dragoncommando, please stop this senseless arguing now! There isn't one thing you are saying that is correct, myself and others have taken the time to try and explain what happens, or what should happen, during a downshift and you are just stubbornly ignoring us.

I have done autotesting, karting, track days in a single seater (admitedly a non winged car), ridden a lot of different motorbikes and am doing motorsport engineering at university. I therefore think i know what the f*ck i am talking about. whilst i dont pretend to be an expert or know half as much as some people on this forum, this is not a difficult subject to fathom.

I am also quite happy to have other people correct me when i am wrong provided they use a logical and well formed explanation. I suggest you take a hint from that statement as we have tried to explain to you why you are wrong but you are blindly ignoring us. I am not looking at this thread again as it is p*ssing me off and I don't fancy wasting anymore time on it.

The reason for me being slower with heel and toe is simply that braking and getting on throttle take time to get used to (allthough ive managed for example some top10 times in GTL with H&T, im quite inexperienced with the technique). Putting some serious thought in practice should help.. and frankly theres only 3 things to make you really faster in Simracing.. practice, practice and practice.

I don't think you understand that I'm looking at it not as a driver, but as the physics of it.

Heel-toe is a modern technique, I won't despute that. I won't despute that it works either. I never have.

What I am saying is that its not the ONLY way to shift, and it's not the fastest either. You can be just as fast without it, on a properly set up car.

Also, On the note of brakes, If you can't lock cold brakes, and I'll say this again. What happens when they get hot?
Thats easy to figure out. You will loose the ability to threshhold brake, and no amount of engine braking is going to compensate for that, because engine braking effects only the rear wheels.
Set your brake bias more to the back and see what happens when you hit the brakes, you'll find that unless you go in a perfectly straight line, you will loose the rear. Even if the brakes don't lock.

If you can't drive consistently with Heel-toe, there are other ways of doing it. And if people can't understand that. Than they haven't been thinking very hard about it, or trying other ways.

Just try to drive with bliping once on the end of your downshifts, you'll realize that it's just as fast. I'm not saying you have to put it in nutral, thats just what I was taught. But just finnish braking and then put it in the exit gear straight from one gear to the next, and blip after braking. You won't get any kind of time loss at all.

Hmm, interesting.. its used to match the revs to allow earlier downshifting to use engine braking if im correct?
But shifting down later should work just as well i reckon!
Takes testing.. ive never really looked into it more!

I've always been taught, and read about this as well. You should try to use engine braking for short braking zones, where you'd only have to gear down once otherwhise. This way you arn't on the brakes every turn. Other than that, the brakes are there to slow you down.

Alot of people are taking what they learned in LFS and thinking it applys to real cars, but if you asked a race car driver, they'd tell you that the only reason to use heel-toe is to balance the car, it's not to use engine braking.

Engine braking, or in this case compression braking in particular is created when the throttle is closed, because the vacume in the intake is great enough to slow down the engine. What you are actualy getting is negative compression, you get a vacume in the pistons.

The only way to control engine braking is to modulate the throttle, and if you watch a race car driver, all they do is blip, there is no modulation. Also, if you watch a race car driver downshift, they downshift and blip so quickly, there isn't time for engine braking to do anything major.

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v= ... ZK-Bk&feature=related
Just watch this video, and consider this.

Unless the engine braking was strong enough than all of the weight of the car is going to be on the brakes because engine braking isn't going to be that strong in higher gears (3rd and up)
So the braking force used to slow down the car is infact going to be greater than the engine braking force, meaning it negates it almost completley.

Downshifting on fast turns without applying the brake alows you to modulate the throttle to control the engine braking, which in turn alows you to control the deceleration of the car.

Your not talking to a know it all, your talking to someone who has educated themselves on many different techniques.

More evidence that downshifting isn't for engine braking.
This is an SCCA driver saying it to.

Quote :

Transmissions don't "blow up" because of downshifts like this. Bad shifts may grind
away synchros, etc., but simple downshifting ain't gonna wreck anything.
Revmatching (and double clutching while you're at it) makes everything smoother and
reduces the wear and tear tremendously. Doing this, however, negates 90% of the
engine braking effect, though.

HOWEVER, generally using the engine as a brake (as applied through the
transmission) is a foolish thing to do from a performance driving point of view.
You don't get precise modulation of the braking effort, you throw your powerband
all over the place, spend too much time trying to be smooth with your clutch, etc.

