Question regarding heel to toe

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davidplmlsn

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Hi guys,

I do not have a drivers licence so trying to grasp the concept of the heel to toe technique.

As I understand the heel to toe method is about pushing the brake and speeder simultaneously (while gearing down) prior to entering a corner in order to keep RPM up to improve acceleration in and out of the corner.

I use the pedal shifters but don't really know how I apply this technique.

When I am in 1st gear and hit the speeder and brake at the same time RPM will go way up. However, doing the same in 2nd, 3rd ect. does not create the effect thus defeating the purpose of the heel to toe technique??!?!

I am sure I have misunderstood something.

Please enlight me.

Thanks,

David, Denmark.
 
Pressing the brake and gas at the same time will wear out your tyres in real life and wont help at all in the game. You need a clutch peddal to heel and toe mate.
 
i got a clutch but not using it due to the pedal shifters. is it because the transmission goes into neutral for a short time when using a clutch that you can bump up RPMs
 
davidplmlsn
Hi guys,

I do not have a drivers licence so trying to grasp the concept of the heel to toe technique.

As I understand the heel to toe method is about pushing the brake and speeder simultaneously (while gearing down) prior to entering a corner in order to keep RPM up to improve acceleration in and out of the corner.

I use the pedal shifters but don't really know how I apply this technique.

When I am in 1st gear and hit the speeder and brake at the same time RPM will go way up. However, doing the same in 2nd, 3rd ect. does not create the effect thus defeating the purpose of the heel to toe technique??!?!

I am sure I have misunderstood something.

Please enlight me.

Thanks,

David, Denmark.
Click to expand...

It's used more for constant grip than better accelerating. When you go fast in corner you can easly lose grip if you aren't using hell&toe.

Also for that feature you need cluth pedal.

GT5 will auto Hell&Toe for you if you don't have one. See Mazda 787B in dealership menu and start demo. Mazda will offen rev when downshift.

edit:

In GT5 more crucial is leftfoot breaking. Start from that get apex right with it and then try hell&toe when you will both do perfectly try using left foot breaking with hell&toe at same time. It's a bit tricky but this will improve your times greatly especially if your car is very tricky to drive(oversteer,lift-off oversteer)
 
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There's no use to heal and toe when using paddles to shift; it's only needed (and will only work) when you're manually shifting with a clutch.
 
As mentioned, heal and toeing has nothing to do with acceleration, it is about the braking.

When you brake hard into a corner, in optimal conditions all four tires are at their absolut limit. Meaning that if you would apply a little bit more braking force the tires would lock up and therefore slide.

When you shift down without revmatching, meaning you press the clutch, select the lower gear, and simply let go of the clutch, the engine needs to build up revs. This has the same effect as touching the brakes slightly.

Ok, now you are in a rwd car, you are braking hard, you shift down without revmatching and the extra braking force from the engine revving up locks up your rear wheels and you spin.

That is why people use heal and toe. You press the clutch, blip the throttle and declutch at the right rpm. Therefore the engine is allready at high revs when you declutch and no extra braking force is applied to the drive wheels.

It takes a lot of getting used to and training. I have been doing it for years now, first in sims and then in real life cars as well. After a while it is just in your blood and you do it without thinking.

Here is a good short video of heal and toeing.



On another unrelated point, can you imagine the cars in GT5 sounding like the one in the video? What a wonderful world that would be...
 
that video is perfect for illustrating the technique, I have seen it done faster, but this shows it just perfect.
 
Perkel
In GT5 more crucial is leftfoot breaking. Start from that get apex right with it and then try hell&toe when you will both do perfectly try using left foot breaking with hell&toe at same time. It's a bit tricky but this will improve your times greatly especially if your car is very tricky to drive(oversteer,lift-off oversteer)
Click to expand...

Some things are better left for the gods to do...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyVHj3sHVHQ

Seriously now,this won't improve your times greatly,it might not improve your times at all,it's just fun.. Concentrate on the basics.
 
