HOW TO DOWNSHIFT Rev-matching and Heel-toe in an e46 BMW
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00:00Okay, I'm sorry about the bad camera angle.
00:12I only have one GoPro, so that's as wide as this angle gets.
00:16You're going to have to deal with that, I guess.
00:18I've got a lot of requests for this video, so I'm going to give you a quick lesson on
00:24how I rev-match and how I heel-toe.
00:29Okay, so there's lots of other videos out there explaining this and a whole bunch of
00:32videos that wax poetic about the wonders of driving a manual car.
00:37I'm going to skip over all that and get right to how to actually do it.
00:43Okay, so downshifting is something that you should do, especially if you are at all interested
00:49in performance driving.
00:52Now, you can take a look at my feet here.
00:58First of all, you're noticing two things.
00:59One, when I'm not using the clutch, my foot is not on it, it is on the dead pedal.
01:04Hopefully your car has a dead pedal, that will make this a lot easier to do.
01:09So the other thing that you're going to notice is where I place my feet on the pedals.
01:16So that is a downshift right there.
01:20I downshifted into third gear.
01:21When I'm driving around normally, I don't often downshift into second.
01:26You certainly can, and I do it sometimes coming up to a slow turn, because third gear
01:31doesn't quite have enough torque.
01:33But I'm going to show you how to downshift into second, so pay attention here.
01:37This is without braking.
01:38Okay, so do not touch the gear shift until you are ready to actually move it.
01:43None of this put-your-hand-on-it-and-get-it-ready stuff, that's incorrect.
01:46Okay, so the clutch goes in, blip the throttle, down into second, release the clutch.
01:53When you blip the throttle, you want to raise the revs to match the engine speed to the
01:57road speed in the next gear.
01:59Each gear will be different.
02:01Downshifting from fourth to third, you may only raise the engine speed 1,000 RPM, but
02:05downshifting from third to second, you may have to raise the engine speed 1,800 RPM,
02:10depending on the car.
02:11It takes time to learn how much to blip for each gear so that you can downshift smoothly.
02:17Okay, that's all there is to it.
02:21When I say blip the throttle, that's going to differ from car to car for two reasons.
02:25One, certain cars have different throttle responses, and two, my car has a lightened
02:29flywheel, so my throttle response and my revs rise very quickly, which means when I rev
02:34the throttle like that, you can hear it revs quite quickly, all right?
02:40So I didn't actually downshift there.
02:41So here's up into third gear, I'm going to downshift into second again, okay?
02:46So watch.
02:47Clutch in, blip the throttle into second, release the clutch.
02:51I release the clutch smoothly, but I release the clutch quickly, as long as you catch the
02:56revs at the right time.
02:57Now, the principle of this is that you want to elevate the revs using your right foot
03:03on the throttle pedal to the revs that the next gear is going to be at.
03:08So you have to raise them, because at a certain road speed, you have to match that road speed
03:15to the engine speed for the following gear.
03:18So if I'm in third gear at 3,000 RPM, when I downshift into second gear, I'm going to
03:23be just under around 5,000 RPM at that same speed.
03:27So that's how high I have to move the revs, okay?
03:31So this is just something that I do normally.
03:34The advantage to downshifting is twofold.
03:36One, you're coming up to a stoplight, you can downshift into a lower gear in case the
03:42light turns green, or in case the people in front of you move out of the way, and then
03:46you can drive away.
03:47You don't have to just kind of pull away in the higher gear that you were in, okay?
03:53Don't downshift into first unless you really know what you're doing, because there's a
03:57big gap between second and first, and first gear is very torquey.
04:00You probably won't get it right, and you're just going to bang on your clutch disc and
04:05your flywheel quite severely, okay?
04:09So I stayed in second gear so I can avoid that fan.
04:11All right, moving on.
04:13Let's do this again one more time, up into third gear.
04:17You watch my hands.
04:18Don't leave my steering wheel until I'm ready to downshift, okay?
04:22So here we go.
04:23I'm going to downshift into second, okay?
04:28So I took my foot off the clutch pedal smoothly, not slowly, but I let it up until the point
04:34where I know that it's engaged at the right revs for the lower gear, and then I released
04:38it all the way quite quickly, okay?
04:42That is downshifting, okay?
04:44You can use this if you want to pass somebody on the highway, because there's more torque
04:48available higher in the rev range, which means if you're cruising around at 3,000 RPM and
04:53you want to pass somebody, you probably won't have much torque available to you.
04:57So you have to downshift into a lower gear so your revs will rise in a lower gear, right,
05:01up to like 5,000 RPM or thereabouts, and that will mean that you have more torque available
05:06and you can accelerate and pass the person you're trying to pass.
