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A Personal question

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[ QUOTE ]
((Pssssst, Doc, what's heel-toe?))

[/ QUOTE ]

mehheh... toe onna brake pedal... heel onna gas... as you start to brake for entry into a turn you want to downshift, so: clutch IN, gearlever to neutral, clutch OUT, rev engine with the heel to match RPM with road speed in the next cog down... WHILE BRAKING with yer toe... clutch back IN and lever to lower cog, clutch OUT and repeat 'till you have the cog appropriate for apex/exit and then put yer boot back inna loud pedal again and cog back up on turn exit (actually you'd wanna be "on it" just past apex). You should be able to keep the maneuver smooooth, so's to keep the car in balance and under control the entire time. Sounds hard and complex, but with practice it all happens in an eyeblink. It will always mystify novice LBC passengers and it prolomgs the life of transmissions and clutches too. Just not necessarily while you're learning. Use Emma to learn it: the older gearboxes are a bit more "frail" and must NEVER be put into first or reverse if the car is even *slightly* rolling. No synchro's on those cogs.
 
/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/iagree.gifI'm gonna print that out and show it to the wife.
I couldn't have said it better.
Different and in english yes but better no /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif
 
so whats with the double clutching fellas? guess i am not doing it correctly. i do more of a roll with my foot,but a midgets pedal are pretty close together and i gots beg feet.



mark
 
JB, get him to take a ride in someone else's MGB and he will see how they were meant to be driven! Anything below 3500 RPM is for cruising to work. For performance, you want to stay above this!
 
Phantom, I'd like to know how your engine is raced prepped. 6500+, that puts a smile on my face.

For me it depends on mood, 4500 - 5000 if I'm feelin frisky, 3000-3500 if I'm just off to the store or summthin. Downshifting is just a natural thing and I've not really ever thought about it. I can't remeber the last time I owned a car with an automatic.

The other day, I pushed my 91 S-10 in second gear to see how far she would wind up (no tach) and reved her to the gas cutoff point, man that was odd, wont do it again. It's a work truck and I typically shift a little lower when I drive her as compared to the B.

-D.
 
This can't be just me. RIGHT? But when I get into my Solara, I catch myself reaching for the gearshift, pushing down on an imaginary clutch. And have, on more than one occasion, forgotten to put the car in park, and just pull up the emergency brake.
 
Whew, glad to hear it. Because I did it this evening. I drive Emma far more than I drive the Solara, and it's almost comical to see my imaginary shifting and clutching!
 
heh... I've only ever owned 1 automatic. Before my 'B I had a '92 Mistubishi Mighty Max (Dodge branded) that was a stick. Occassionally, i would borrow one of my room mates' cars. They both drive automatics, because they chicken out of sticks in LA traffic. Anyways, the first time I drove one of their cars, I slammed my left foot into the imaginary clutch and found the over large brake pedal..... kind of hard to walk something like that off when you do it in the middle of a 4-way stop with cars at all 4 corners... heh

When I bought that truck I thought the pedals were awfully close together. Apparently, the spacing was just enough that the clutch would have been where the brake was in the roomie's Pontiac. When I got the 'B I couldn't believe how close together the pedals were... I had troubles with my right foot catching both the brake AND the accelerator when I naturally only wanted one of them. Anyways, I've adjusted to the spacing of them. Still have trouble with heel-toe (in the literal sense) driving. I usually end up using the side of my foot to move the gas while I'm braking.
 
I can be driving one of 4 different cars any day.
3 automatics and 1 clutch.
The auto are 2 floor shifters and 1 column.
I've turned on the wipers when trying to put the transmission in park and had the manual car roll down the driveway from not putting the parking brake on.
I had a pushbutton dash auto once 61 Fury and I loaned it one morning to an ex-girlfriend who got it started and then accused me of having removed the transmission because there was no shifter.
After a brief lesson in pushing buttons I couldn't get the car back for a few days. She was having too much fun shifting by finger.
 
I still don't get that heel-toe bit. I need someone to show me how it works.
 
Ya mean Doc's answer ain't clear???

Simply put you use your right foot for the gas (heel) and (toe) brake.
Your technically braking and giving it gas at the same time through the turns.
I picked it up from road rallies in the 70's.
 
you push the brake with your toes and push the gas with your heel. The idea is to bring the engine RPMs up to the speed your are going for the lower gear. You'd want to do this when you are driving "spiritedly" and want to make your turns as quickly as possible keeping the engine in its "power band" (the strongest section of the RPM range) so you can leave the turn going faster than when you started.

It takes a bit of practice to get down... if you watch races on television occassionally they'll put a camera on the driver's feet in a small screen so you can see them heel-toe while down shifting going into turns. I don't think I've ever seen it done for NASCAR races but the races where the drivers have to navigate hardcore twisties will do it from time to time.
 
Ahh. So you're telling me you're supposed to BRAKE through turns??? Silly woman I am.
 
Or... you can think of it as a method to keep the pedal down while hitting the brakes! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif
 
Now I have to go out and sit in Emma to see if my foot will reach, I have little female feet, not big ol' guy boats.
 
I worked at an independant garage for a couple of years, where we worked on a lot of early 90s Nissan Sentras. As some of you know approximatly 95% of these cars (at last around here) were standards.
One day an automatic showed up.. No prob'. I took it for a test drive after the repair, and was tooling down the hill to the shop at around 55 mph when I went to downshift to turn in.
Thank god noone was right behind me! as I actually pegged the brakes (hard) and locked 'em up, I was in shock for a moment before I realised what I had done, as the front of the car dived, the seat belts locked, and all I could hear was screeching tires.
I was so used to driving standard Sentras.
I sometimes try that in my Windstar (the only automatic we have) But I've fortunatly never tagged the brake pedal.
 
ARGH! I can't heel-toe. My foot doesn't fit, isn't big enough. When I have my heel on the floor, only about 1 1/2" of the very tippy top of my foot touches the gas pedal anyway. I have to hang my foot up in the air to get my heel on the gas pedal and my toes on the brake.

Is my gas pedal abnormally high?
 
nope... the pedal is just as high in my '76. Like I said earlier, I can't "heel-toe" in the strictest sense with my 'B. Instead, what I normally end up doing is ball of foot on right edge of brake pedal and use the side of my foot to push the gas. Then again, the soles of most of my shoes are wide enough to hit both pedals at the sametime with my toes... I don't normally try to hit the gas with my heel, because I have to lift my leg up to do it and when I do that my thigh hits the bottom of the steering wheel. I'm still working on a technique that's comfortable to perform and still gives me decent throttle control.

The alternative is to get one of those "Goofy Foot" gas pedals which makes the gas pedal gianormous and makes heel-toe action easier.
 
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