Piket
Some things are better left for the gods to do...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyVHj3sHVHQ

Seriously now,this won't improve your times greatly,it might not improve your times at all,it's just fun.. Concentrate on the basics.
Click to expand...


briliant video but hell&toe + leftfoot breaking will improve your time. It doesn't for FF cars or 4WD where you have a lot of grip or it understeer.

If you don't believe me try lotus elise TG challenge without any aids. Try to gold that. Without heel & toe and lef foot breaking it is imposible to achieve gold. Try to downshift without foot on brake 1st turn and your car in instant will lose grip.
 
Perkel
briliant video but hell&toe + leftfoot breaking will improve your time. It doesn't for FF cars or 4WD where you have a lot of grip or it understeer.

If you don't believe me try lotus elise TG challenge without any aids. Try to gold that. Without heel & toe and lef foot breaking it is imposible to achieve gold. Try to downshift without foot on brake 1st turn and your car in instant will lose grip.
Click to expand...

How does one heel&toe while left foot breaking??

A pedal set example here:

Clutch Break Accelerator


Ok if i Use my Right foot to accelerate, and my left foot for clutch as a standard driving technique, while breaking with right foot and giving some bumps on RPM while shifting down...


I need my left foot active on clutch, there is no way you can break with left foot and still heel&toe while gearing down, or am i missing something here?


Btw i am a left foot for brakes lover, WHEN i dont have to use clutch.
 
How is this different from driving stick?

You just do alot more revs right?

If you would do it in normal driving it would be uncomfortable, but this is racing, comfort doesnt count
 
davidplmlsn
i got a clutch but not using it due to the pedal shifters. is it because the transmission goes into neutral for a short time when using a clutch that you can bump up RPMs
Click to expand...


This is correct.
But you're not bumping the RPMs up to get better acceleration.
The point of heel-toe is to reduce the drivetrain shock to the tires.
 
It seems the game does it automatically, also known as "Auto-blip" so i wouldnt worry about this technique too much, the main reason for it is to stop you putting your car in the wall. Engine braking is something most people are aware of, but the effect can be too strong which can cause you to tip the balance of the car and lose control, increasing the engine rev just before downshifting will mean that when the gear goes in the engine will already be up at a higher speed and thus engine braking will be reduced.


If you are going to learn this technique it will take quite some time and you will most likely be slower because of it for a good while. As for braking and accelerating at the same time, it is used in racing a lot and can help stabalise a car through proper use in a corner. Michael Schumacher is a master at this, he almost never takes his foot fully off the throttle and also eases the brake off slower through a corner. On the iRacing forums some people showed telemetry of Michael vs Rubens Barichello at a circuit and you could see where Michael had gained time vs his team mate, and in every corner michael carried slightly more speed while never fully lifting off the throttle.

Cars that have RR configuration can be very tail happy and are known to tank slap very easily, people have come to learn that you never fully take your foot off the throttle in these cars just to keep some of the weight bias to the rear of the car.
 
You're confusing left foot braking with heel-toe shifting.

Heel-toe shifting is used to rev match gears during braking/deceleration so as to not upset the balance of the car going into a turn. I believe it can also be used to help keep a turbo spooled up. In my opinion this is not necessary in GT5, at least I haven't seen it necessary yet.

left foot braking is used to reduce time in cornering by eliminating the time it takes to move your foot from the gas to the brake and then back again and also to control load transfer. It also helps keep the engine under load and so that it is more responsive when exiting a corner which can be helpful on lower powered vehicles.
 
Ok I got it.

So it actually seems as I am already driving in the "most" efficient manner when using the pedal shifters:

1. I almost never move my foot from the speeder as I feel this keeps the engine "loaded" and more responsive coming in and out of a corner.

2. I always downshift, while braking, prior to entering a corner.

Is this correct?

Another question since I don't know dick about real car driving:

What set of wheels should I be using when driving on nurburgring nordschleife for lets say.. 2-3 laps? Hard, medium or soft?

