Hello!!
I've been playing LFS for more than half a year wit different types of controllers (keyboard, mouse, joystick, 2- and now a three-pedal-wheel). I want it realistic, and now I've to learn HnT.

Can someone give me some tips (because in real life i want to go save not fast so i don't have to HnT)

- is it okay if the engine revs up when hitting gas while HnT?
-do I have to shift down at first and start braking afterwards?
- my pb on XRG BL1 is 1:35:98(with Heel'n'Toe, without it was 1:36:16!)

please explain that a dummy can understand it
Thank You!
----------------
edit: i am trainig with the EASY RACE or BSP setups and 3-5% Intake restriction with 10AI in single player mode - does this effect brakepoints very much?

Quote from Trebuh :

Can someone give me some tips (because in real life i want to go save not fast so i don't have to HnT)

you can heel and toe in real life even if youre going slow... i do it all the time in 30 zones

Quote :

is it okay if the engine revs up when hitting gas while HnT?

thats pretty much the idea

Quote :

do I have to shift down at first and start braking afterwards?

youll have to do it all at the same time
what you want to be doing is press down the clutch (while youre already braking) and then shift down and press the gas pedal while pressing the gas pedal ... all 3 at the same time
when the gear is in get off the gas pedal again and clutch back in hopping that you have enough revs for the lower gear

Quote from Trebuh :

Can someone give me some tips (because in real life i want to go save not fast so i don't have to HnT)

Actually, Heel and toeing might even be safer, especially on slippery roads which is the last place where you want additional braking from your engine.
Anyhow, go search this forum instead of making a thread, because there are dozens of threads about it with pictures and book excerpts.

Quote from Trebuh :

- is it okay if the engine revs up when hitting gas while HnT?

As Shotglass said, that's the whole point of performing heel 'n toe downshifts.

Quote :

-do I have to shift down at first and start braking afterwards?

The procedure is like this:
You start braking for the corner, and at some later point you want to downshift (depends on corner/situation), to do this with HnT, you

1. Press the clutch with your left foot.
   
2. Rotate the right foot, which is currently pressing the brake pedal, counter-clockwise so that the heel/right side of your foot presses the throttle pedal.
   This happens almost simultaneously with #1. You don't actually fully press the throttle or do a separate up/down motion, rather the rotation of the foot itself already presses the throttle pedal.
   
3. Put the gearstick into the lower gear.
   
4. Stop blipping the throttle - rotate your right foot back away from the throttle pedal.
   
5. Release the clutch.
   

Keep in mind that all this happens very fast in one fluid motion. It's also not important to keep the order of #3 and #4 - the blip is really just a short stab at the throttle, putting in the correct gear basically happens simultaneously with the blip.

Making good HnT downshifts is a matter of practice, so just start out slowly doing the sequence for every corner. After a while the motion will go over into muscle memory and you'll be able to do faster and more consistent downshifts. Having a modded pedalset with extra resistance to the brake pedal, respectively a brake pedal travel that is shorter than the throttle one can help immensely, at least on the G25.

Quote from AndroidXP :

As Shotglass said, that's the whole point of performing heel 'n toe downshifts.

it has to be said though that if you practice it in every day pootling around conditions in a real car keeping the revs from falling is usually enough
in real life it also helps immensely (and kills the gearbox in no time) if you shift down without using the clutch at all... forces you to learn exactly how much revs you need between two gears

Quote :

Rotate the right foot, which is currently pressing the brake pedal, counter-clockwise so that the heel/right side of your foot presses the throttle pedal.
This happens almost simultaneously with #1. You don't actually fully press the throttle or do a separate up/down motion, rather the rotation of the foot itself already presses the throttle pedal.

and that one is not necessarily true and depends entirely on how far apart your pedals are, where their pivot point is and how much room your feet have
rotating a normal middle european foot in a italian footwell is near impossible and most of the time placing your foot in such a way that you press the brake pedal with the left side of it and then twisting your ankle a little to press the gas with the right side works better in a lot of cars

that said as android already pointed out most pc pedals sets arent built for heel and toe and fail in 2 important apects
1) the gas pedal is not set back... ideally it should be level with the brake pedal when its pressed to the biting point of the brakes
2) the brake pedals are travel sensitive and dont have a biting point which feels utterly wrong

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-783773124257173554

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPj9XXW25GA

Quote from Trebuh :

- my pb on XRG BL1 is 1:35:98(with Heel'n'Toe, without it was 1:36:16!)

Well this could be because of luck with your lines of choice, driving or other factors but it could also be due to Heel n Toe. HnT will make your car stay balanced when shifting rather than making the wheels upset the car when shifting as the engine engages in the braking... IE: The time it takes the engine revs to catch up to the tires can upset your car, but if you HnT correctly the revs are already matched and you eliminate the ability for the car to upset itself.

I don't understand the point of heel and toe.

When you brake, the revs in down. When you downshift you need to blip the throttle to raise the revs back up?

How does this make me any faster?

Because then you don't need to slowly let the clutch out to not disrupt the car...

If the engine revs are low, and tire speed is fast, when you put it into a lower gear the engine speed will need to make a huge jump! Up say 2000 to 3000 rpm. If you just release the clutch you can lock up your rear tires and unsettle the car. To avoid this the other alternative is to slowly release the clutch but then your being slow... If you match the revs with a blip of the throttle before you take your foot off the clutch it will not need to be released slowly because the engine is already spinning at the same speed as the wheels (or transmission really but ignore that!).

Smooth is fast, so you want to keep the car settled into the corner, and Heel and Toe allows the car to be braking as much as possible, while down shift and not upsetting the car.