The brakes are there to stop the car and downshifting [when done properly] puts the
power where you want it. The only exception to this is when you run out of brakes
(or know that you are going to). An example of this might be a woefully underbraked
Showroom Stock (or IT) racecar such as the Mitsubishi Eclipse. The rules prohibit
these guys from running "enough" brakes so compromises must be made.

God intended your brakes to stop your car. End of story.
--
Scott F. Williams
NJ Scirocco nut
SCCA ProRally driver
Hotrod Rabbit GTi

Quoted from an E-mail someone posted on a site I was looking at.

Quote from andy_bonjon :

I have done autotesting, karting, track days in a single seater (admitedly a non winged car), ridden a lot of different motorbikes and am doing motorsport engineering at university.

Which uni are you at?

Quote from DragonCommando :

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v= ... ZK-Bk&feature=related
Just watch this video, and consider this.

What is this driver doing? Braking whilst downshifting

Engine braking is one advantage of heel and toeing, it's a minor one but it is noticeable. As you yourself said the main reason for heel and toeing is to balance the car and keep control of it, that was never in debate.

So lets get this straight your argument is that putting it in neutral and leaving it there until you've finished braking. Although you still accept that heel and toeing keeps the car balanced and every link you've given completely contradicts your argument? Feel like giving in or are you just changing your story and still insisting you were right all along?

Quote from Origamiboy :

If you could look at my lines and in particular my throttle, brake, and clutch traces and give advice it would be much appreciated.

First advice I'd give is to ditch the locked diff that seems to be causing the horrendous understeer in several corners.
Second, your brake force seems to be a bit on the low side since you can pretty much step on it all the way every braking zone, brake balance may be a bit too forward as well.

When upshifting, don't be afraid to stay off the throttle for a few milliseconds more to save the clutch.

Um, no.

I've just posted something that states it's not used for engine braking.

Also, if you shift once at the end of braking, or nutral while you are braking, it's basicaly the same thing, because you arn't in a gear untill the end, just with nutraling, it takes one less step out of it at the end.

The reason you use heel-toe is to sequentialy downshift and keep the car balanced, but you don't have to sequentialy downshift.

IF the car has an H-pattern, I was always told this "The whole point to having an H-pattern is to shift to the gear YOU want to be in, instead of shifting through all of them".

I've said it several times, and other people have said it, its down to preference. The only reason I'm arguing it is because people go ape shit if you tell them there is another way that they've never hear of.

The automatic responce is to attack it and say its slower or not as good.

Quote from DragonCommando :

The automatic responce is to attack it and say its slower or not as good.

The simple fact is though there is no advantage to your system unless you are too retarded to heel and toe. There is not a single successful racing driver that you've got any proof of doing this or suggesting it. It is not as fast or safe because you cannot balance the car and are not ready to apply the throttle if needed. You're also far more likely to damage the car, spin or bog down when you have to select a gear and rev match at the end of your braking. For these reasons I think I can safely say there is not a single successful professional racing driver or instructor on the planet who will teach you anything else than to sequentially (or rarely in certain cars possibly block shift) downshift through the gearbox ensuring that you declutch and get the car balanced before changing down again under braking.

What you're doing would even fail your driving test in the UK.

You actualy never responded about the lap time question, so it still stands, what do you get in the FBM on blackwood? and do you have a replay?


On the note of failing my driving test if I took one in the UK, I realy don't think heel-toe is going to be looked at highly either. Heel-toe has more of a chance of upseting the car if you screw it up.

Like I said, Heel-toe prevents the balance of the car from going forward during downshifting, but if you only downshift once, you don't have to risk upsetting the car several times, it can only happen once. If it happens at all.

I've never spun a car because of shifting this way, infact, I find the car to be more stable because all of the forces are never effected by the downshift.
Any other balancing is done with the brake pedal, as you will see is the case with race car drivers anyway. The differece is, I don't have to worry about downshifting throwing the balance out.
And If I need to put the power back on, its just as fast. All I have to do is hit the accelerator, put the car in gear and pull the clutch out.
It would be the same thing with heel-toe, because chances are you are going to be just getting ready to downshift when something goes wrong, and in order to prevent an accident, you'd have to downshift anyway.

Regarding the G25: the problem is that it's near impossible to maintain the same breaking control i.e. threshold of locking, while blipping as when not. I've modded mine with a wooden block under the break pedal pad, thus bringing them closer when breaking and at the moment of the blip. But it would also be easier if the break pressure varied rather than having to rely on position to judge. If you haven't a decent seat then watch yer back folks!

