Worth it for auto cross or just canyon stuff?

I have been practicing alot with it but its like learning to drive all over again.

For an automatic this would be extremely advantageous if you already have alot of power because the auto chooses what gear you need to be in, but for a stick shift you have to blip a gear or two then hope that the gear your in (since your clutch foot is occupied) is enough for the turn you are about to trail brake etc...

any info would be awesome, and yes I watch initial D too much as well as F1 haha.

 

idk i always found it dangerous IMO but mind u regular street driving. i feel like when u try and press the brake u wont take ur foot off the gas and u could possibly hit sumthing idk, jus me though

 

haha yes of course. I just realized it will NOT work with the tC. Drive-by-wire systems cancel the accel when the brake is being used.

But when I drive in canyons uphill, it is really advantageous.

yea i dont try it in the street unless im in a canyon lol.

 

lol i tried it a few times effing around late at nite and it jus feels weird idk im so use to braking with my right foot so when i used my left i pushed down on the brake way to hard lol

 

haha yea thats cuz ur used to the clutch. did your face hit th steering wheel? lol happened to me the first time. I hit the steering wheel and freaked out pushing the brake in harder thinking it was the clutch and stalled....

Its really hard to learn but in auto cross its amazing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcSAiRxmm0w&NR=1

 

i've done left foot braking in my TC and it does work. i can go into a turn in gear and follow thru without even using the clutch. just downshift before going into the turn, left foot brake, and gas it through the corner. i don't see why you would give it throttle and left foot brake during a corner. its either one or the other. and brake boosting requires you to left foot brake, and i've done that several times on my TC. i haven't autox before but i have done canyon runs. i find it easier to heel-toe, than left foot braking. i guess in an auto it gives your other foot something to do, but it does take practice cuz the first time i did it i pressed the brake too hard cuz my left foot isn't used to braking.

 

It is highly useful in autox, especially in a fwd. If you get a bit out of whack in a slalom, staying in the power and left foot braking essentially applies the rear brakes and allows the front to keep pulling (although heating up the front brakes a good amount). This will many times pull the car straight again and allow you to shed a bit of speed to stay tight on the backside of the cones. If you right foot brake in that case, especially running high rpm, you are throttle lifting hard in the middle of a slalom, which can make the back end come around.

 

cool thanks. I am planning on doing auto-x soon so I am trying to see what I can practice on in terms of usefulness.

 

Yea, it took me a while to get bearably smooth. But I think heel-toe downshifting is much more important to learn.

 

I dont think it is important that much in autox. I rarely leave 2nd gear. Even on courses where there is room to do it, it rarely pays off because you are downshifting again so soon. There was one test n tune course where I found myself using 3rd, but I just found a smooth line through the slow spots after that I could hold it in third and use a little clutching to keep the rpm up when I needed.

On a road course, heel toe is a must. Either way, it isnt too bad in a tC.

Left foot braking is tough to get used to at first, so it takes practice for sure. A harness would make it much easier since you find yourself using the left foot for stability

 

Oh sorry, I was just talking about using heel-toe at auto-x. Yea, you would almost never do it, haha.

Deisel was talking about canyon runs in his first post, so I was referring to learning heel-toe for those drives :D

 

hehe yes heel-toe is hard with the xa's pedal setup...you really have to do some LATE braking to push the brake in hard enough to be at the same level as the acc. pedal.

I tend to just brake, double clutch and WOT. It's fun enough for canyon not trying to have a certain time lol its not a track.

But yea, I went to the Jim Russel Racing school in california, and heeltoe was MUCH easier on thos open wheeled cars. The pedals were setup perfectly and it was second nature.

thx for tips

 

Yo hatrick! your in blacksburg? no way. I go to tech a few times during the school year, you should come hit up shooting creek with me man. Its a hell of a road. That and route 40 after shooting creek

To go to shooting creek (crooked road) you gotta go through floyd. Now if you are willing to go to the best roads of all time I can't tell anyone on this forum. We would for sure have to meet up. My car is stock but I push the doo doo out of it LOL.

I go to Ferrum College during the school year so if you feel like driving 40 minutes for the best roads ever...hit me up. Im not kidding either...these roads are better than the initial D roads, I coudnt beleive my eye's/stomach haha.

Route 11 or highway 8 is ok, not really a canyon road, but if you go to radford via 460 then 11 then this country ___ road its fun as hell.

Just thought i'd tell you the good spots

 

For road racing you can only use when you're going into a corner that doesn't require you to downshift. Like a fast sweeper. Otherwise heel-and-toe and threshold braking are more important techniques to learn.

 

Yes that is true. But there are many corners on my canyon roads that I have no time to downshift and I need WOT as fast as possible after braking. These roads are brutal, they bank and counter bank in a series of 3 to 4 turns back to back and they go from up hill to downhill back to uphill really fast.

I grew some ***** on one run and never hit the brakes and kept it in 2nd gear. the transmission was sufficient braking and the banking of the road slows me down enough not to over/understeer while maintaining WOT.

I will post a vid one day, and you might doo doo your pants when you see a cliff without a guard rail...lol

 

Haha, yea man. PM'ed you.