Hi, all.
I have a question about heel & toe.

My best time is 1:34:98 on black wood with xfg.
And my gears are obutto cockpit, g25 wheel, nixim mod brake pedal with load cell adapter, & sst gear.

My goal is low 1:34s, but it is very hard.
Fees like it is dream to me LOL!
I was thinking about how to reduce lap time then I was wandering the heel & toe.

My question is that the heel & toe is must have to get a good lap time?

I have not tried heel & toe yet because it is too hard and confuse.

Please share your opinions.

Thanks and sorry for English.

In XFG I wouldn't really think it's going to help much because it's front wheel drive, though it might help your corner entry depending on the type of setup you have.

Heel toe is more helpfull in RWD cars that will break loose under braking.

By all means learn it and see what it does to your driving, because it's a good habbit to have and will mean learning the higher powered cars (Like XRT, LX6 etc) will be much easier and faster to get comfortable.

It's a good technique to learn, go do it
I doubt it will help more than maybe a few 100ths of a second though!

I always do it now subconsously, just watch you dont over rev now.

It can give you more than a 100th if your getting the car stable before you turn into a corner, especially in something like the lX6.

It helps, as it gives you one more thing you can do to control the car. Macro clutch cheaters will still beat you in consistency if nothing else.

My answer ^^


Depends on what car your in, Bawbag explained it well.

i jus epic fail plus it hurts my fat ankles :P

Makes no difference in the XFG apart from when you'd otherwise lock the wheels. You need it in the LX4/6 and the XRT mainly..

It won't save you time, but it will save your clutch.

No, it will slow you down as will the sst shifter. See for yourself. Look at the S2 hotlap charts. Case in point - RAC at blackwood, arguably one of the more difficult RWD cars to drive in LFS. Nearly all the fastest times on blackwood are using autoclutch. For other RWD cars, autoclutch isn't used as much, but basically, none of the fastest times are done using an axis clutch and/or manual shifter. It may help improve "your" time right now, but you will always be at a disadvantage. Given two equally skilled drivers over a 20 lap race, the driver moving his arms and feet like a madman will always make more mistakes and get tired faster than someone simply "clicking" a paddle. But if you're looking to get the most realism out of this "simulator" then you should definitely use clutch/shifter/h&t.

it's not always faster, but it's definitely more predictible. also, if you use auto clutch you can still have the same effect as the 'heel + toe', by left foot braking and blipping the throttle pedal as you shift down gears. it's what most drivers do these days.. and have done since auto blip was taken away.

You would probably gain more from trail braking in to corner rather than heal toes.

Check you current lap times against the current World record and look where you are slower.

In the xfg you can flat shift without issue over a few laps, and heal,toeing wont give you the 0.6/0.8 second improvement you need.

Quote from Widdowmaker :

You would probably gain more from trail braking in to corner rather than heal toes.

well yes, but keep in mind it's much easier to trail brake in a stable car

"No, it will slow you down as will the sst shifter."

Can't agree. Have you tried driving with shifter long enough, like, at least a month? It's really not that harder and I can't see any reason, why it should be slower. Perhaps in an hour race yes, shifter driver is at a slight disadvantage, since there is some chance of a misshift happening, but as for tiredness, I wouldn't be worrying about that, when you're comfortable with shifter, you don't really use a lot of extra effort to use it.

But overall, in short stints, hotlaps, i'd actually dare to say, that shifter drivers potentially can be faster, cause of, well, fast shifting. But other than this tiny difference, it's still 98% driving skill, feeling the car and stuff like that. There are quite a few WR's done with shifter, Mooney uploaded one not so long ago, french guy Ricou is quite impressive (also has one WR), troy is very fast, and also uses shifter, I've seen Karolis using it online and still showing awesome times.. and I myself got few WRs, mostly LRF stuff.

I'm glad I've started to use shifter, so much fun this way. Can't imagine driving with paddles again, feels the same as it would for regular wheel driver who's trying to drive with mouse.

Quote from Fox 2 :

"No, it will slow you down as will the sst shifter."

Can't agree. Have you tried driving with shifter long enough, like, at least a month? It's really not that harder and I can't see any reason, why it should be slower. Perhaps in an hour race yes, shifter driver is at a slight disadvantage, since there is some chance of a misshift happening, but as for tiredness, I wouldn't be worrying about that, when you're comfortable with shifter, you don't really use a lot of extra effort to use it.

But overall, in short stints, hotlaps, i'd actually dare to say, that shifter drivers potentially can be faster, cause of, well, fast shifting. But other than this tiny difference, it's still 98% driving skill, feeling the car and stuff like that. There are quite a few WR's done with shifter, Mooney uploaded one not so long ago, french guy Ricou is quite impressive (also has one WR), troy is very fast, and also uses shifter, I've seen Karolis using it online and still showing awesome times.. and I myself got few WRs, mostly LRF stuff.

