For the past few months i have been using the heel-toe method all the time while on the street making turns, downshifting etc..just so i could get the feel of it for when i start autocrossing. I have it down pretty good and it is almost like second nature for me....well today i autocrossed for my first time and i found that i was only reaching speeds of a little over 45 on the track i was driving. Therefore i was pretty much staying in the high rpm range of second gear the whole time and i never had to heel-toe. How often do you guys get into third gear while autocrossing where you would need to downshift to second through a turn? I thought it would be a necessary skill i would need for driving my car on the track.

 

On the track you will use it. You will find a lot of AutoX courses are faster in a single gear.

 

haha, at the last auto-x, I was in 1st gear the whole time But yeah, on the higher speed auto-x's, I'm in 2nd gear the whole time. shifting is useless to me On the roadrace course, however, I'll go anywhere from first to fourth, and hell-toe shifting would be a good skill to have, i believe.

 

i never shift pass 2nd in any of my auto-x's.
everytime i went to 3rd, i end up loosing time trying to shift back to 2nd when i would normally be accerlerating in a turn already.


there has been a few times where i sat at about 6.5k rpm for 1 or 2 seconds.
but if it takes me about half a second to shift, then break another half second earlier since i'm in a faster speed and have to heel-toe, i rather just screw shifting to 3rd.
plus, i prefer having both arms on the wheel in a turn, and if i screw up somewhere heel-toeing, it might cause trouble for me to shift in the middle of a turn.


just my opinion though. i know some people who like to shift to 3rd and i know others who would tell me not to.

 

thanx guys . I was thinking that heel-toe was a necessary skill for autocross, but i guess it isn't unless you are on a high-speed coarse.

 

its not necessary unless you use 3rd gear in the course. if you have a car with very short gearing and a long straight then you might worry about it.

 

ok yea thats what i thought because my friend racing his spec v which has pretty short gearing was having to get into third.

 

I've gotten into 4th at 2 autocross events. And 3rd at ~80% of events. Still can't heel and toe all that smoothly. Just don't do it in a turn so you upset the car and you're fine

 

what speed do you top out at in 2nd gear that you have to shift into third so much and even 4th gear!?

 

the SCCA has a rule when they make an autoX corse that the cars should never go much over 60MPH. Most "sport/sporty" cars top out 2nd gear at 60mph, so 3nd gear on an auto-X corse is not going to happen much.

I heal toe on the track, but never do it autoX'n because I normally hit 2nd near the start and just stay in 2nd the rest of the run. That seems to allways be faster than trying to shift up and down. But like anything else you should try it for yourself and see 1st hand which is faster.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by SOHC_MShue &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">what speed do you top out at in 2nd gear that you have to shift into third so much and even 4th gear!?</TD></TR></TABLE>

Yeah, doesn't sound like much of an AutoX, maybe a track event around cones in a parking lot?

 

well staying in second after the initial start worked for me so i guess thats what i'll keep doing. I had just heard of people using heel-toe with autocross and i wondered why i had no need for it while i was on the coarse yesterday because never got to a speed high enough to get out of second gear.

 

A fair amount of misinformation here. The SCCA rule says that the course should be designed so that the fastest Stock class cars stay below highway speeds. Many courses on larger lots will feature sections where 3rd gear is needed for some cars.

However with my car (a Type R which is good to 43 mph in 1st) on most of the smaller lots in the East i find that I need 1st gear in places. I needed first gear on South course at Nationals this year. I understand that Andy Mckee was going to first 3 times on South course in his S2000 (that's 6 shifts! in 50 seconds!)

So I think heel-toe is a useful, necessary technique for autocrossing. Sometimes, however I can just brake, turn in, then shift; so a traditional heel-toe shift is not required. By separating my braking from my shifting I am able to get better braking and devote more concentration to turn in.

Overall, I have found many novices especially in Hondas, shifting way too much. Remember a downshift take 0.3 seconds and an upshift takes 0.2 seconds (these are just reasonable guesses arrived at by counting frames from in-car video); so you have to gain 1/2 second to make the shift worthwhile. With that guideline, you will find that there are few places where the added complication of shifting is really a benefit.

