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TR6 Heel & Toeing a TR6

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Plus, done well, it feels and sounds great! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

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You got it!

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I was driving my '65 Sprite in the California mountains with my brother in the passenger seat, and managed to pull off the perfect heel/toe shift at the entrance to a corner.
He looked at me and said "Nice downshift."
I felt ten feet tall! (Which is nearly double my real size! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif)
Jeff
 
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In what may or may not be a real life example of what we have been discussing; what kind of bizarre gear shifting was being performed by the driver of the Mustang in the famous chase scene from the movie "Bullitt"?

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You're right, in Bullitt, Steve McQueen (and his stunt driver, whose name escapes me at this moment,) used double clutching -- both on up and downshifts. Sounds great.
 
Why would you use double clutching on upshifts? That seems like it would just make the all the components have to do more work, plus giving an awkward jerk, as if you had reved it and dumped the clutch going from 2nd to 3rd, for instance.
 
The driver of the charger in the Bullit chase scene was Max Balchowsky, of old yeller fame.
 
I was taught to double-clutch on both upshifts AND downshifts on my police high-speed driving courses, even though the cars we drove had synchromesh. It certainly smoothes out the shift when changing down. Get it right and apart from the change in engine note a passenger should not be able to tell that you downshifted at all, as the road speed remains constant. I was taught to maintain the right foot in the same position on the accelerator, not to let off at all.
 
On the rare occasion that I downshift (manually) in my StepVan, I heel-and-toe to match revs because I can't use left-foot braking (the steering column gets in the way of my left foot).

In our slush-box car ('02 Protege), I use left-foot braking.

In some manual trans cars, I put my heel on the brake pedal while on others, my heel goes to the gas pedal.....depends on the pedal layout. As well as the sporty factor, h & t has a practical benefit: great for starting a stickshift car on a hill.

One of our Time Trials racers is handicapped and has hand-controls in his VW Golf: he does "index finger and thumb" instead of h & t.
 
Hello Steve,
I understood that heel and Toe is (was) frowned upon by the police instructors and The IAM, although I have never understood why. Neither do I understand why you would double de-clutch on a serviceable synchromesh 'box. Nor do I believe that it makes it any smoother as what does that is the synchronisation of revs and gear to road speed.
On a similar vein, the modern thinking is to brake and then select the required gear when you are ready to go, but I still prefer to select the lower gear earlier so I'm ready to go without the lull of a gear change. The usual reason given is "brakes are cheaper than clutches\gearboxes to replace" Not true in my experience, particularly as modern non asbestos brakes wear out the discs as well as the pads.

Alec
 
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The usual reason given is "brakes are cheaper than clutches\gearboxes to replace" Not true in my experience, particularly as modern non asbestos brakes wear out the discs as well as the pads.

Alec

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If you match your revs correctly, there is no extra wear on the clutch or gearbox. I heel/toe downshift all the time to slow the vehicle going into the turn, and have power to apply to settle the rear. So far my record is 330,000 km on an OE clutch. I don't think that counts as excessive wear!
 
Hello Webb,
I can see no reason to do so, heel and toe implies that you are braking, so changing up a gear is illogical.

Alec
 
Alec,
That's what I thought, but several members mentioned that they had been taught to do that, or had seen it done, which I didn't understand.
 
Webb,

You don't heel toe on an upshift, you double clutch. Now, I don't know why you would do that on a tranny with synchros like they did in Bullit, or why Steve was tought to do so in cop school.
 
Hello Walteses,
as far as Bullit is concerned I woud bet that the reason is simply that it is a car themed film and it sounded good, not for any illustration of real driving practice.

Alec
 
Actually, I wouldn’t be surprised if some or all of the engine sounds in Bullitt weren’t dubbed in after the fact. Very common in Hollywood.
 
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Webb,

You don't heel toe on an upshift, you double clutch. Now, I don't know why you would do that on a tranny with synchros like they did in Bullit, or why Steve was tought to do so in cop school.

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But still there is no need for even that on any gearbox, whether dogbox (syncho-less, or standard). You probably are familiar with the way a gear box works, but I'll explain anyway. There is the input shaft (coming from the engine), the layshaft, and output shaft (going to the differential). There are gears on all three shafts (only 1 gear on the input), but they are only permantently connected to the input and layshafts. The ones of the layshaft can spin at the speed of the input when in neutral. The way gears are selected is that the shifter fork moves a cog gear, which engages into the side of the gears on the input shaft. While the gears on the input aren't solid against the shaft, the cog gear is and will turn at whatever speed the engine is turning. So when you go to upshift, you will already be rolling (meaning the layshaft and input gears will be spinning, from the engine), and the wheels will already be turning over (the cog gear will be spinning), so both are turning, and both will engage at a low gear speed, which is what you want because of the lower gear ratio. Double clutching would be pointless on an upshift, as it would speed up the cog gear needlessly, and actually put more strain on the synchros to slow it back down again. For a picture (which always helps me understand stuff), check out my attachment.
 

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Webb,

Have you ever driven a synchroless gearbox? I have one in my binder. I don't use the clutch after I am rolling, but I can assure you of this. If you do use the clutch to either upshift or down shift you need to double clutch to have a decent shift. Why you need to do this is when you push in the clutch and pull the tranny out of gear you wait untill it easily falls out of gear, i.e. the RPMs of the input gears, and those of the cog gear will be matched. At this point you can not put the tranny into the next gear because the revs of the input gears are too low to match up to those of the cog gear, so it would just grind if you tried to. So you release the clutch to allow the input gears to go back to the engine RPMs. You then push the clutch back in and put a light pressure on the shifter allowing the gears to rub very slightly, then when the RPMs of the input gears drop to the RPMs of the cog gear your slight pressure drops you into your next gear. Its easier and quicker to just shift without a clutch, hence the reason, my father, grandfather, and most of the other old truckers I used to know refused to use a clutch.
 
Webb,

Sorry it took me so long to reply. I hadn't noticed the post untill tonight.
 
A member of my club has this TR250, and I noticed something down in the footwell that he seems to have added for the purpose of heel and toeing: a large notch taken out of the transmission tunnel. See the attachment for a picture.
 

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. . . and the reason it's a lost art is that it is no longer relevant

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Ah, but it is still relevant, particularly in racing, where you don't want the deceleration caused by an abrupt change in RPM induced by a downshift to upset the car. A 3-2 downshift without bringing the engine speed up can cause the back end to come around on you.
And please, do not ask why I am sure of this! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif
Jeff /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/driving.gif

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Thanks for pointing me in the right direction Bugeye.

I think your reference to 'racing' answers my question, I though this in the first place, no requirement for toe & heeling unless racing. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/england.gif
 
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