceleration you'd have something in the order of 600 horses roughly.

heel and toe is for two things, saving clutch/gearbox and making sure you are ready to go on corner exit.
IRL its possible to not H/T but it's inefficient and only shorten the clutch-life by always "dragging" up the engine to the gearbox speed.

Yep that's it, and since the brakes can be controlled by the ABS computer or the balance tuned by the driver in a race car, removing the variable factor of engine braking is ultimately the better solution in many cases.

I rev-match down-shifts in my real car most of the time as it's actually smoother and better on the clutch life too, even in most normal driving conditions at anything above about 4/10ths road-driving speed.

In sims I do it just for fun though but generally with the lack of g-forces and realistic pedal forces and pedal positions etc it's pretty hard really. Every car is very different brake/throttle relative positions and travel differences for given desired outputs.

Some cars you can H&T, others you can happily T&T (big toe on the brake, little toe end over the throttle) and lots of other variations

Dave

 

[Kevin Knorpp]

I don't heel toe but I don't blame those who do. What I do, mainly out of comfort and familiarity is rev match before turn in. I do this IRL as well. So both feet in while braking --> downshift to gear for turn --> blip and clutch out --> turn in with power to balance car. Not optimal but works for me. As mentioned earlier, most sims don't enforce proper clutch online anyway so almost everyone uses paddle or sequential shifting with auto clutch. Even AI use auto clutch offline. As long as I can still be at least mid-pack, I will use clutch even in online races but sometimes there is just too much of an advantage, especially with easy to drive cars. With difficult to drive cars I can make up for much of the difference just by practicing more and also specializing in a given historic car like I do with rf2 60s f1 cars. Problem is very few people like to difficult cars. Thank goodness for AI!!!

 

[Stelios]

Thanks everyone for your replies, after driving iracing and RF2 for the last week or so, trying to master heel n toe, i can definitely see the advantage you have if you heel and toe under heavy braking, when the car is not in balance (turning in or similar). I am convinced that heel n toe is a good thing , but not necessary if you brake in a straight line, and certainly not necessary to do it like some maniacs online who post youtube videos and doing it to show off

 

[Kjell Eilertsen]

Heel toe has become so second nature to me now that I have to concentrate not to do it when I drive open wheelers. ^^

 

[RaceNut]

Is heel/toe necessary in racing Sims? I would say no unless you want to develop your skills for real-life racing or to maximize the realism and immersion. I find it to be quite challenging to learn and that is a good thing.

 

[Kjell Eilertsen]

Needed or not, I find it easier to keep the car balanced when downshifting during had braking, I've noticed on some cars that if I forget to heel toe then I'll loose control of the car when downshifting. Ofc I could have left foot braked and just blip with my right, but then the question is rather "do you have to clutch while shifting in sims?". To that the answer is no, in most sims up to now there is no need to clutch as long as you blip. AC will change that if Kunos is to be believed. NKPro had some cars that where impossible to shift unless you lifted on up and blip on down, but still don't think you had to clutch.

 

[Damien Wintz]

The fact is you don't have to clutch either on a real manual gearbox if you blip.
If you dual clutch and blip while the stick is in neutral, you never need to press the clutch pedal.

 

[Kjell Eilertsen]

Sure, but from what I've read in AC not clutching will have you loose time compared to if you had, or at least you'll run the risk of not getting the transmission into gear properly. I've thought myself heel toe rather than left foot braking and the well known technique of applying a little throttle during braking for stability, I chose heel toe because I hope having my left foot ready for clutching will pay off when AC is out. If nothing else it's more fun to me running with clutch, h shifter and heel toe.

 

[William Levesque]

It depends on the cars as far as AC and iRacing are concerned.

Street cars require the clutch, or VERY precise rev-matching (both up and down), race cars with racing transmissions can be shifted without the clutch if you blip (and either ease off the throttle on upshift to unload the tranny, or just flat if throttle-cut), like in real life.

 

[Mapu]

[...] race cars with racing transmissions can be shifted without the clutch if you blip (and either ease off the throttle on upshift to unload the tranny, or just flat if throttle-cut), like in real life.[...]

in general yes, but it really depends on regulations

 

[Hugo von Falken]

I have a question concerning H/T. During the race yesterday ( C6 Vs GTR ) I found the downshifting very different, so I had to H/T in order to keep the car stable et in fast corners and breakings.

Is there any option when you launch the serv desactivating the blip or something ?

For the guy asking the question here, here is a tip concerning H/T :

- If you never did that before, try to do it when there s only 1 or 2 downshift ( fast corners mostly). It's easier and generally less aggressiv on brakes.

- For numerous downshifts like airpins, if your foot are lost with pedals, just break with your left feet and blip the accel just before downshifting

It takes a few lap to find where it's necessary or not to use. But normally you don't have to use it all the time, and some drivers are just releasing a little the brakes before a downshift in order to not block wheels.

Hope it helps

PS : concerning the video, a true H/T is double hit on the clutch pedal, but now it s barely used ( trans. and gear boxs are not as fragile as before )

PS2 : in most normal cars, pedals are not designed for that so you have to brake with the big toe, and it's hard to not lose the braking pedal sometimes. If you re not used to it, do it in a safe place ^^

But normally you can do it with all cars, it takes time to have a flexible ankle

 

[William Levesque]

PS : concerning the video, a true H/T is double hit on the clutch pedal, but now it s barely used ( trans. and gear boxs are not as fragile as before )

Not exactly.

Back in the days there wasn't syncromesh gearboxes like today, so you had to double-clutch if you weren't blipping. When driving agressively or just if you wanted to blip on some cars you could shift with only one clutching sequence and a blip, like today, but on other cars it wouldn't always go in still, so you had to double-clutch, and blip.

 

[Hugo von Falken]

thats what I tried to explain with " segment " and "synchro" badly grouped under the term " trans. and gearbox " but I'm lazy, it's hard to search the english terms hehe.

Thanks for the syncromesh term With my old grN from the 80's I had to double clutch + blip. If I did not, I had big issues with gear synchros, turbo's pressure (3000rpm activation and crapy dumpvalves) and front wheel blocking .Thanks Renault ^^ it's one of the best " coffin with 4 wheels " I drove !