Manual transmission - downshifting / Heal and toe rev matching

s84kam · Jun 11, 2009, 11:25 AM

I've been driving manual for years and i've only tried the heal and toe only when i try to drift a rear wheel car. For all the times i've been driving i've always used my downshift to slow down. I'm hearing too many mixed answers. Out of curiosity I just want to ask if any of you guys actually use the heal and toe technique to slow down or just using your breaks?

Using the tranny to downshift, does this cause any premature wear of any sort?

MasterAK · Jun 11, 2009, 11:45 AM

Heal and toe implies the usage of the brakes so you actually use the brakes to slow down before entering a corner while rev matching at the same time.

ambystom01 · Jun 11, 2009, 12:10 PM

Bingo, heel-toe is somewhat useless around town, rarely do you get into a situation where you need to hammer on the brakes while downshifting at the same time. For the most part, I leave heel-toe for the track and just rev-match around town if I need to downshift. Using the tranny to brake is a bit silly, brake pads are cheaper than transmissions.

Greedy_son · Jun 11, 2009, 12:16 PM

Dont think downshifting will cause premature wear. If you do it properly (match your speed to gear ratio) its safe and wont cause any damage while saving your brakes, now if you downshift from 5th gear to 3rd this will cause some damage

.

ambystom01 · Jun 11, 2009, 12:20 PM

If you're using the transmission to slow down, it causes a bit of wear. How much is debatable. I'd still rather use the brakes than the transmission unless you have miles upon miles to slow down.

s84kam · Jun 11, 2009, 09:53 PM

yea that sounds about right, brakes are cheaper than transmissions. Gotta keep that in mind if i want my lancer to keep lasting a long time

azn_ghetto · Jun 11, 2009, 11:16 PM

i heal toe when downshifting, its a way of rev matching when braking, i realized when i started using heal toe, my downshifts have been signifcantly smoother

evoDON · Jun 11, 2009, 11:23 PM

i just rev match around town. no need to really heel toe. but it does help on the track

kalpakiotis · Jun 12, 2009, 05:28 AM

the only extra wear downshifting will cause is to your clutch plate. The gears are all high grade steel and as long as your not mashing into the gears you should never have any real problems with it. It's debatable on how much wear it'll cause, but I don't care that much about it since I plan on replacing it with something better in the future.

djslik408 · Jul 16, 2009, 08:32 PM

Still brake pads cost a lot cheaper.

SirLancerlotWPG · Jul 17, 2009, 07:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by djslik408

Still brake pads cost a lot cheaper.

And alot easier to replace yourself.

LanceHer · Jul 20, 2009, 02:57 PM

How the heck do you guys heel-toe in this car?! The pedals are too small in my opinion or just too wide apart.

I have tried many times but to me it seems the gas pedal is too low, and i really have to jam on the brakes to get the heel to blip the gas.

It only works perfectly for me when i am wearing an old pair of wide shoes. But this is stupid because sometimes i catch the brake with the shoe edge while pushing in the clutch with the left.

Did any of you put a pedal cover on the gas to give it a little height?

absolute · Jul 20, 2009, 09:54 PM

well even though its called heel-toe
u dont actually use ur heel. its more like the lower right side of ur foot. and the ball of ur same foot to apply pressure on ur brakes.

and no i didnt give my gas pedal any height, its just practice its a bit different on every car right. u probably just need to tilt ur foot a bit more to the right and blip ur throttle a bit harder

ambystom01 · Jul 21, 2009, 08:47 AM

It depends on the person, I very much use my actual heel. Try moving your foot higher up on the brake pedal.

djslik408 · Jul 21, 2009, 10:46 PM

Sooooo heel toe huh. It seems that a couple of people have different definition of it.