I've been driving stick my whole life, and only recently have I heard the terms "double clutching" and "heal and toe" shifting. Could someone briefly explain why these techniques are necessary (besides being cool )? I'm not driving an Acura Integra LS anymore, so I would like to learn how to drive stick the "right" way. I always thought downshifting was a simple process. On the highway when I wanted a burst of speed to pass I would simply downshift and not worry too much about where the RPMs were at when I released the clutch. I always got that "jerk" of speed but I thought that was how it was supposed to be done.

Are there websites or books I can consult to learn all the cool and necessary techniques for driving stick? I would also like to know the best ways to drive in certain conditions such as rain or snow. Thanks for any help you can provide!

I'm excited to learn how to drive the S2000 the way it SHOULD be driven!

Mike

 

Thats amazing that you have been driving stick your whole life and have never heard those terms. Well i would see, these terms are MOSTLY racing terms. There is an amazing website called turnfast.com. This site explains when,why,how and sometimes ever who, lol to do a heel-toe or a to double clutch. We could explain these terms here, but no matter how much time we put into our post, our explainations will never come close to the explaination they have at turnfast.com. They have pictures of everything that they explain in text. And even to the experts out their, it may teach you another way.

 

Excellent website, cheers for the link.

-loki, going the lazy-man's route with a sequential gearbox on his next car.

 

I'll give a quick explanation of the two the best I can, but I'm not a great driver by any standards.

Double-clutching: Say you're doing a 2-3 downshift. You depress the clutch, move into neutral, and release the clutch. Then depress the clutch again, shift into 2nd, rev match, and release the clutch.

Heel-toe: When driving, if you downshift and want a smooth transition, you have to rev match. Heel/toeing is just one method of doing so. It allows you to brake while downshifting, and is used on the track (or road) so you can be in the right gear heading into the turn. There are two methods of doing this. Some people put their left side of the foot on the brake, and tilt their foot to blip the throttle to match the revs. An alternate method (the one I use) is to hit the brakes with the ball of your foot, and then tilt it to blip the throttle with your heel. If you do it this method, your foot should be in this position -----> . You do these things of course, while downshifting.

I know I didn't give the clearest explanation, but I hope that helps.

 

Double declutching is a waste of time just for going fast. It's interesting to learn, and if you like old sports car you may have to do it someday. The main purpose is to match the speeds of gears in the transmission so they can shift without grinding, but most all cars now have synchros, which do that for you. You can gain a little extra life for your synchros but only if you double declutch all the time which would be tedious.

Heel-toe on the other hand is almost a must to go really fast around a track. The whole point is to make your downshifts smoother so you can brake harder going into a corner without worrying about the wheels locking if you downshift too hard.

To learn how to do them the best thing is to find a good description and make sure you understand it. Then try it just slowing down to a stop sign or something away from traffic.

Another good site is here.

You can find all sorts of other driving tips at their main site.

 

I say save yourself the trouble and learn how to double clutch for downshifts. It's a better way to do it.

 

what i don't understand is when you double clutch why would you have to depress the clutch twice? that is, you press it once to put the gear in neutral, let it go and depress it again to put it in gear. but why don't depress the clutch and keep it depressed while you bring the gear out of the curent gear and go straight to the next gear while matching revs. wouldn't this save you the time you have to take to depress it, let it go, and depress it again?

and also, do you even need to depress the clutch when going to neutral? if i recall, i used to put my gear into neutral all the time without even using the clutch in my integra LS. i think i started doing it because i did it on accident one day and it didn't seem to be problematic, so i just kept doing it.

thanks for all the help!

 

Double clutch and Heel-toe is really not that hard to learn. You don't really need it for city driving, but it does make your driving smoother. i.e: your car won't jerk on a downshift. Plus, it adds to the fun of driving. (especially on boring street roads)

Heel-toe is really dependent on the cockpit of the car. Some cars, like my golf, it's impossible to heel-toe just because my knee is hitting the steering wheel and the gas and brake pedal are so far away.

The S2000 isn't bad though, it's not the perfect cockpit for heel-toe (at least for me), but it's doable.

Finally, people will think you really know how to drive when you know how to heel-toe.

I think some people aren't aware of this, but be very careful when driving in heavy rain. Stay away from water puddles. If you hit a water puddle, water might go into the air-intake box, then it goes straight to the combustion chamber. When that happens, your engine is dead. I hate to see people with nice cars (like stook) and CAI intakes kill their engine this way, but it does happen.

As far as snow is concerned, just don't drive the stook on snowy road. The S02 won't be able to grip anything, and it can get pretty messy on an uphill ramp.

It's really quite simple. Just take it to redline on every gearchange.

 

jay missed a step on the double-clutch explanation.

To double-clutch do the following

1. Clutch in
2. Shift to neutral
3. Clutch out
4. Blip throttle to raise revs
5. Clutch in
6. Shift to desired gear
7. Clutch out

IMHO, double-clutching is not needed in car with synchros.

Rev matching while heel-toeing is completely necessary to drive smoothly. So a search, there is more stuff out there on this.

 

Vista25, RicePimp-

Knowing the double clutch technique is a nice bonus if you ever had a car that had bad synchros, or suddenly had transmission problems.

Just because a car doesn't need it normally doesn't mean that it wouldn't be useful in a "just in case" scenario. And judging by the S2000's transmission problems, I think this is a worthwhile technique to learn...