MX5 vs MR2 Turbo and a few other things like Skyline GTR

[steve b]

MX5 is faster obviously.

http://www.steve-bowen.com/Eunos/240409 ... uality.wmv

[Kongaroo]

Lol - looks like you were having a good time there Steve

What's that interesting looking device in the centre of your dash? Is it an MP3 player or something else?

[steve b]

Lol - looks like you were having a good time there Steve

What's that interesting looking device in the centre of your dash? Is it an MP3 player or something else?

It was fun

The sreen is a LINK (ecu) display, can display any ECU parameter, does away with the need for lots of gauges. I tend to have it displaying Boost, Engine Core Temp and AFR

[Lauren]

Learn how to heel and toe.

[steve b]

Learn how to heel and toe.

I know I really should. I find I have moments when I try and its all great, then because I'm heel & toeing I have a moment (i.e. I'm to soft or too hard on the brakes), so have sort of given up and tend to brake hard, come off the brakes blip throttle then down change keeping it all seperate.

Its one of the many areas of my driving I need to improve

Fortunately the MX5's such a superior handler to the old MR2 I get away with being a clumsy oath

[Lauren]

You should. Practice on the road till you can do it 100% of the time and at speed.

Doing all these things separately is not good because it unbalances the car and makes you a fair bit slower. You'd be amazed how much you can gain under braking if you can heel and toe.

Maybe have a read of an article I wrote a fair few years back:

http://www.mr2.net/trackdayqueen/heelandtoe.htm

Might help.

[steve b]

yes, its funny really, in the MR2 on the daily commute when heel and toeing really isn't necessary I tend to do it quite a lot. Pedals are really close together and it all seems to work.

The mx5 that only gets used on track I've had a good go and I seem to get into the flow and its all going well, feeling the benefit and then I'll just b0ll0cks it up, too much revs so when clutch comes up i surge forward or brake too much or to weakly. I'm a bit inconsistant hence the lean towards not trying. In the dry I do seem to get away with it, I never have the revs dropped to an extent if feels like the rears braking. Wet I admit i'm much, much slower, its when the unbalanced car shows itself after all. I may look at a pedal set for the MX5, it is alot more difficult in that car than the MR2 just to get feet on the pedals nicely.

The 5 goes ok doesn't it , road tyres as well, no trackday specials sticking it to the road. I was quite happy keeping with the R26R, the session before I did 10 laps stuck to the back of a 997 GT3, was a lot of fun. We had an Exige bule flagged infront of us, he tried to speed up rather than pull over,... span two corners later.

Another vid I saw today featuring an R26R (standard) up against a GT3RS at the ring, they are company hire cars based at the ring, director in the GT3RS employee in the R26R :-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVc6wjf6hUw

[rrjwilson]

Ah Steve still playing with the turbo. When you coming to Castle again?
Tell you were having fun in the vid you were rather rough with your steering wheel.
As for heel toe I found i couldn't do it in the 2 but can do it fine in the 5, might be the size 11 feet and 6'2" height being a problem though. Still don't see why I don't fit in the 2 but the 5 is fine and its 3/4 of the size

[matt_mr2t]

You should. Practice on the road till you can do it 100% of the time and at speed.

Doing all these things separately is not good because it unbalances the car and makes you a fair bit slower. You'd be amazed how much you can gain under braking if you can heel and toe.

Maybe have a read of an article I wrote a fair few years back:

http://www.mr2.net/trackdayqueen/heelandtoe.htm

Might help.

Practice race driving techniques on the road?
Sounds like a recipe for both disaster and legal reprocussions to me

[SySanguinary]

Practice race driving techniques on the road?
Sounds like a recipe for both disaster and legal reprocussions to me

Can't see why.

I heel and toe on braking all the time. Apart from keeping the downshifts nice and smooth into corners it also helps decrease wear on the clutch by helping match the revs of the engine to the gearbox speed.