FWIW, the effect of not h&t-ing in LFS is much less than GTL - where at racing speeds and aggressive changing, the car will likely swap ends without h&t; you certainly get a real kick up the back end changing without matching revs first. I don't know which is more true to real life.

Quote from ajp71 :

Which uni are you at?

Im at Brunel University although im currently doing a placement year down in kent. Why dya ask?

Quote from andy_bonjon :

Im at Brunel University although im currently doing a placement year down in kent. Why dya ask?

I've applied to do motorsport engineering at Brunel

Quote from Postman Pat :

Regarding the G25: the problem is that it's near impossible to maintain the same breaking control i.e. threshold of locking, while blipping as when not. I've modded mine with a wooden block under the break pedal pad, thus bringing them closer when breaking and at the moment of the blip. But it would also be easier if the break pressure varied rather than having to rely on position to judge. If you haven't a decent seat then watch yer back folks!

FWIW, the effect of not h&t-ing in LFS is much less than GTL - where at racing speeds and aggressive changing, the car will likely swap ends without h&t; you certainly get a real kick up the back end changing without matching revs first. I don't know which is more true to real life.

I agree with that regarding GTL. The 427 Cobra is extremely likely to switch ends under heavy braking. I'd imagine the ideal is somewhere in between LFS and GTL tbh..

As long as you don't pull the clutch out during braking, you don't have to worry about swaping ends, I am actualy learning to heel-toe. But it isn't something I'm comfortable with, I prefer to just keep the clutch in and rev match at the end of the braking zone.

Without heel-toe, you basicaly just clutch out once at the end.

You don't have to put the car in nutral, thats just something I got from my dad. who aparantly used to do that for double clutching.

Clutch in, shifter to nutral, clutch out, finnish braking, blip and clutch in, shift to gear, clutch out.

Thats how I can do it with combined pedals. Otherwhise it's no bliping at all, which as you said would cause the car to swap ends.

I'd say, on a powerful car, LFS probably won't be as true to real life as other games. I don't know, since the most powerful car I have is the FBM. But I find even the FBM to be a little too shy when it comes to downshifts, its to forgiving. I'd realy like it if missing a blip would actualy upset the car enough to cause a control loss.

Then again, it could be my setup, I generaly like to keep a good solid rear end, even if it means loosing a little time. I find other people tend to loosen the rear up to much in there setups.

with double clutch downshitfts form 5th to 2nd its:
break(hold), clutch, nurtral, clutch, blip, 4th, clutch, neutral, clutch, blip, 3rd, clutch, neutral, clutch, blip, 2nd, break(realese)/turn in.

a bit much, but if done smoothly its hell of a load better on the transmission if we could grind gears.

The thing is, thats alot to do for no reason other than to actualy engage 4th and 3rd.

Sure it's nice to know that around 50% of the time you'll be in the right gear, but there's always a chance (a rather large one) you are going to have to gear down anyway if something happens, in order to get the power to pull out.

I just K.I.A'd my pedals doing a hotlap, so it gives me the excuse to build a DIY three pedal set. But I'm not sure if I'm going to be Heel-toe downshifting with them.

What I'm thinking of doing is actualy running two laps, one my way, and one with heel-toe, getting the times as close as I can, and than analyzing the lap data from each to see the difference.

If I do both of them properly, there shoulden't be any noticable difference.

You see, I'm not biased tward my style, I never said heel-toe was wrong. I still intend to learn it, I'm just going to stick with what I learned first though.

Quote from DragonCommando :

Sure it's nice to know that around 50% of the time you'll be in the right gear, but there's always a chance (a rather large one) you are going to have to gear down anyway if something happens, in order to get the power to pull out.

The idea of downshifting is that you're in the right gear rather than downshifting, if you have to change down to get out of trouble you should have changed down earlier.

Part of the problem with the G25 is that there is no progressive feel to the brake pedal.
This is important when H andT shifting as you need to be able to use the brake pedal to pivot your right foot onto the gas pedal so you can blip it whilst applying a strong constant pressure to the brake.

There is a cheap simple mod for this, but you need a racing chassis or to fix your pedals securely as this mod makes the pedal feel real with realistic foot pressure.

You can read about the mod at the Nixim forum over at Racesimcentral, I use it and it totally transformes the feel of the G25 pedals