I really want to learn how to "heel and toe." I found this article, which is great.

http://www.edmunds.com/ownership/how...2/article.html

It mentions practicing in the garage with the engine off. Do they actually want you to push the accelerator? Won't that flood the engine? Or am I wrong? I'm no mechanic.

 

If it was a carburetor, yeah, it'd flood it, but your MINI has an electronic drive by wire throttle. I don't think it'll hurt anything if you hit the throttle with the key off.

 

Thanks for the link...it's very useful

 

On this car its more of a side of foot and toe for me.

 

Yea, depending on which shoes I'm wearing, I either have the ball of my foot on the brake with a toe on the gas, or I put my toe on the brake and rotate the rest to the gas (bigger soled shoes).

I never practiced in the garage or with the car off, but why not try it? I never really learned how to do it or how it should look/feel/sound until I saw someone do it in my car. After that I knew exactly what to go for, and I've heel/toed every downshift since. It's habit now.

Good luck!

mb

 

Cool!!!

Think I might have a go at this, it's quicker than revving in between the shifting... just need to practice!

 

I use heel toe all the time. Once you get it down, it's second nature. Also, be sure to have a pair of shoes you only use for driving. If the shoes you learned to heel toe with wear out, you will have to relearn with a new pair. Learning to heel toe long ago changed how I drive other cars too. When I have the misfortune of driving an automatic, I use the brake like I would if I was heel toe shifting in my own car, ready to blip the throttle.

 

I use the toes on the brake and my heel on the gas. Second nature to me now. Find a way that feels comfortable is the best advice. You will also find that the harder you brake the easier it is to heel and toe. The gas pedal is easier to reach that way.

 

I use heel toe all the time it's fun and since i learned i bought puma racing shoes and i have piloti shoes too!!!
but one thing my dad says i'm gonna mess up my tranny, but i think he's just jealous becuase he can't get heel toe down (he's tried and grinded from 6th down to 5th gear) haha what a loser. but he's still my dad..

 

I'm currently learning to heel and toe and so far it's going fine. I've only been doing this for about three weeks, and there are times when I give it too much gas or I push on the brake too much, so I have some kinks to work out, but overall I'm getting the hang of it. I will say though, it is making life easier driving a stick. I've learned rev-matching with blipping the throttle over the past few months and I figured it was time to learn heel and toe method.

Give me about a month or two and I should have it down pretty well for everyday use and the next 2-3 after that tweaking and mastering it.

 

Different shoes have a different effect, that is for sure. My DocMartins work best for me: big, wide sole. Although the best for feel and functionality are my work shoes (expensive leather dress shoes with leather/rubber sole... I work at a bank...). I was surprised at how well those worked out! I would love to get some driving shoes though.

dan

 

Repetition is key. Once out of the garage, find a good set of familiar turns that you can take often. As stated above, the harder you brake, the easier it is to heel and toe. The pedals of the MINI are set up so that when you press the brake hard your foot will be more naturally positioned in relation to the accelerator. Getting a pair of driving shoes will help too. They have a better pedal feel than other shoes and if you always wear them for driving you'll learn consistent foot positioning by always having the same shoe.

 

Whoa Doc Martins , every person is different plus I'm flat footed to the max no lie I can clap my feet and pick up things with them.

 

Thank you for the comments. This is some great info. I almost bought some puma driving shoes on Friday. At least they seemed to be good driving shoes...they were really thin soled....and really uncomfortable. The later is why I passed on them. I've been practicing. I think I'm getting better. At first I was so slow at it, that I lost too much speed for it to really be effective.

I wish I could see someone else do it. I think it would help to hear, feel, and see it....the way it's suppose to be.

 

Check out this from "Hooked On Driving".
http://www.hookedondriving.com/track_tv.cfm

Click on "Getting On Track" then down to "Heel And Toe".
Good Info!
Jim

 

I currently do not have driving shoes, but the shoes I'm wearing now (which are Nunn Bush) have thinner soles than my summer tennis shoes. This makes heel and toe for me a bit easier for feel, but this spring, I'll try out a pair of Piloti and see how those work out.

 

I've been trying heel-toe as well, It's pretty rough still, but hey, this is coming from someone who just started driving manual 1.5 years ago AND used to drive automatics with BOTH feet! ...and those were classic cars with both parking brake and high-beams on the floor!

 

cool...that Hooked On Driving demo of 'heel toe' was great

does anyone know of a video clip demo-ing how to deal with over steer and understeer?

 

That's something that really should be learned by doing, with an instructor in the passenger's seat. Hit up a BMWCCA Advanced Driver's Skill School and you'll learn that on a wet skidpad. Good cheap fun, and you actually learn something.

They don't cover heel / toe, though.

 

MiniSuperCooper, if you're still following this thread I recommend checking out Piloti Spyder SV driving shoes. Not only are they great driving shoes, they are the most comfortable all around shoes I've ever owned. On top of that, they are lasting a really long time. Reasonably priced too. About 75 bucks.

 

Here is another great link http://www.turnfast.com/tech_driving..._heeltoe.shtml
and a great video of it in practice
http://videos.streetfire.net/video/c...db3f41d4d1.htm
and a good close-up video
http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...95572912437791
and finally a video with commentary
http://www.caranddriver.com/custom/s...ction=features

 

I finally figured this out for myself, but I rarly brake hard enough to do decent heel & toe. I guess it's more a tack maneuver anyway, where braking hard is the norm.

 

I too search for a good heel and toe technique but is it really necessary?

The original reason for the heel/toe was the early transmissions did not have syncronizer rings to match the spinning gear sets in the transmission.

Today all production car manual transmissions have syncro rings and do not need to be driven by heel and toe.

The most common example of an un-syncronized transmission is large over the road trucks. They are shifted routinely without even using the clutch and it is called floating the gears. This is only possible because the engine speed drops off very slowly compared to a car.

However some transmissions used in race cars may not have syncros.
Adding the syncro rings increases weight, and adds something else to go wrong. Trucks and race cars have another common transmission trait and that is the use of straignt cut gears rather than spiral cut because they are stronger. Spiral cut gears are much easier to shift.

Is it necessary to heel and toe todays car manual transmissions? Probably not but if you like it, go for it.

 

I started doing it for track driving. It's done so you can downshift while braking without upsetting the balance of the car / causing the brakes to lock up.

 

You're thinking of double-clutching, which certainly is not necessary with a good tranny. Heel/toe is totally different, and (I think) very necessary for getting around a corner quickly if a downshift is required, as Snid says.

Having not located a local Piloti retailer, can someone compare them to the Adidas shoes? I tried the Adidas, but my wide feet don't agree with them at all. Right now I'm using some slick Rockports that look almost like the Adidas, but the heel isn't quite right.