Quote from BullHorn :

I don't understand the point of heel and toe.

When you brake, the revs in down. When you downshift you need to blip the throttle to raise the revs back up?

How does this make me any faster?

No, if you're braking at the limit of grip already...

Apart from altering your brake bias, Heel and Toe is just a way of looking after your car by not stressing the parts so much...

I still don't understand the advantage. Oh, well...

Quote :

Anyhow, go search this forum instead of making a thread, because there are dozens of threads about it with pictures and book excerpts.

I did finding nothing reliable, i read the Wikipedia-article too

things i needed were the steps and the thing with reving up... anyway if someone seaches this topic will find this thread because of its title

Thanks for the help

Quote from BullHorn :

I still don't understand the advantage. Oh, well...

It basically allows you to not upset the car when braking - thus you can brake a little later, and carry a little bit more speed into the corner. It also reduces tyre wear (snatching a tyre), clutch wear (asking the clutch to pull up the engine revs), dog wear (they slip together easily when matched) etc etc.

The best drivers have ALWAYS used it where it's an advantage - which is most downshifts (but not all).

Sounds good. I'll try to implement it. Since I don't have a clutch pedal, I could use my left foot to brake.

Quote from BullHorn :

Since I don't have a clutch pedal, I could use my left foot to brake.

Have you not using your left foot at all? I'll have to make a small clarification here though. Heel & toeing is a specific way of blipping the throttle, but by no means the only. I say this, because when you use two pedals only, you aren't actually heel & toeing at all, just blipping

That's correct, but this is what heel and toe is for: blip the throttle.

Is there any advantage to actually heel and toeing or it's just 'simulating realism'.

Some people have a clutch, therefor to blip the throttle and get the advantage from that smoothness they need to use the actual heel and toe technique... Without a proper clutch you can't fully do anything except blip the throttle, although you can use half of the HnT technique, but in your specific case, with no clutch, it doesn't matter whether you HnT or just left foot brake while blipping... The advantage is in the blip to match revs, HnT is the technique required when driving with a clutch...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v ... SgEj4&feature=related

Better video if you are a visual person like me.

Quote from BullHorn :

That's correct, but this is what heel and toe is for: blip the throttle.

Is there any advantage to actually heel and toeing or it's just 'simulating realism'.

Put it this way: if touring car drivers didn't use a clutch pedal, 99% of them would left-foot brake. The reason heel and toe is used because it's the most effective way to blip with 3 pedals.

Quote from BullHorn :

That's correct, but this is what heel and toe is for: blip the throttle.

Is there any advantage to actually heel and toeing or it's just 'simulating realism'.

Advantage is very real indeed, your car is more stable when braking, you can apply more brakeforce without locking the driven wheels, and your car is in gear when you need it

It's not as noticeable in low-power FWD cars, but a high-power low-weight RWD on a bumpy track will be a lot less forgiving


I've made a quick lap at Blackwood in a LX6, here is what Heel-n-Toe'ing looks like in an telemetry analyzer. This is braking at the end of the long straight, it's not perfect but shows the basic idea. In this segment I'm going from 6th to 3rd, in 3 separate shifts, so I do everything pretty quickly. I'm using a G25 with a progressive brake mod (big name for a piece of rubber that works magic ^^ )

http://img253.imageshack.us/img253/3402/hntcs4.jpg

As you can see from the pic, you start braking first, and then press the clutch in. After that shift to new gear and blip the throttle at the same time, keeping the clutch in. Then simply release the clutch and voila!

The amount of blip differs with every car and gearbox setting. If you overdo the blip, the car will jump forward when you release the clutch; underdo it and you risk locking the driven wheels. It's just a matter of practice to get it right. But you will know when you do, your car will just slow down smoothly as if you didn't change the gear at all.

Also, have a look at the bottom graph, Slip Ratio of the rear wheels. This parameter shows how "locked" the rear wheels are, 0 meaning they are rolling freely and -1 meaning they are completely locked. To get maximum braking effect, the tires should be just slightly locked, about 5-10%. As you can see, I didn't do a super great job at keeping the slip ratio constant, but I kept it within a range of 4-7%, which is good enough for me

Try to get the timing right and keep a steady pressure on the brake pedal when blipping. I think a good way to start heel-and-toeing is without actually braking, by simply going up-down between 2 gears, making a blip on the downshift. Take the XRT to Kyoto and keep shifting betwen 2nd and 3rd, trying to make the transition as smooth as possible. Your feet will be doing the job without you thinking about it in no time!

Good luck, hope that wall of text helps


PS: Tristan, could you share your knowledge with us, in what situation is better not to blip? I can't think of any
Unless you deliberately wanted to cause oversteer at the last phase of corner entry when going around a sharp hairpin?..

http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?t=34481

to the guy who said you have to be going slow, BS, i always use H&T on the roads. my tip would be to find the sweet spot on your foot which is hard otherwise you dont have good enough feel for the throttle pedal.

I learned how to rev match without using a clutch before I even started messing around with heel toe techniques.

In my real car I use the side of my foot to blip the throttle while my other side of my foot is on the brake (depends on the brake throttle/ setup of the car).. With my G25 I race without shoes and I use the traditional method of heel toeing, and the feel of using 3 petals at once becomes seamless.

now in my real car I can heel toe and rev match without using the clutch between gears while down shifting very quickly without any hesitation.

If doesn't really matter which part of your foot you use to blip, as long as the same foot operates the brake and throttle it's heel and toeing. Heel and toe is so named from an age long ago when the driver actually had to use the heel of his foot to blip due to pedal positioning.