[steve b]

Ah Steve still playing with the turbo. When you coming to Castle again?
Tell you were having fun in the vid you were rather rough with your steering wheel.
As for heel toe I found i couldn't do it in the 2 but can do it fine in the 5, might be the size 11 feet and 6'2" height being a problem though. Still don't see why I don't fit in the 2 but the 5 is fine and its 3/4 of the size

Not been to Combe in a while, maybe again this summer I'll have a look at dates. I'm afraid I keep being lazy and going to abingdon as its only 15mins from home and handily the circuts been totally different the twice this year I've been. I didn't know you had an MR2?

[Lauren]

Practice race driving techniques on the road?
Sounds like a recipe for both disaster and legal reprocussions to me

It's a complete non-issue as long as you are sensible about it. I do it all the time practically on a daily basis, heel and toeing even when i've got passengers. They never notice in all honesty.

I'm learning left foot braking now.

[rrjwilson]

[quote="steve b"]I didn't know you had an MR2?[/quote]
I don't my brother in law (tim_gts) owns a rev3 turbo but I'm his "engineer" so end up driving it to check everything

[LimeyMk1]

I'm learning left foot braking now.

Whenever I try that I end up headbutting the steering wheel and the car stands on it's nose.

[matt_mr2t]

I'm learning left foot braking now.

Whenever I try that I end up headbutting the steering wheel and the car stands on it's nose.

Lol, beat me to it. There is some mystical force that makes the left foot 1000 times harder on the brakes.

No matter how softly, and how slowly you're going, you seem to stop so hard you fly out of the seat

[Lauren]

Lol, beat me to it. There is some mystical force that makes the left foot 1000 times harder on the brakes.

No matter how softly, and how slowly you're going, you seem to stop so hard you fly out of the seat

Well definately, simply because your left foot has not had to develop the sense of feel that your right one has whilst driving. Is amazing though when you do some karting and you don't really think about using your left foot to brake and soon get used to it.

It does feel unnatural at first but i'm slowly starting to get a feel for it. I tend to try it in the middle of bends to help turn the nose in a tad and help balance the car. I'm a long way from mastering it but it's something new to learn.

[Goto10]

Lol, beat me to it. There is some mystical force that makes the left foot 1000 times harder on the brakes.

No matter how softly, and how slowly you're going, you seem to stop so hard you fly out of the seat

Your left foot is programmed to stomp the clutch pedal, hence it'll do the same to the brake pedal without any practice! I used to kart a lot (had a Rotax Max) and left foot braking now feels fairly natural. I also heel and toe on the road (well, I use the sides of my feet rather than actual heel & toe), saves clutch wear

[matt_mr2t]

Seriously, I've tried being gentle!

Just rested my left foot on the pedal and gently pressed down. All loose objects, including me, flew towards the windscreen and I wasnt even going fast.

It's witchcraft

[mr2nut123]

Lol, beat me to it. There is some mystical force that makes the left foot 1000 times harder on the brakes.

No matter how softly, and how slowly you're going, you seem to stop so hard you fly out of the seat

Your left foot is programmed to stomp the clutch pedal, hence it'll do the same to the brake pedal without any practice! I used to kart a lot (had a Rotax Max) and left foot braking now feels fairly natural. I also heel and toe on the road (well, I use the sides of my feet rather than actual heel & toe), saves clutch wear

Me too. Don't know why they call it heal and toe as I bet most use the sides of their feet as it's easier.

[matt_mr2t]

http://www.triumphspitfire.com/healtoe.html

IMHO that's an awful lot for the brain to be thinking about, calculating and doing while driving at speeds. Considering you should also be looking at the road and thinking about what other drivers are doing.

It's not something I have ever considered a need to do to get a decent speed on a public road. Which leads me to think that the only reason for it is to carry very high speed. Which is illegal and apparently anything not legal is not tollerated on IMOC?