the way you shift

[Average Jae]

i was curious about your shifting habbits.

do you lift up your entire left foot when you engage the gear or

do you plant your left heel after clutching in, then pivot around you heel and just lift? is that even a good description?

i use the pivot method, and is totally cool w/ my car, cept for squeaky noise when my shoes are wet, and during test drives of saab and mini cooper, my shoes got caught in the clutch well. sort of annoying, so i was wondering how you guys clutch in and out, thanks.

 

[mikev]

depends how i feel and who im racing.

 

[codex57]

I move it to Drive and low and behold, the damn thing shifts itself. Once in a while I'll move it over to Sport and I'll have to tap the shifter up or down. It shifts really slow, but my left leg doesn't have to do squat.

 

[Wadula]

i use not to have a special way. soemtimes like this, sometimes like that....depends...and soemhow hard to tell.

 

[skandalous]

Depends on if I'm a driving a car that's meant to be driven hard or not. If it's built to drive hard, then I'll lift the whole foot up and mash the clutch down, but if it's a slower, cheaper car, I'll just pivot on the heal. Good thing these people who I've valeted for don't know how hard we drive their cars sometimes

 

[frolf]

i was actually going to start a thread with the same title, though i was going ask how you guys heel-and-toe. my left foot is either on the dead pedel, floating above the clutch, or using the clutch. my right foot is usually well planted on the gas. when i brake i float my left foot right over of the clutch read to actuate it. i put the ball of my right foot on the brake, and then roll my ankle to blip the throttle inbetween gears. i find it very very difficult to use my heel to blip with a BMW.

 

[mikev]

i was actually going to start a thread with the same title, though i was going ask how you guys heel-and-toe. my left foot is either on the dead pedel, floating above the clutch, or using the clutch. my right foot is usually well planted on the gas. when i brake i float my left foot right over of the clutch read to actuate it. i put the ball of my right foot on the brake, and then roll my ankle to blip the throttle inbetween gears. i find it very very difficult to use my heel to blip with a BMW.

When i drive i ALWAYS wear trainers that have a thinish sole. i use my right toe to press the brake and roll the outside of my foot onto the "gas" to blip. i only use it for show as i usually set myself up before the corner and don't brake when i downshift.

 

[xLibelle]

i have auto (for now), but i have this bad habit of using my manual gears. when im city driving, which is what i usually am doing when driving this car, i keep it in 3rd.
its taken a while to learn exactly how my tranny responds, but i have gotten good at downshifting. i have to blip the gas just right when coming down. heel-toe is easy with such a big brake. when shifting up, i let off gas just a bit, shift and gas in for the rpm to be in the right place. i know its tough on my drive line, but thats why im getting a manual put in!

 

[xLibelle]

so im driving around tonight.... arrrghh, i can't NOT do it! i guess i dont like where the car decides to shift.

 

[Average Jae]

I move it to Drive and low and behold, the damn thing shifts itself. Once in a while I'll move it over to Sport and I'll have to tap the shifter up or down. It shifts really slow, but my left leg doesn't have to do squat.

hey the first smartass!!

as for heel toeing, i haven't gotten too good to try it, even tho i learned the basics, from reading and watching *gasp* japanese drifting vids that float around some forums.. seems really cool and def necessary in the race track, but in the real world w/ 90 degree turns, it's totally more for show than for any real substance imo. (but i say that now because i prolly haven't discovered the real beauty of heel toeing.

 

[wileycoyote]

I use Frolf's technique for "heel-toe". Fortunately the gas and brake are pretty close together and the correct depth for this. I wonder if that's true on other brands of cars.

I always blip the gas as I down shift, the only time I slip the clutch on purpose is from a standing start. I can go up through all the grears and down to 2nd without even using the clutch (can't reliably do a 2 - 1 down shift). Is that bad for the trans? I read somewhere that this can be hard the synchros.

 

[mrferg]

I do both depending on whether I'm feeling sporty. As for the heel-toe thing... well I've never done it, or tried to do it.

 

[frolf]

I use heel-and-toeing a lot, both when i'm driving hard enough to need the extra pull down to a corner, or when i'm just tooling around, i hate the feeling of my clutch slipping up.

i also hope to save my synchro's so work by blipping myself.

 

[MrElussive]

I use my leg when I am using the clutch...I never plant my heel to let it up or anything. As for the whole heel-and-toe deal, I personally don't have to use it much. I just brake a bit, then blip the throttle, engage the clutch in the lower gear, and then use the brakes again. If I need to do everything one step faster, then as soon as I blip the throttle I will move my foot over and start braking immediately, while engaging the clutch in the lower gear. If I need to do it even one step faster (rarely, and when I do need to, it's when 60mph traffic quickly slows down to 20mph traffic), then I will do the whole heel-and-toe downshift deal....I hate it to admit, but I am inconsistent...sometimes I do it well, sometimes I not so well. What I can say, I just don't need to use it much.

 

[frolf]

another reason i do it so much is that it is a learning experience. i get super super close now. so maybe 80k miles down the line when my synchro's are gone i won't need to rebuild my tranny with the urgency i might need to had i not learned to double clutch.

 

[BMW Punk]

I dirve I shift and go fast do what you do to feel good Lift and shift and lift and shift and lift and shift and lift and shift then collect your money [bmwkick]