When the tire gets red I assume it is because of the friction which heats them up. But is "over heated" tires more likely to spin out or does the heat only indicate that they are getting worn out quicker (thus requiring pit stop sooner)?
 
As far as the game GT5 (and 4, and probably the others), the game is taking care of heel/toe for you, blipping the throttle on downshift both with the controller and with the DFP/DFGT wheels. This leaves you free to concentrate on using your left foot to brake when using a wheel/pedal combo. It's pretty much like a modern F1 car or racing car with a sequential shifter like the current-spec WRC cars, both of which only have a jerry-rigged clutch to get moving from a stop/keep from stalling. Not sure how the clutch is implemented with the G25/G27 wheels as I've never used one, but it would be pretty cool if those 3-pedal wheel sets do in fact let one drive the game like a normal manual-gearbox street car/race car. In GT5 I'm a left-foot brake driver, in my real car I heel/toe and don't left-foot brake because I'm NOT Walter Rohrl...but if I drive someone's car that has an automatic gearbox I can left-foot brake if I feel like it.
 
davidplmlsn
Ok I got it.

So it actually seems as I am already driving in the "most" efficient manner when using the pedal shifters:

1. I almost never move my foot from the speeder as I feel this keeps the engine "loaded" and more responsive coming in and out of a corner.

2. I always downshift, while braking, prior to entering a corner.

Is this correct?

Another question since I don't know dick about real car driving:

What set of wheels should I be using when driving on nurburgring nordschleife for lets say.. 2-3 laps? Hard, medium or soft?

When the tire gets red I assume it is because of the friction which heats them up. But is "over heated" tires more likely to spin out or does the heat only indicate that they are getting worn out quicker (thus requiring pit stop sooner)?
Click to expand...

Answers: 1: There tends to be an advantage in keeping the engine 'loaded' if it is a turbocharged car, but by and large turbocharged cars these days have very little 'turbo-lag'. Really the point of left-foot braking is to keep both feet ready to feed in however much throttle or brake is neccessary without having to constantly shift the right foot between the two pedals. In very powerful cars I might feed in just a bit too much throttle in a corner and see myself missing the apex so my left foot will apply a minimal amount of brake to load up the front tires slightly and pull the car back on the intended path.

2: Yes. There are no hard and fast rules about driving fast, but generally this is the way to go.

The only way to see how long a tire compound will last on a given car is to test. As for the in-game readout, I tend to think of the tire glowing red as a measure of a momentary loss of grip, or how much the tire is slipping/sliding across the pavement at that moment. The tires also function as a bar graph showing how much overall grip the tires have the potential to give, i.e. very worn tires the bar will be very low and the tires can't withstand much and will go red much easier. And yes, the more often they are pushed into glowing red, the faster they are wearing out.
 
katsuru
How does one heel&toe while left foot breaking??

A pedal set example here:

Clutch Break Accelerator


Ok if i Use my Right foot to accelerate, and my left foot for clutch as a standard driving technique, while breaking with right foot and giving some bumps on RPM while shifting down...


I need my left foot active on clutch, there is no way you can break with left foot and still heel&toe while gearing down, or am i missing something here?


Btw i am a left foot for brakes lover, WHEN i dont have to use clutch.
Click to expand...

You either have to dance about (like in the end of this vid) or you just use your right heel to apply a small amount of throttle when braking with your right "toe" - around 10-20% throttle should do to keep a RWD car stable in GT5, and it really does work.
This latter technique can be seen in the Walter Röhrl video above, e.g. at 40s. It's made "easier" there by having a sensitive (short-throw) throttle and the brake and accelerator pedals close together. There's also an obvious use of the "heel" (he actually uses the right edge of his shoe, due to the pedal positions) during braking in the first Senna video above, at 45s.

If you can already heel and toe, this is only a small progression in the technique and is quite easy to get used to.

