...For the past couple of months I've been focusing on steering and getting the feel for all of the cars once again after a break. At this point I'm pretty satisfied I have a decent collection of setups and need to move things on to the next level. Gear ratio's and shifting.

After spending most of my childhood working with cars with my father I understand the basics ie. all of the various components that make up the gearing system and how they interact with one and other to get things moving as far as the flywheel, also the other areas of locking power and LSD are self explanatory.

What I don't understand is:

Heel Toe and shifting without the clutch before braking...im guessing to do this is to have the gearbox select the gear for you when the speed is at perfect state to select next gear. ATM I drive auto clutch and flappy paddel, and TBH I always always seem to be slower out of the corners than anyone else when getting on the throttle is the only difference between me and the car in front. I know it's a bit of a lazy bastard way to drive, but will I see an improvement if I learn true manual, and does anyone have some practice techniques I can try out to learn this ruddy manual heel toe thingy?

personaly i ONLY drive very few cars with paddels and auto clutch (i let lfs choose the cars based on their gear box but allways have shifter with auto clutch off) i might not be the fastest out their but i have no problems with getting out of the corners as fast as the next guy...

i attached a replay for you this got me 4th fastest in LFS world WITHOUT auto clutch or driving aids 47th overall



PS i dont heal and toe in LFS only in my real car the G25 pedal position sux

Quote from CSU1 :

and TBH I always always seem to be slower out of the corners than anyone else when getting on the throttle is the only difference between me and the car in front.

you DO use locked diff, do you?

it feels totally shitty and undermines the point of this game that wants to be a simulator, but if you want to be quick out of the corners, it's a must.

heel and toe doesn't make you faster. most of all not when accelerating because then you don't do it. manual shifting CAN make you faster. it appears to me that shifting the G25 is quicker than semi-auto.

basically, you really have to ask yourself the question: do you want to have an experience as realistic as possible or do you want to be competitive?

gear-ratios are pretty much negligible, as long as you don't do any extreme stuff. sometimes, however, it seems to be a good thing to have a gear that exactly matches the most important bends, i.e. you're at a good rev to accelerate out of the corner.

Quote from Bandit77 :

basically, you really have to ask yourself the question: do you want to have an experience as realistic as possible or do you want to be competitive?

That does indeed seem to be the trade-off you have to make, the way things are now. It's a shame, really.

Having taught myself Heal and Toe and been using it sucessfully for a few years now I can't honestly think how people could ever master it in a simulation where you don't get the 'feel' of the car jerking forwards and backwards to know when it's smooth. As long as it's there or thereabouts is the best you could hope for.

Quote from CSU1 :

... but will I see an improvement if I learn true manual, and does anyone have some practice techniques I can try out to learn this ruddy manual heel toe thingy?

When learning how to rev-match you will most likely not improve your times. The most you could possible do is reach the same level of performance as you had while using the paddles.

This is assuming you are at the peak of your abilities which you probably are not. If you want to go faster work on your driving. Adding more things to think about will only make you slower.

The practice technique I suggest: learn Heel & toe in a real car. As mentioned before, it is impossible to feel the rev-match in any simulator because you cant feel the forces on the car.

What you can do to learn rev-matching while down shifting in a simulator is, try bliping the throttle and listen to the rpms.

If you blip and you hear the revs shoot up, then, when you release the clutch fully, the revs drop back down, you bliped too much. If you blip and the revs continue to shoot up after you have released the clutch fully, you didn't blip enough.