Mx5 Mania Track Day

[-alex]

for the trip home, from inside you could almost say the car looked to be poorly resprayed white. Though Im sure the exterior has been returned to its shiney self, not so sure about the dash...

Mine's not quite so bad as that, although I daresay you're exaggerating. There's still some little pools of dust right below the air vents on mine because, although I've managed to clean the outside of the car, I haven't gotten around to doing the inside

HAHA
well you can aske the other Alex, it really did look like a failed respray.

[idb000]

Practice heel toeing on the street, it impresses your friends and sounds awesome.

Fulleh sick!!

Although I do it all the time as well... I heel toe about 90% of the time I change gears...

Yeah, I can heel toe on the street fairly well on almost all down shifts, but I find at the track it is harder to do, mainly because of the largely increased pressure in the brake pedal over driving on the road. Having said that, I found myself heel toeing on the track this time round more than on previous occasions. I think it all comes down to getting more practice on the track.

[marcusus]

Yeah, I can heel toe on the street fairly well on almost all down shifts, but I find at the track it is harder to do, mainly because of the largely increased pressure in the brake pedal over driving on the road. Having said that, I found myself heel toeing on the track this time round more than on previous occasions. I think it all comes down to getting more practice on the track.

I actually didn't find it that difficult on the track. Thing is, because I'm stomping on the brakes so hard and I'm basically already at 5-6 grand, I was able to jab the throttle and it would really be at the right rev range to do the double clutch.

However, the only place I found I needed to heel toe was on the last turn to get from 3rd to 2nd. I probably should be heel toeing on the fish hook too, but I think I was just braking before it, then double clutching into second to get round it rather than doing any heel toe action.

[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.

[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

[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

[marcusus]

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.

Yeah see, I still don't agree, which is why we're having this debate in the first place.

For what reason is it not beneficial to double (de) clutch? If you're quick enough at it, there's no loss of time spent taking the clutch out and putting it back in. And since you're heel toeing, you're hard on the brakes anyway, so it makes no difference so long as you can do it in a short amount of time.

Screw this... I'm making a thread in the motor sport section...