Ferrari Mailing List: Re: Stunning New Porsche 918 Spyder - Another Hybrid

[Fellippe Galletta (fellippe.galletta]

On Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 10:44 AM, Mike Fleischer <themightytoe [at] gmail.com> wrote:

Ah right,

Well its really experience based, any stick shift car can be heel and toed, I have done it in pickup trucks...  Some are easier to do than others...  Ferrari's actually have really perfect pedal placement for this, as do later model Porsche's (post 993), I never liked the pedals that hinge on the floor instead of from behind or above as on early 911's, but a smooth HT is very important in those cars, and a good double clutch shift on early cars also.  Part of the challenge of getting an older 911 to go through turns nose first the entire way :), but a 1972 RS is about the best, most enjoyable track toy ever built when its dialed in.

Wow, it's great that you got to drive an RS!

You say you can do it in any car....that's good news because the pedals on my GTO seem far apart, ugh!! Around 3-4" I'd say...such a shame given how much they got right on this car.

But I won't give up. :)
 

Heel-Toe is really a misnomer though, its more of a side to side roll of your foot on most sports cars, the right edge of your right foot rolls to the throttle to blip it while planted firmly on the brake pedal.  It should not matter how far down the brake pedal is as much as how accurately you can blip the throttle, and that is entirely dependent on your foot but also the engine's elasticity and torque delivery... 

I like this half foot idea but obviously it cannot work on all cars.
 
On an ideal car, would you say you still have about an inch and a half of your foot on the brake? My concern is that you still have good control of the brake.

My  current Vette is a bit of a pain because while it revs pretty quick its not quick enough and the torque available everywhere makes getting it just perfect a bit tricky, you can't be close, you have to be dead on our the rear end shakes (or the front if you don't give it enough I guess).  The M3 and Ferrari both revved high and had much less torque which made them easy to do it, my Boxster also...  My 01 Z06 was actually really good, it had the torque of my current Vette (and then some) but the engine would spin up much faster than my LS2 Vette's and was on a more predictable throttle curve.  My Miata worked pretty well, but once momentum was gained, much of a track was 4th gear, just hold on at ludicrous speeds through corners, and read a book down the straights.

Haha, this all makes a lot of sense....you don't want to spend a lot of time trying to blip, I agree.

Also agree that the LS2 at times feels like a truck motor with the rev speed compared to some other cars....maybe there are ways to liven that up?
 
thx,

FG