Heel toe question? (more)
 

Hi, all u professional racers.
I tried to do some heel-toes today, however, it is hard, i can't even reach the throttle when i press the brake.
Also, the brake is very hard to control, cause i can't hold my right foot in the air.
So...


How did u guys learn Heeltoe? How long for a regular driver to be familier with it?

Luke

You need to get new pedals. Most of us on the board who heel-toe have done this. I replaced all of
 

mine. NASA only changed one of his pedals...

Can you recommend some pedals. TIA...
 

and how best to install them.

Aghhh, you had to ask this. Well, there are a whole host of suppliers from Razo to Momo. I am
 

currently using Momos but Razo are great as well. The pedals are usually pretty easy to install. Stratmosphere currently sells ABT pedals. Here is a link: http://www.stratmosphere.com/abt_s4_interior1.htm

You can find Momo, Razo, etc... at any aftermarket store though...

Do you replace the pedals or these go ontop of the existings pedals..TIA

Not a professional racer, but I learned heel-and-toe on my S4. Here's my experience: (long)
 

I learned to drive a stick years ago on an old RX-7, and hadn't even heard about double-clutching, much less heel-and-toe shifting. My first manual-transmission car after that was my new S4, and of course I'd learned about heel-and-toe through the forum long before my car arrived. So, after she arrived, I re-read the numerous instructions that have been posted and started trying to learn. Double-clutching was easy, but heel-and-toe was just a serious pain in the ass. I thought about buying after-market pedals to make it easier, but I decided to give it a few weeks and see if I could get the hang of it.

Now, at 4500 miles, I practically never make a turn without it. Actually, I habitually heel-and-toe more than I need to, because I got into the habit of doing it a lot while I was trying to learn how. I really should chill out a bit and give my tranny a rest from all the shifting, especially since the S4 gives you plenty of torque even when you're one or two gears away from the optimum gear.

Anyway, some answers to your questions - I don't remember exactly how long it took to learn, but it wasn't more than a month. This is solely with practice and posted instructions - I didn't have any experienced drivers help me out. It *is* a bitch at first, but it'll come. Learning to do it smoothly at high speed will take longer, but you'll find that once you can do it at all, it becomes fun and it's no longer a chore to keep practicing to make it smoother and quicker. Like I said, I'm only at 4500 miles and I almost *never* miss a shift coming in hard into a turn. Actually I'm more sloppy going slow than fast because I don't have to brake as hard and it's a little trickier to modulate the throttle when the brake pedal isn't depressed very far.

Tip #1: Try using the edge of your foot to blip the throttle, rather than your heel. This sort of thing varies depending on seating position and the length of your legs and the flexibility of your joints, so don't be afraid to mess with your foot position a bit. For me, the brake is depressed by the left side of my foot, right about where the ball and arch of my foot meet. I blip the accelerator by rolling the right edge of my foot (kind of the right "ball" of my foot) onto the accelerator. Like I said, play around with it - just make sure that, whatever your foot position, you have good control of the brake pedal. That's important because you don't want to accidently have your foot slip off the brake and cause you to rear-end somebody or go off-roading.

Tip #2: Try to get a feel, just by practicing double-clutch down-shifting while driving straight, for how much of a blip you need. It's not the same every time. Downshifting between two higher gears needs less of a blip than between two lower gears. Also, if your RPMs are low, you don't need to blip as much. If you think about the gear ratios and what the RPM difference is between two gears at the same speed, you'll see why.

Tip #3: Some people suggest you practice while coming to a stop at stop-lights. Personally, while I do heel-and-toe when slowing for a light, I found it very difficult to do while I was learning. The reason being that, when you're learning, the process of the downshift takes too long and I would often find that I couldn't complete the shift because, by the time I was ready, I had to come to a stop and couldn't let the clutch out. Better to go to a windy back road. Don't try to do it while driving fast yet - learn to be smooth first, and the rest will just come to you.

Hope you find some of my experience useful.

Nice post, but on the existing stock pedal setup, heel-toe is very difficult (at least for those of
 

us with average sized feet and shoes) 8-P. On the BMW lines, I have found it a piece of cake with the stock setup though, because the pedals are properly positioned from the get go.

A little of both, the stock rubber cover go off, and a larger pedal cover goes on top, in most cases

Hmmm...my shoe size is 9 1/2, I'm 5'10" (those are about average right?) and I have the stock pedals
 

...and I think I have a relatively typical sitting position: as low as possible (not by choice...but I like to be able to see all of my gauges), fairly upright, and sitting close enough that the heels of my palm can rest just past the top of the steering wheel without having to lean forward.

Perhaps, with nothing better to compare to (never tried heel-toe in any other car), I didn't realize how hard it was and stuck with it 'til I got used to it. If I'd learned on something with a better stock pedal setup, I imagine I would have gotten fed with the S4's layout sooner. :-)