Heel-toe thoughts

Read today, not for the first time, someone lamenting that they couldn't get the brake pedal low enough/accelerator pedal high enough to be able to heel-toe downshift, or that they could only do it while at max effort braking.

Que?

I generally don't do it because of the opposite - the brake pedal is too low to reach the accelerator pedal without letting off the brakes entirely, or braking so lightly that it is not doing much more than turning the brake lights on.

I'm curious as to what we're doing differently.

The Rio pedals are far enough apart it's hard. I haven't worked that much on it either. It's a 130hp econobox..... 

Depends on the car, I imagine.

My Neon was pretty easy to heel / toe under spirited driving.

My E46 was effortless - perfect pedal placement.

The Manic Miata is meh at best.

Honestly it's just one of those "feeling" things that's different with everybody. My thoughts? Do whatever is comfortable for you, what works for someone else may not work for you, especially if the cars are different. 

I mean that I am curious, biomechanically, what people are doing that they wish for the brake pedal to be lower.

I can't do a proper heel toe because twisting my foot that far counterclockwise just won't work.  I roll my ankle an kinda hit the gas with the side of my foot.  

Or, just rely on those synchros.

Streetwiseguy said:

I can't do a proper heel toe because twisting my foot that far counterclockwise just won't work.  I roll my ankle an kinda hit the gas with the side of my foot.  

Or, just rely on those synchros.

That's also how I do it. I find it much easier to keep consistent pedal pressure that way vs trying to contort my ankle and knee to get my foot to that angle.

z31maniac said:

Streetwiseguy said:

I can't do a proper heel toe because twisting my foot that far counterclockwise just won't work.  I roll my ankle an kinda hit the gas with the side of my foot.  

Or, just rely on those synchros.

That's also how I do it. I find it much easier to keep consistent pedal pressure that way vs trying to contort my ankle and knee to get my foot to that angle.

Despite the name, I don't think anybody actually uses their heel.

In reply to Duke :

It's been a long while, but I recall actually using my heel on a 911SC.  The floor swing pedals meant I could get the ball of my foot way up on the pedal for high leverage, and then the accelerator was right there easy to get.

Top swing pedals get the lever in the way, and reduce leverage when you do that anyway. 

Even the best syncros ain't gonna speed the engine up so you can release the clutch mid turn without upsetting the chassis. (Heel toe is for the chassis, double clutching is for the gearbox - ofthen they are both done together but I think of them as separate driver input decisions). 

OP - I think in general the stationary pedal depth, the brake pedal free travel and the brake pedal working travel are the main variables. 

Non power brake cars usually have a much larger pedal working travel because you need the extra leverage. Brake-boosted cars can have very little travel. 

Despite all cars being different, I'm sure that Carroll Smith would say something like "First make sure your driver is using maximum braking. You should setup your racecar to heel toe under those conditions. Second, if you can't get the pedals adjusted right you need to throw them out and start over and Third, if you can't design them right you need to quit racing."

In reply to Robbie (Forum Supporter) :

That is the thing, that I am trying to wrap my head around.  For me, the confused guy here, to heel-toe while under heavy braking, the brake pedal would have to be an inch or so higher than the accelerator when braking.  In practically every car I've driven, when braking hard, I could slide my foot UNDER the accelerator, not even contacting it except maybe grazing it with my shoelaces.  I usually expend great effort to get the brake pedal as firm and low-travel as possible, and then stick pedal pads/spacers on the brake pedal, and it's still insufficient.

I'm not sure if I'm a good data point.  When I heel/toe, I'm probably doing it wrong.

My experience has been that most modern cars have a long pedal and relatively high boost. Meaning there's a significant difference in brake pedal position between a casual stop and threshold braking, and the pedal is higher than the throttle in light braking. I'd probably prefer they be more even but it doesn't bother me, and I'm certainly not going to compromise the alignment where it matters (at full braking) to make it better in casual stops. I don't know what's wrong with me, I guess my anke/foot are just messed up in the right way that I'm predisposed to being able to roll my foot sideways? My sim pedals (logitech) have the brake slightly lower than the throttle and it's annoying but not impossible...though my method would probably end up bending a real throttle pedal with a longer and less stiff lever arm. The only things I've really struggled with it on are things that really aren't set up for it, ie trucks. I never could really make it work with my friend's former cummins 2500...though part of the problem with that was that with five gears and 3000rpm of slow revving diesel, downshifts required basically full throttle and a lot of patience. And the gearing was so wildly different than anything else that I could never get a good sense of the speed/rpm correlation.

I've never heel-toed before in my life.

