I don't get how it will smooth down the braking... Because I thought you must fully depress the brake pedal in order to have a firm pivot for your right leg? Thanks Jeff
You should talk to ChrisP, as he explained to me, "The brake is a switch, on or off, no middle ground" This was as we were sliding round a corner you understand...
If you can get it right, the car slows down quicker and a lot smoother, no pitching and jerking as you take up drive in the lower gear, I've done ... 5nd 'brumm'4th 'brumm' 3rd 'brumm' 2nd before and you don't realise you've changed down, the car stays dead level I'm going to rig up a hand throttle
Ignore the braking bit and just try it by matching revs on a downshift. It prevents drivetrain shunt, and as we all know mismatched gearbox-engine speeds can spin you out esp rwd. Your car will pitch a lot less. There is still engine braking using heel and toe but the drive is a whole lot smoother (if you can do it right), co downshifting to make use of the engine braking then letting out the clutch without matchingthe revs will give you that characteristic instant rising of the revs and rocking of the car.
i totally agree with that. i think im getting the downshifts right 99% of the time. i make the car scream but never jerk. just tried the heel and toe down to the shops and with my brake accelerator set up on my mk2 its impossible. i know what GVK means
You're never going to get it right if you have never tried it before. The old adage applies. You can try it with the engine running on the drive. Mash the middle pedal and practice clipping the acc pedal with the outside of your foot and getting the revs to come to a certain point.
my acc pedal is about 2 inches to low for me to even reach it. the only way i could do it is put my heel on the brake and toe on acc but thats just uncomfy.
2 inches too low, you serious? Your acc pedal must be on the floor then. You need the acc pedal to be lower otherwise when you hit the brake hard the acc pedal will be far too high. If you lean on the brakes then the acc pedal should be level or just below for heel and toe to be 'easy'.
that;s my problem then, when i press the brakes the accel pedal is WAY higher than the brake pedal, in EVERY car I've ever had.
I'm doing it in my mk1 at the moment. The idle's set at about 12rpm so you need to keep the engine going when you come to a junction! Like ACF I can't explain it but it's about making the most of the braking. There's not really much need for it on the road unless you're trying to brake as late as you possibly can.
there's always a way of gettin round the problem of badly positioned pedals. for example, in a nova, i brake with the arch of my foot and rock my toes up over the top of the brake pedal and blip the bar of the throttle pedal (it swings over above the brake on a nova)!!!
LMAO, you enjoyed those laps didn't you? I hope anyway I find it really easy to heel n toe in other cars (and shall be on sat at mallory), but the golf aint so easy. The mini of mine needs to have heel n toe, otherwise I could chew the box very quickly Going on from this, who is an expert in left foot braking?
workin on it wanna get to the stage where, when on track, i only right foot brake if i need to downshift. Edited by: acf8181
Here's some pics of my pedals, I can heel and toe easily enough with them as they are. Oh, and a dodgy picture of my foot in h&t position (please ignore dodgy slip-ons) You can see the brake is a fair bit higher than the throttle, so when the brakes are "pressed", the pedal is only a bit higher than the throttle. I still have a few problems with the overrun cutoff valve screwing my technique, I find it's much smoother/easier with it disconnected as the engine responsiveness is higher. I used to h&t every gearchange in my old 8v, didn't use the clutch most of the time as you could rev-match it so easily . Joe
When I get round to it, I'm going to take out the throttle pedal and bend the shaft so the base of the pedal is lower than the brake, see if that helps