I'm glad I've started to use shifter, so much fun this way. Can't imagine driving with paddles again, feels the same as it would for regular wheel driver who's trying to drive with mouse.

Sequential shifter or H-shifter? I would think H-shifters ARE at a disadvantage considering the added complexity, and the lack of engine braking
Sequential shifters, on the other hand, are perfectly fine.. I should actually start using it

Quote from Fox 2 :

"No, it will slow you down as will the sst shifter."

Can't agree. Have you tried driving with shifter long enough, like, at least a month? It's really not that harder and I can't see any reason, why it should be slower. Perhaps in an hour race yes, shifter driver is at a slight disadvantage, since there is some chance of a misshift happening, but as for tiredness, I wouldn't be worrying about that, when you're comfortable with shifter, you don't really use a lot of extra effort to use it.

I always drive with shifter/clutch. Shifting itself isn't tiring - H&T is, especially on smaller sprint tracks with heavy pedals like mine.

"dpalonso" ie Martin Kronke uses clutch and H-shifter all the time, he's hellova fast in LFS, but more so he still holds records in rFactor using this setup...When he uses the padels etc he is slow because he's not used to it.

I just picked a car I thought would benefit from H&T, picked a random track, summed the controller configs for the top 10 hotlaps from all track configs (with more than 10 hotlaps):

LX6 @ South City (all configs with atleast 10 hotlaps)
4 button clutch
104 autoclutch
3 clutch/shifter
--------------
3/108 hotlaps are using clutch/shifter and I have a good feeling a large percentage of those 104 AC have G25 wheels

Hi, guys
Thank you for replying.
I understand that XFG will not effect h&t very well.
Then I will change car which is XRG to practice h&t and get better lap time.
Thanks again.

Quote from coors68 :

Hi, guys
Thank you for replying.
I understand that XFG will not effect h&t very well.
Then I will change car which is XRG to practice h&t and get better lap time.
Thanks again.

You don't seem to understand - Heel & Toe is just a technique to prevent locking up the tyres under braking... The effect on your laptimes will in best case be minimal - your line and how soon you can put the power down (and subsequently hold that speed difference down the whole straight) will affect your times so much more... I'm not saying it's completely unimportant, just that it won't make you as fast as you hope it to...

Just think about that: even in South City, a very twisty circuit, you're on the brakes maybe 20 %, you should never be off both pedals, that leaves 80 % of the track applying the throttle - where do you think lies more potential?

Sequential gears shifting with paddles is much faster in braking areas. That's why many real life race series ban the use of sequential gearboxes.

It reminds me of one time I went online with my G25 H box set up and did a few laps. Someone commented "Dance Gentlefoot dance!" I liked that

I do find it hard heel-toeing in LFS cos there is no clutch or brake feel unlike in a real car. In real life I heel/toe habitually but in LFS I prefer paddle shift.

Quote from Gentlefoot :

I do find it hard heel-toeing in LFS cos there is no clutch or brake feel unlike in a real car. In real life I heel/toe habitually but in LFS I prefer paddle shift.

It's more due to the lack of acceleration felt thru your body, I reckon. A lot of newer cars have hardly any resistance on the clutch pedal and overpowered brake servos... and still HT isn't much of a problem after a few tries.


I think in LFS you can pretty much forget about HT for the sake of stability as long as you set the braking balance and force according to your driving. I definitely think I'd be faster without HT in LFS... in RL, however, not using HT (or blipping by itself) totally f*cks up my timing

Quote from RasmusL :

Sequential shifter or H-shifter? I would think H-shifters ARE at a disadvantage considering the added complexity, and the lack of engine braking
Sequential shifters, on the other hand, are perfectly fine.. I should actually start using it

Lack of engine braking on an H-shifter? what planet are you on?

An H-shifter with manual clutch will give you more control over the engine and allow you to double down as well. Engine braking is greater in lower gears so double down = more engine braking, not less.

hell, on cars with close enough ratios you can tripple down if you wanted, from six to three is one hell of an increase in engine braking if you are running short enough gearing.

As for Heel-toe, I mainly drive the LX4, FZ5 and XRR, the only one I realy ever use heel-toe for is the FZ5. The other two seem to be easier to balance and decelerate much quicker making it easier to just brake down to corner speed, shift straigh down to the gear for the corner and then trail brake in.

Quote from DragonCommando :

Lack of engine braking on an H-shifter? what planet are you on?

An H-shifter with manual clutch will give you more control over the engine and allow you to double down as well. Engine braking is greater in lower gears so double down = more engine braking, not less.

Why do you need engine braking? Engine braking hasn't been helping to stop the car since the switch the disk brakes.

If you can lock the brakes, then slow down with the brakes. If the tires are already at the limit then introducing engine braking will just exceed the limit and make you slower.

With engine braking it is possible to brake the rear end only (RWD cars). Sometimes this is useful. Combined with left foot braking this gives more options to control the car.