I am terrible at H/T but can do it. I just suck at the timing.

There are products made to help though:

https://www.rennline.com/Rennline-Throttle-Extension-Heel_Toe/productinfo/PE70_71HT/

I've also run into much more issue with brake too low relative to throttle than the other way around, but it seems clear that it's *possible* even if it's unusual.

I've always just assumed that for anyone who said the brake pedal was too high... it was. Either that or they're so wrong about what they're doing I don't want to risk learning anything from them...

Having the pedal drop that far below the gas sounds horrible. Many drop down next to it, but being able to get your foot all the way under the gas from there sounds wrong...

Certainly seems easy to have a car with a sloppily done carb (or throttle body) swap that has half its original throttle travel. My MGB had the usual issue, resulting in the usual throttle-too-high issue, but that was sortable on the Weber DGV by just selecting a cable mount closer to the pivot at the carb and matching WOT to pedal-on-stop. Too easy to imagine someone getting it the other direction. DPOs...

And yes, to agree with some notes above:

• Heel/toe doesn't really involve heel or toe; much more ball of foot on brake, edge of foot on gas.
• Double-(de)clutching is a separate thing, though I've never driven something like an early truck where you might double clutch without heel/toeing. So I've often heel/toed without double-clutching, but virtually never double-clutched without heel/toeing.

I'm an ankle roller. I may be double jointed. I can't remember ever driving anything I couldn't roll my foot over far enough to mash the throttle.

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

In reply to Robbie (Forum Supporter) :

That is the thing, that I am trying to wrap my head around.  For me, the confused guy here, to heel-toe while under heavy braking, the brake pedal would have to be an inch or so higher than the accelerator when braking.  In practically every car I've driven, when braking hard, I could slide my foot UNDER the accelerator, not even contacting it except maybe grazing it with my shoelaces.  I usually expend great effort to get the brake pedal as firm and low-travel as possible, and then stick pedal pads/spacers on the brake pedal, and it's still insufficient.

I don't think you really need to be heel and toeing under heavy braking.  Once you are down to trail braking, then figure out what gear you need to be in to exit the corner.  Turn one at Race City, I would go from 4th to second, and generally not even use the clutch.  roll my foot over to rev the engine while leaving a bit of pressure on the shifter and snick it in when the revs were right.  Trick there is to not have too much throttle when it engages, because that will unsettle the car too.  It takes a pretty specific corner for the no-clutch downshift to work.

In reply to Streetwiseguy :

That's generally what I've done... don't downshift until the neutral time before throttle needs to get fed in.

That is great until you find a sudden need to accelerate out of a slide and you're still in the wrong gear.

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

Quit racing in an RX7, and that problem becomes far less.

My mustang is natural for me and I did a lot of street practice at non maximum braking and was able to do it in anger at an autocross where I had to do a 3-2 shift (FAST in that car, 2nd redlines at 75 iirc)

My miata, I could do and it was a lot easier after I got the pedal side extension from I think flying miata

Will be interesting to try in my Bugeye, it has floor hinged throttle.

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

I mean that I am curious, biomechanically, what people are doing that they wish for the brake pedal to be lower.

Oh, in that case, I've never had a height issue with my pedals. Just width. All the manual cars I've owned have had similar height pedals so... I dunno. 
 

I also don't use my heel. It's more big toe/little toe. If I'm barefoot I'll do heel toe, because my feet are substantially more narrow than a shoe but because of that I'm able to hit the throttle with my heel without stomping the trans tunnel. 

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

I mean that I am curious, biomechanically, what people are doing that they wish for the brake pedal to be lower.

I can only guess a reverse heel and toe, where you put your heel on the brake and hit the gas with your toe. I use that technique on my Samurai because of the pedal positioning.

Streetwiseguy said:

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

Quit racing in an RX7, and that problem becomes far less.

I don't race an RX-7, I rallycross one, which means I never actually USE the brakes except to stop at the end.    Even with the 260-off horse mongo engine, driving in a grass parking lot sucks a lot of power, and you need to enter corners by pitching sideways first or it will never turn, and sideways scrubs plenty of speed without using the brakes.

I'm thinking here of things like my Golf, or my Subaru, or my Quantum, or any number of other peoples' cars that I've been allowed to drive enthusiastically.  (Sheesh, I have not had a non-RX-7 with a manual trans since 2014)

Never mastered it.  Long legs, big feet and a serious lack of coordination always made it feel like more trouble than it was worth.  I always felt like I was upsetting the car a lot more trying get the heel toe right (and borking it up massively) than just using the syncros a bit.