Hello everyone, and welcome.
In this video, we're gonna be talking about heel and toe down-shifting.
What it is and why it's done.
So first, we're gonna talk about the process itself.
How it's done and then we're gonna look
inside your transmission and talk about why this is done.
And really, this is used to down-shift while you're on the brakes.
So let's say you're coming into a corner; you're on the brakes.
You wanna down-shift so you can exit that corner.
Accelerate out with a better gear.
And so you want a smooth transition in doing so.
And so this is the process for doing that.
So obviously first, you're gonna have your foot on the brake.
And so you're gonna press and hold.
And you're gonna be on that brake for this entire process.
So the next thing you're gonna do is pressing your clutch.
Then simultaneously, you're gonna down-shift so
in this scenario, we're going from 4th gear to 3rd gear.
And then, you're gonna roll your foot over.
So there's a couple ways this is done, and it kind of depends on the pedal spacing.
If the pedals are really close together,
you can simply have your foot,
and then kind of just roll it over onto the throttle.
If it's spaced further apart, then you may rotating
and using your heel, which is how it gets the name heel and toe.
You rotate over and tap the accelerator with your heel.
And then once you've raised up the engine speed,
you release the clutch and you have a nice, smooth, transition.
So what's actually happening inside your vehicle?
So here we have our engine,
connected up with the fly-wheel and
the pressure plates surrounding the clutch.
That's giving us our input shaft there.
Which is going over to the layshaft.
We got our gears three and four.
And here's our output shaft with the collar.
Here's our gear linkage here, so we're shifting
with our shift lever here.
If we push it forward, it shoves it into 3rd.
If we pull that back, it puts into 4th.
And there's our differential and wheel.
So the process here, the first thing,
Basically, what you wanna understand is that everything
in each individual color and rotate individually.
So red can rotate by itself, which is the engine, and fly-wheel, and pressure plate.
Blue can rotate by itself. The gears and the layshaft.
And green can by itself.
Your wheels up to the collar of the transmission.
Which is on the output shaft.
Now these, while you are in 4th gear and driving along
all of these are rotating together, so they're all synchronized here.
Now, what changes when we're pressing the clutch,
is now we've detached the engine from all of this
so green and blue are still rotating with each other.
But red is not rotating with it.
Now we shift from 4th to 3rd.
So we bring this collar out of 4th gear and press it into 3rd.
So what that does is that it changes what your clutch is spinning with.
So your clutch was spinning with 4th gear, now it's gonna be spinning with 3rd gear.
So obviously, that's gonna raise its speed.
So the clutch is rotating faster than the engine.
So you got this speed which is high because it's connected to the wheels.
And then you got this speed, which is low because it's been disconnected from everything.
So what you're gonna do is roll onto that throttle.
Bring the engine speed up to the clutch speed, so it matches that 3rd gear speed.
And then release the clutch.
And then you'll have a very smooth transition.
So why is this done?
Well, two main reasons.
First of all, you're gonna be saving your clutch
because you don't have a speed differential between the flywheel and the clutch when they engage.
So you're gonna be saving your clutch.
The other thing, and probably more importantly,
is you're gonna have a smooth transition.
You're not gonna upset the balance of the car.
Let's say you're in a front-wheel drive car,
and you're coming into a corner,
and instead of blipping the throttle here, you simply just release the clutch.
Well then you're gonna be placing a braking force
which is going to pass to your driven wheels.
So if you're in a front-wheel drive car.
That's gonna increase the slip angle of your front wheels,
and that's gonna give you a tendency to understeer.
If you were to do the same thing in a rear-wheel drive car,
well then you're gonna be passing that force to the rear wheels
braking them, so you're gonna increase the rear-wheel slip angle
and then you're gonna be more likely to over-steer.
Now if you were to do that in an all-wheel drive vehicle
you're gonna be applying a braking force to all four of your wheels
if you don't match the throttle,
the engine speed to the clutch speed.
And so by passing that braking force to all your wheels
you're gonna be more likely for that car to slide.
Or it can under-steer, over-steer, depending on
where most of that braking force is applied.
So hopefully, that clears up heel and toe down-shifting.
If you guys have any questions or comments,
feel free to leave those below.
Thanks for watching.