If you are not comfortable with heel-toe, I would suggest braking normally, and then rev-matching on your downshifts before you enter the corner. This will be slower, but it will be safer while learning.

The S2000 isn't a good car to be changing gears while cornering, unless you are quite smooth in doing so, as to not upset the balance of the car.

 

Also watch out for over-revving on the downshift. If you are at or near the redline in the higher gear at corner entry and you downshift too soon, your rpms could be above the redline when you complete the downshift and let out the clutch. *Bad for the engine*. In this circumstance, either wait until late in the corner entry when you have braked and dropped your speed sufficiently, or just take the corner in the higher gear.

 

I think this ia very good key. Even in our local autocross schools where I've been an instructor for years, I disagree with some of the information put forth to the students, most of them who don't yet have a clue. Left-foot braking, trailbraking, heel-and-toe, etc. are all WAY beyond where a neophyte should be (and usually is).

Remember that with a novice in any form of racing, the goal is to keep the shiny side up and intact. Once the basics are mastered new concepts can be introduced...

 

This is my personal view of the topic in question:

1) Beginners should always, ALWAYS, brake on a straight line. So forget about trailbraking (for now, that is). Knowing how to stop the car is the most basic thing a beginner has to learn.

2) The engagement of the necessary gear for exit should be done BEFORE turn in. NEVER cruise into a corner without the gear engaged. NEVER. It takes away 33% of your ability to control the car. Remember, you control your car with three things (specially in the turns): Steering wheel, Brake pedal, and Throttle. Don't just give the Throttle away, since it's just as important as the steering wheel (with time, you'll learn to steer with the throttle, while keeping the steering wheel at a fixed position; but that's another matter).

3) Never engage the gear as soon as you start braking (common expensive mistake that leads to over-revving). Wait until you are in the middle portion of your braking zone and then start down-shifting. You have to give time for the speed to come down so the lower gear will be appropriate for the given speed.

4) Heel-toe, heel-toe, heel-toe. ALWAYS. And when I say ALWAYS, I mean ALWAYS. Meaning at the track, on the street, in your dreams, etc. Heel toe is a technique that is just as important as the shifting itself. Yes, it is true that is harder to DO it on the street. But it's EASIER to learn it there, since you can concentrate only on it, without worrying about spinning, hitting a wall or going off. If you learn it on your daily commutes and become proficient at it, you'll be a MASTER shifter at the track, since it is so much easier to do it there. Heel-toeing during street driving will give you hundreds of opportunities to practice and get it right. At the track instead, it's usually 2 or 3 corners at the most (depending on the track of course). And then, you'll have to wait months for your next track outing to practice again. Forget it. Once you learn to do it during your daily driving, it becomes second nature. Just like shifting is. You don't even realize you are doing it. Having said that: DO NOT try Heel-toeing at the track, unless you are already comfortable with it during street driving. Just concentrate on keeping yourself and your car safe.

Sorry for the long post.

 

Naka- I do agree with learning heel-toe on the street. This is how I went about it, and I use it as a regular part of my driving. It's much more efficient even on the street.

 

I always tell people to practing all of the advanced shifting techniques on the street EXTENSIVELY so it comes as second nature on the track. You have enough to learn and adjust to on the track, so you want things like that to not be taking up brain power. Start off by learning to heel toe. Then learn to double clutch (it will save your trans). Then start learning to left foot brake with a manual trans (this is the trickiest one)

As a beginner, yeah you want to do all your downshifting and braking basically before the turn. But don't think that stays the rule as you get better.

 

i was under the impression that double clutch technique is obsolete with fully synchronized modern gearboxes. are you guys actually doing it? do you know how much time you loose as a result or is it too small to notice?

 

You are quite right about that. You don't really need to do it. That's what synchros are for. You are just waisting time and smoothness under braking (unless you are driving an open-wheel formula car that has no synchros in their transmissions).

It's cool to do it, though. I never use it at the track, but it's perfect when downshifting from 6th to 3rd in order to pass somebody on a 2 lane road. Downshifting can't get any smoother than that.

 

If you do it right, you're not losing any time at all. You're braking while you do it, remember? As for smoothness, again it's all a matter of practice. If you do it all the time, you can be perfectly smooth.

Is it a waste of time? Depends on how long you want your transmission to last. I had a catastrophic rear end blow out a little over a year ago that sent enough shock it actually broke (not wore out, broke) my 3rd and 4th gear syncros (yeah, imagine the look on my face when I finished rebuilding the rear end only to find the trans was gone too). When I pulled the trans apart, none of my syncros had ANY visible wear on them. That trans had about 60k miles on it with plenty of track use. I can't speak to what it would have looked like had I not been double clutching, but with double clutching, it had no wear at all.

 

BTW, the syncros had each broken along the surface where the two copper pieces for the double cone syncro interlock.