05:10Now, heel-toe, okay, this is a racing technique.
05:14This is not something that you need to know how to do to drive on the road, okay?
05:19I do it when I'm driving on the track, and I personally do it all the time when I'm driving
05:24on the road, just for practice.
05:26So heel-toeing is something that I promise that you are going to suck severely at when
05:29you first start driving, because it's really hard.
05:32You have to do two things.
05:33You have to brake and rev-match with the same foot, because you only have two feet.
05:40I mean, I hope you only have two feet.
05:43So when you are braking aggressively on a track, you're going to need to be in a lower
05:49gear for the exit of the corner, because you've slowed down, and you want to be at the top
05:54of the rev range in your power band the whole time, okay?
05:57So a heel-toe looks something like this.
06:00I'm not going to explain it yet, just watch.
06:07So I brake with my right foot, and I blip the throttle again with my right foot.
06:12The clutch foot is exactly the same as a regular downshift.
06:16Okay, so the purpose of this is that you can brake aggressively and downshift at the same
06:20time, all right?
06:23Now, what I'm actually doing is I'm covering the brake with the ball of my left foot, okay?
06:31So I'm braking like that, and then I actually hit the gas with the side of my right foot,
06:38like that.
06:39That's the motion, okay?
06:40I'm wearing these shoes.
06:42These are like kind of a performance driving shoe, because I can feel where the brake pedal
06:48is.
06:49So if you're wearing big, clonking skate shoes, you're going to have a really hard time feeling
06:54your brake pedal out.
06:55You need to be able to feel the brake pedal, how much you're pushing, where your foot is
06:58on it, so you know the reference point to the throttle, all right?
07:04So watch again.
07:06Okay, so I'm not going to do it there.
07:09That's an upshift.
07:10Sorry about that.
07:11I'm going to go this way.
07:12Wee!
07:13All right, so again, what you're going to do, I guarantee what you're going to do at
07:20first.
07:21I did this.
07:22Everyone does this.
07:23When you try and push the brake down, and then blip the throttle with the same foot,
07:27you're going to lurch like this, because you're going to hit the brake harder than you think
07:29you are.
07:30It takes a lot of practice to be able to smoothly apply the brake and blip the throttle at the
07:34same time.
07:35That's the biggest challenge, okay?
07:37So here's a downshift in a second with a heel-toe.
07:41Pretty simple.
07:42Now, the advantage to driving a car like a BMW that is performance-oriented is that my
07:48throttle pedal and my brake pedal are very close together, and they're spaced properly.
07:53They're spaced properly for performance driving.
07:56That means that it's not a huge stretch to go from here to there.
08:00In fact, I don't even really have to use my heel.
08:02I use the side of my foot.
08:04On my Saab, I actually have to use my heel.
08:06So I bring my foot on the brake, and I turn my foot and hit the gas with my heel.
08:11It depends on the car.
08:12If you're driving a BMW like me, you're just like this.
08:14It's nice and easy.
08:16Okay, so here, down to second, heel-toe, easy.
08:22Okay?
08:23So, we're going to attempt to heel-toe from fourth to third to second.
08:32Okay?
08:33This would be the idea.
08:34Under full braking, you would do this.
08:39Okay?
08:40You do not have to select each gear and release the clutch in each gear.
08:44Modern synchronized transmissions allow you to skip gears with minimal wear,
08:47as long as you don't do this all the time.
08:49If you are concerned about your gears, you can always double-clutch downshift
08:52when you skip to spin the input shaft to the correct speed for the next gear.
08:57But you kind of start to get the idea of what this looks like, okay?
09:01So I will heel-toe again for you here.
09:05Okay?
09:06I'm in third gear.
09:07I'm going to heel-toe to second gear as I'm coming up.
09:12And here we go.
09:13Brake with my toe, clutch, and back to the dead pedal and back to the gas pedal.
09:21That is how to heel-toe downshift.
09:24So if you have any questions about that, please put them in the comments.
09:28I'll do my best to answer them.
09:30I'm not a professional racing driver.
09:32I'm not a huge experienced teacher in this, right?
09:38This is how I downshift.
09:39This is how I rev match.
09:42This is how I heel-toe.
09:44So hopefully that has helped you.
09:45And for the people that were interested in watching that,
09:47I hope I've answered your questions.
09:49If I haven't, then just put it in the comments.
09:51I'll do my best to answer it.
09:52Maybe I can do a follow-up video a little bit later.
09:54All right?
09:55I will talk to you next time.
09:56TH out.
09:57♪♪♪♪