Mx5 Mania Track Day

[Sasso]

The pedal setup makes a huge difference to how easy it is to heel toe. If youre having trouble either your brakes are too soft or your accelerator is too high, you can adjust the accelerator quite easily and the brakes require bit more work.
I found you arent acutally using your toes, more like the big ball of your foot, it lets you push infinite pressure and allowing to swivel around and hit the throttle at the same time without backing off the brakes, even with a squishy pedal. And I found pushing the brake at a higher point on the pedal was easier too.

Marcus what the heck are you double clutching for, are you driving a truck? When do you have time to press the clutch in twice when youre only on the brakes for 2 seconds.

Only 3 places needed to downshift and heel toe, turn 2 from 4th to 3rd - if you dont heel toe the rear steps out and can end up very ugly, its actually a drifting technique. at the fishhook - from 3rd to second quite quickly, and last turn from high revs in 3rd or low revs 4th down to 2nd, more of a longer braking zone (still only few seconds, after the 100m mark) where I tend to stay in 3rd reving the guts off it and do most of the braking while in 3rd, then downshift to 2nd just before turn in.
Hope that helps.

[marcusus]

The pedal setup makes a huge difference to how easy it is to heel toe. If youre having trouble either your brakes are too soft or your accelerator is too high, you can adjust the accelerator quite easily and the brakes require bit more work.

How do you do the accelerator adjustment? I wouldn't mind playing with it just to know how to do it etc and see what the possibilities are.

I found you arent acutally using your toes, more like the big ball of your foot, it lets you push infinite pressure and allowing to swivel around and hit the throttle at the same time without backing off the brakes, even with a squishy pedal. And I found pushing the brake at a higher point on the pedal was easier too.

I'm the same. You can't really apply enough pressure on the track with just a toe, although you can possibly get away with it on the street. I tend to blip the throttle with the side of my foot.

Marcus what the heck are you double clutching for, are you driving a truck? When do you have time to press the clutch in twice when youre only on the brakes for 2 seconds.

??? That's what heel toeing is? Double clutching but with your foot on the brake? Wiki says it's this, and that's what I do when I refer to heel toe. What's your version?

Only 3 places needed to downshift and heel toe, turn 2 - if you dont heel toe the rear steps out and can end up very ugly, its actually a drifting technique. at the fishhook - from 3rd to second quite quickly, and last turn from high revs in 3rd or low revs 4th down to 2nd, more of a longer braking zone (still only few seconds, after the 100m mark) where I tend to stay in 3rd reving the guts off it and do most of the braking while in 3rd, then downshift to 2nd just before turn in.
Hope that helps.

I found on turn 2 I was just double clutching or just changing from 4th to 3rd straight up.
The fish hook was about the same. I think I'd do all my braking in 3rd, then double clutch it to second. I may have heel toe'd (well, my version of it anyway ) it once or twice if I left the braking a little too late.
As for the last turn, although I was told it could be done 4th to 2nd, I generally just left it in 3rd at about red line before slapping it back in second with a heel toe. Wasn't really game to try doing it in low 4th, although that would probably shave down the lap times a little bit.

[JBT]

That's what heel toeing is? Double clutching but with your foot on the brake?

You're talking about two different things which can be done together. You can "heel & toe" without double de-clutching. Double de-clutching is of little or no benefit with a modern synchromesh transmission.

[marcusus]

You're talking about two different things which can be done together. You can "heel & toe" without double de-clutching. Double de-clutching is of little or no benefit with a modern synchromesh transmission.

I do it more for smooth gear changes rather than anything else. There's no point making the car jolt on the track from changing gears when you can do it smoothly.

So what's the heel toe without the double clutch? Is it just being on the brakes and accelerator at the same time? What benefit does that have?

[Marty]

You're talking about two different things which can be done together. You can "heel & toe" without double de-clutching. Double de-clutching is of little or no benefit with a modern synchromesh transmission.

I do it more for smooth gear changes rather than anything else. There's no point making the car jolt on the track from changing gears when you can do it smoothly.

So what's the heel toe without the double clutch? Is it just being on the brakes and accelerator at the same time? What benefit does that have?

Pretty much what you are doing now just without letting the clutch out while the car is in nuetral. Just blipping the throttle with the clutch pushed in while changing down on the brakes.

Achieves same result of smoothness, matching engine revs.

I suspect this is what you may actually be doing (just heel/toe) without the double de-clutch.

[idb000]

You're talking about two different things which can be done together. You can "heel & toe" without double de-clutching. Double de-clutching is of little or no benefit with a modern synchromesh transmission.

I do it more for smooth gear changes rather than anything else. There's no point making the car jolt on the track from changing gears when you can do it smoothly.

So what's the heel toe without the double clutch? Is it just being on the brakes and accelerator at the same time? What benefit does that have?

Double-clutching from Wikipedia.

Basically, push the clutch in and shift out of gear, release clutch and then push clutch in again to shift into the next gear.

