Heel-Toe Tecnique

Can someone explain to me how to do it properly? I have size 11 feet, and trying to brake and keep the revs up with the same foot is pretty hard for me. Help anyone??

The difficulty is really dependant on pedal position of your particular car than anything else. There are some cars where it's good, and some where it's bad, and it definitely does take some getting used to, and exact technique depends on the relative pedal positions more than anything else.

Definately. Your pedals might be all out of whack, check your repair manual for stock pedal settings and eyeball it. Some cars have different clearances between gas/clutch depending on power band. Some car companies don't even think about that though.

honestly, I have trouble with this technique too... once I get either new tires or a new car I'm gonna spend some time on it in my church parking lot, cuz its big and empty, I can set up cones, and the cops can't do anything about it cuz I'm at my church, and they let us do it :) see you can drift without going to tracks... you just gotta know the right places :)

anyways I've never seen an rx-7 drift video with heel-toe so maybe its not a good setup for it... plus I wear size 13, that never helps

In my old honda the gas/brake were like 1/2" apart and I found it pretty much impossible. I would even brush the gas sometimes when i was braking, way annoying. If you tried to turn your right foot in the slightest angle it would easily touch both pedals, which is ok in one sense, but trying to press the pedals the way you wanted too was harder than shit.

A floor-hinged gas pedal is a beautiful thing.

Actually, for quick downshifting to load up the front suspension (the kind we want in the drift forum), while doing a brake stand into the corner, it's really about rolling the right side of your foot down to get the revvs up. Pivoting your toes on the brake pedal while nailing the gas with your heel is okay if you want to keep the chassis composed while downshifting...

...unless you're REALLY diving into a corner... :smokin:

I think the foot rolling technique would be good for mid engined cars where downshifting a few pegs is key during a drift. Then you can release the brake smoother and get back on the gas more gradually/smoother.

interesting, there's a fair gap between the brake and the clutch, but between the brake and accelerator there's only about 2 inches (if that). I can position my toes on the brake, and sort of have part of my foot on the accelerator, but i can't control the pressure on the accelerator, so basically the car just does little bunny hops

It's just as much about the vertical placement of the pedals as the horizontal. Ideally, you want the gas pedal at closed throttle to be in line with the brake pedal at the point of threshold braking. Being able to roll your foot over and use the left side of your foot on the brake and the right on the gas is the ideal situation. Bunta describes the best ideal situation prettu well, and that pedal placement is actually ideal in all cars, and is what I look for in a good pedal setup. If the brake pedal or gas pedal is too far down, it can make for some interesting ankle contortions, or make it virtually impossible to heel-toe.

The footwork part is really quite simple


With the ball of your foot over the right side of the brake pedal, roll your foot to the right, the top part of your foot just above the little toe is what you hit the gas pedal with.

Practice throttle blipping first, then holding the throttle whilst actuating the brake, when you can maintain the revs whilst modulating the brakes thats when you should strat doing it out on the road.

There are two blip techniques I use

1: Blip the revs higher than need be, double-de-clutch & match the revs on the way down.

2: Blip & hold the revs this time, otherwise same as above.

Prcatice makes perfect, let me know if you need to know more......

The footwork part is really quite simple
With the ball of your foot over the right side of the brake pedal, roll your foot to the right, the top part of your foot just above the little toe is what you hit the gas pedal with...

This only works if the brake pedal when fully depressed is near the same height as the gas pedal when the throttle is closed and the pedals are close enough together; this is the ideal situation. If the brake and gas are further apart, or not in correct proximity to each other, this doesn't work. The car I learned to heel-toe on (1991 Ford Probe GT), I had to use the ball of my foot on the brake, twist my foot at about a 75 deg. angle, and blip the gas with the heel of my foot. The brake pedal was so much lower and so far away compared to the brake that I simply could not reach both the brake and the gas with the same foot in any other orientation. I have also driven cars where I have had to use my heel on the brake and toe on the gas to get the same effect. I even drove one car (I can't remember off the top of my head what, I want to say early 90's Integra, but not sure on that) where the easiest way was to hit the brake with the heel and use the bar that attaches the brake pedal to the throttle cable rather than the brake pedal itself.

BTW, my feet are 10 1/2, so any of these possibilities could work for HuSTLaZ depending on the exact proximity of brake and gas.

thats ya descriptions really help. I'll just have to keep practicing.