Regards,
Alan

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by 00R101 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Remember a downshift take 0.3 seconds and an upshift takes 0.2 seconds (these are just reasonable guesses arrived at by counting frames from in-car video); so you have to gain 1/2 second to make the shift worthwhile. </TD></TR></TABLE>

I agree with the rest of what you said except for this. Not long ago I mentioned this same thing. If a shift takes 0.3 seconds to do, this time can *not* be considered as if it’s being added to your total time. This would only be the case if during the shift, the car somehow comes to a complete stop and stays stationary for the duration of the shift. However as we all know that even though the car does not accelerate during the shift, it does continue traveling at the same speed it has been in the previous gear. So the actual additional time added to a run due to a shift is quite insignificant. A lot more, if not just about all the time lost happens while braking and/or heel&towing at the same time as downshifting, which keeps most drivers from braking and entering the corner at the limit.

 

When i was stock i never had a need to use any gear but second, but now since i moved to SM the more power and better handling have caused me to be in 3rd 6 out the 7 times i have run.

 

last time i checked, top of 3rd (b16a2) was ~85mph. i don't autox, but i can't imagine the average autox setup allowing such speeds. if i'm wrong, heck, sign me up! screw this road course crap!

but to address the topic at hand, should you have to go into 3rd, but then have to go back down into second, i can't see a reason why you wouldn't heel&toe downshift.

-chuck, who was guilty of shifting-too-much-syndrome his first few times on the streets at willow springs.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by SOHC_MShue &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">what speed do you top out at in 2nd gear that you have to shift into third so much and even 4th gear!?</TD></TR></TABLE>

jesse drives an ES mr2. top speed in 2nd gear in them things is not very fast. doesn't help him any that he drives it so fast.

some non-scca clubs will see speeds much higher then you would see at an scca event.

nate

 

absolutely needed in AUTOX to be competitive....it was not until this skill was learned till i started placing in top 10 all the time

 

well am i going to need to use it if i'm not reaching speeds high enough to get out of third? I can heel-toe fine, but i am just saying that i seemed to have no need for it because my car was not able to reach such high speeds that i would need to move into third. I actually used it once, but i think i shifted way to early into third. I think if my car was faster then maybe i would need to shift into third a couple of times.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Hracer &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

I agree with the rest of what you said except for this. ...</TD></TR></TABLE>

Of course, you are 100% correct and my 0.3 and 0.2 second addons are gross simplifications.

In theory the downshift should not change your time at all since you would not be accelerating during that time but braking. With heel&toe the downshift can occur during max braking and not have any effect. But the reality is that none of us are perfect and the shift does impact our braking/steering smoothness and that costs time/unsettles the car.

I stand by the concept that the downshift better gain you 0.5 seconds on acceleration or its not worthwhile. The calculation of that rule of thumb is far more complex than I originally posted.

Regards,
Alan

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by SOHC_MShue &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">what speed do you top out at in 2nd gear that you have to shift into third so much and even 4th gear!?</TD></TR></TABLE>

49 mph is redline in 2nd....

E-stock MR2.

also, to get an idea....here's the autocross we're running in 2 weeks...

http://plaza.ufl.edu/protege/GIR-cones1.jpg

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by 00R101 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
In theory the downshift should not change your time at all since you would not be accelerating during that time but braking. With heel&toe the downshift can occur during max braking and not have any effect. But the reality is that none of us are perfect and the shift does impact our braking/steering smoothness and that costs time/unsettles the car.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Exactly. This eventually sums up every autox downshifting topic I've seen.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by chad &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">absolutely needed in AUTOX to be competitive....it was not until this skill was learned till i started placing in top 10 all the time</TD></TR></TABLE>

Well, I finished 8th in Topeka, and I can't do it in most autocross situations where I don't have time to think about it, set it up, and get it done right. So

 

I needed 4th in my base Integra at a Corvette club autocross I went to a while back... hitting 105 at something advertised as an "autocross" is kinda funny. Good thing it was on a dragstrip

This is relevant because I needed to heel-toe down to 3rd... and then to 2nd, lol.

EDIT: relevancy


Modified by WRXRacer111 at 10:17 AM 9/30/2003

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by WRXRacer111 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I needed 4th in my base Integra at a Corvette club autocross I went to a while back... hitting 105 at something advertised as an "autocross" is kinda funny. Good thing it was on a dragstrip

This is relevant because I needed to heel-toe down to 3rd... and then to 2nd, lol.

EDIT: relevancy


Modified by WRXRacer111 at 10:17 AM 9/30/2003</TD></TR></TABLE>


Yeah, I had to do that on our event this June held on the back straight at Sebring. 4th to 3rd, to 2nd... I was 4th twice, in two different spots on that track....so much fun. The day after, I co-drove Carter Thompson's old BS MR2. Man, that thing goes from less power than mine to about 90 hp MORE than mine in a heartbeat. I didn't spin, but I KNOW i would have been faster raw in my car.

And I paxed first place against ~5 previous National Champions...