[Sasso]

Yah what they said. You don't double clutch its just heel toe rev matching. We dont need to double clutch because we have synchros (well I no longer do in 5th gear but thats not the point. double clutching takes ages because you have to release the clutch twice, and if youre braking when and as hard as you should be there is no time unless you've been dancing your whole life, not to mention its poinlessless. Which is why F&F is so stupid because double clutching IS granny shifting lol, you wouldnt do it on an upshift.

Anyway heel toeing is very very important on the track to have a stable corner entry, and is even more important when youre braking and turning at the same time ie coming out of turn 1 and into turn 2 you start braking just as you straighten out and if you drop the clutch without rev matching you could end up facing the wrong way with destroyed tyres.

[Alex]

my camera is a 400D and most of those shots were taken with the 75-600mm lens on auto focus

75-600mm didnt know there was such a beast....

my bad it's the 75-300

[Sasso]

The pedal setup makes a huge difference to how easy it is to heel toe. If youre having trouble either your brakes are too soft or your accelerator is too high, you can adjust the accelerator quite easily and the brakes require bit more work.

How do you do the accelerator adjustment? I wouldn't mind playing with it just to know how to do it etc and see what the possibilities are.

Ok the way I did it was there are two stoppers, one is the floor stop and one is the back off stop. The back off stop one is not actually adjustable but after time it might bend a bit and make the pedal rise resulting in a loose accelerator cable (bad). I just bent that stopper forward so that the pedal does not rise as much and then adjust the cable tension so that it can completely close then make sure you can go WOT without having the cable stop tight before the stopper. Just dont put your foot under the throttle and lift it up, it will bend the stopper back and losen the cable.

The brake pedal I just adjusted the rear brake screw to be as tight as possible before binding the brakes, it was about a quarter of a turn back for me, the manuals say 1/3. The hand brake gets tighter and the pedal gets hard quicker, not really sure how it works because now my hand brake is back to normal and the pedal has sunk before it gets hard.
Once you adjust the rear calipers, push the pedal with your hand and find out how much you have to push it before it gets hard, then just undo the upper limits stopper that has the light switch on it and more the pedal down to the point you want and then do it up again.

You might have to adjust it depending on pad thickness, but apparently they are self adjusting, pedal gets softer in my experience but could be other things. I should really rebuild the calipers and master cylinder and use braided lines.

The clutch I just adjusted the length of the little stick that pushes the cylinder so that there was no play (but not constantly pressing). Made a huge difference to shift smoothness, but for some reason after track day its a bit crunchier, maybe time for a bleed.

[marcusus]

Hmmm... I'm so used to doing the heel toe with the double (de) clutch, I don't know how easy it'd be to change my style back to the way without it. However, I was under the impression that rev matching was only useful when the clutch was out and you were in neutral, rather than being useful irrespective of whether the clutch was in or out.

[Alex]

Hmmm... I'm so used to doing the heel toe with the double (de) clutch, I don't know how easy it'd be to change my style back to the way without it. However, I was under the impression that rev matching was only useful when the clutch was out and you were in neutral, rather than being useful irrespective of whether the clutch was in or out.

double de clutching with help match gearbox speed to wheel speed (making shifts more smooth, especially from 2nd-1st changes) while heel toeing will match engine speed to gearbox speed, preventing the car from becoming unbalanced or jerking as you change gears

if you already do both smoothly then don't bother changing back, once you can do it properly the difference in the time it takes will be very small it at all

[marcusus]

double de clutching with help match gearbox speed to wheel speed (making shifts more smooth, especially from 2nd-1st changes) while heel toeing will match engine speed to gearbox speed, preventing the car from becoming unbalanced or jerking as you change gears

if you already do both smoothly then don't bother changing back, once you can do it properly the difference in the time it takes will be very small it at all

So really doing a heel toe double de clutch would be the ideal solution, providing you're quick enough, yes?

[timk]

I don't know if my gearbox is stuffed but if I don't double clutch I can feel a resistance of some sort when changing. That in itself makes me want to keep doing it.

[Alex]

double de clutching with help match gearbox speed to wheel speed (making shifts more smooth, especially from 2nd-1st changes) while heel toeing will match engine speed to gearbox speed, preventing the car from becoming unbalanced or jerking as you change gears

if you already do both smoothly then don't bother changing back, once you can do it properly the difference in the time it takes will be very small it at all

So really doing a heel toe double de clutch would be the ideal solution, providing you're quick enough, yes?

yes

[Sasso]

double de clutching with help match gearbox speed to wheel speed (making shifts more smooth, especially from 2nd-1st changes) while heel toeing will match engine speed to gearbox speed, preventing the car from becoming unbalanced or jerking as you change gears

if you already do both smoothly then don't bother changing back, once you can do it properly the difference in the time it takes will be very small it at all

So really doing a heel toe double de clutch would be the ideal solution, providing you're quick enough, yes?

You don't need to double declutch you aren't driving a truck. Ideally you shouldn't have time to double clutch because you should be braking so hard for a very short amount of time and concentrating on braking and cornering.
If you find resistance then go to the gym. Or adjust your clutch pedal and bleed the lines/check slave cyl.