I can sometimes alternate between the left-foot braking and heel-toe positions, like the Elise video. I found I "had" to do it when testing my Alaska course-creator tracks in the Audi RS6 - it made it much more driveable into the corners. Very useful once you get used to remembering which foot is doing what, and which pedal it's currently on (jabbing the brakes with your left foot thinking it's the clutch, for example :scared:)
 
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Fastlap
Here is a good short video of heal and toeing.



On another unrelated point, can you imagine the cars in GT5 sounding like the one in the video? What a wonderful world that would be...
Click to expand...


Very nice example, you see him doing a double clutch too while heel toeing!
 
Acumen and Griffith, I got it!

Thank you guys for sorting things out for me. I am heading back to my cockpit now!
 
Griffith500
You either have to dance about (like in the end of this vid) or you just use your right heel to apply a small amount of throttle when braking with your right "toe" - around 10-20% throttle should do to keep a RWD car stable in GT5, and it really does work.
This latter technique can be seen in the Walter Röhrl video above, e.g. at 40s. It's made "easier" there by having a sensitive (short-throw) throttle and the brake and accelerator pedals close together.

If you can already heel and toe, this is only a small progression in the technique and is quite easy to get used to.

I can sometimes alternate between the left-foot braking and heel-toe positions, like the Elise video. I found I "had" to do it when testing my Alaska course-creator tracks in the Audi RS6 - it made it much more driveable into the corners. Very useful once you get used to remembering which foot is doing what, and which pedal it's currently on (jabbing the brakes with your left foot thinking it's the clutch, for example :scared:)
Click to expand...

Right, thanks for expanding the discussion further.

And now to really confuse people, some racing cars with standard gearboxes, meaning a clutch pedal and an H-patten gearshift, have straight-cut gears (dogbox) that can handle alot of abuse, and therefore can be shifted by merely lifting slightly off throttle during upshifts and by blipping the throttle as the shifter crosses the gate during a downshift. Montoya in this video does so and also does generally always have a bit of throttle on to steady the car.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h41sMovV6SA

Sorry if this confused people but as they always say 'the more you know...'
 
heal and toe

is a driving technique used mainly in motor racing. its main purpose is to allow smooth down shifts. if your driving a rwd car and you downshift too fast the engine isnt at the same speed as the rear wheels. this can cause a lack of rear grip suddenly and can cause a car to spin out.

also known as shift lock or diff lock
see here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGFeugl4BLg

by using heal and toe your attempting to match your wheel and engine speeds so that there is no difference between the two. this allows a smoother downshift. you can do this in any car really but its more beneficial in a rwd car. the key to most racing is being smooth, sudden movements can cause lose of grip and can cause spins.


as for paddle shifts not needing heal and toe, simply put you cant. there is no clutch pedal as most padel shift gearboxes are matched to an auto box. they used to be matched to a manual box but the auto boxes give smoother gear changes.

ferrari recently developed an ecu characteristic to do heal and toe so to speak on their paddle shift boxes. when you press the downshift paddle the ecu recognises that the wheels are travelling at a different rate to the engine. the ecu tells the engine to rev so that the engine speed can match the wheel speed and give a smoother downshift. this means you dont need to do anything other than press the paddle.

see here, skip to 3mins
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7jsauspMmU


as for left foot braking. its a racing technique to help with corner exit.
see here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcSAiRxmm0w


as for the comment that left foot braking wears your tyres faster is just stupid. it actually wears your brakes faster. this can also cause an excess build up of heat in your brakes which causes minor problems such as brake fade or major ones such as brake fluid break down or brake failure if you get too hot.

both heal and toe and left foot braking arent needed for everyday driving. heal and toe can make your driving smoother and help in slippery or difficult conditions but its not really needed.

in gt5 left foot braking can give you faster lap times and help stop the car sliding all over the place. in some lambos ive noticed that if you press the accelerator slightly while braking it helps keep the back end in a straight line. this could be down to poorly setup brake bias and the extra accelerator eliminates the extra braking at the rear. i dont know its just a theory.

there is no need to do heal and toe in gt5 as the game does it automatically, not sure if your using a wheel with a clutch peddle but it does with something like the driving force gt wheel.
 
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