(no toe-heeling) Do you downshift before or during or after a turn?

\"with\" toe-heeling poll - Click HERE

 

Even without heal-toe I still downshift before a turn. I just do a quick blip of the throttle. I don't find heal-toe to be needed very often at all. I rarely do that.

 

You should heel-toe to execute smooth downshifts. Once you do it enough you will begin doing it all the time.

 

shifting in the turn (unless you have to for some reason) is bad news. If you are close to 10/10ths and you shift in a turn more then likely you will cause bad things to happen. You want to be as close to steady state in terms of your acceleration as to not push the tires past their traction limit. Shifting will upset the balance some amount...no matter how smooth you are.

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by meat
[B]You should heel-toe to execute smooth downshifts.

 

On the street w/o heal-toe, here is my procedure - brake on, clutch in, shift into lower gear, brake off, begin turn, sometime during the turn let out the clutch and give it some gas.

 

I only heal-toe shift when my toe hurts...

I do heel-toe pretty much every time I downshift when I'm slowing since it's smoother to me. Even when I'm just slowing down for a stoplight I heel-toe through the gears, so that just in case I have to accelerate for any reason I am in a position to do so.

 

Are you confusing heel-toe (rev matching) with double-clutching?

 

If you're talking to me, meat, than no... Though I do double-clutch every downshift and heel-toe as well wheneven I'm downshifting while slowing down.

The "smoothness" is from not having to transition off the brakes to shift, thereby changing the jerk (rate of acceleration) of the car. Or, if engine braking, it again maintains a more constant jerk as the dowshift changes the braking power of the engine as well as the transient changes while shifting. It allows me to brake at a constant rate and keep the car in an appropriate gear for the speed I'm at. In a way, it's safer since I can always accelerate away if I need to.

Double-clutching makes the engagement of gears smoother and easier, and is basically unnecessary with a fully syncro'ed tranny - but I find it enjoyable to do and it does reduce wear somewhat.

 

You want to be in the proper gear for applying throttle/power through the turn and accelerating out of it. Braking/shifting in a turn is a no-no because it can upset the balance of the car. So you downshift into the right gear as you brake hard before entering the turn, which usually requres heeling and toeing for the greatest smoothness and efficiency.