Automated Heel-and-Toe - Nissan

Heel-and-toe might sound like a foot ailment, but it’s one of the most useful techniques in the skilled driver’s armoury. It’s particularly important on track or when at the wheel of cars fitted with a non-synchromesh transmission. The fancy footwork happens when slowing down for a corner.

The name originates from pedal layouts in early cars where the throttle was on the left. It could be worked with your heel while the brake, on the right, was operated by toe.

In a modern car, the same effect is achieved by braking with the ball of your foot and rolling your ankle, so you can blip the throttle with the side of your foot – without releasing pressure from the brake pedal.

The action is timed to coincide with clutch and gearlever movements. While braking and changing down, you blip the throttle between ratios to raise the engine speed and let the lower gear engage smoothly.

This eliminates any nasty jolts from the drivetrain. And, more importantly, it improves the stability of the car by preventing any tendency for the driven wheels to lock up as the gear engages during late braking. For the technique to work, the pedals must be laid out so that the brake and accelerator are at a similar height and not too far apart.

Sounds complicated? Well, yes, it is. So a piece of technology that automatically blips the throttle as you change down sounds like a great invention. Automated manual paddleshift transmissions include this in their software, but what makes Nissan’s Synchro Rev Control so unique is that it works on a manual gearbox. You get all the fun, driver engagement and control of a conventional transmission with perfectly matched engine blips... without the sore ankle.

Sensors on the clutch and gearlever monitor the driver’s actions. Then, taking road speed into account, the system introduces a short blast of revs at the optimum moment.

Synchro Rev Control is standard on the 370Z GT and GT Ultimate – and it’s very good. Even drivers capable of doing it themselves will be impressed at how well the technology works, because the blips are perfectly timed and judged.

What’s more, the feature can be switched on and off, which meant we could assess its affect on stability. To see how much this improved, we did timed laps around Cadwell Park circuit in Lincolnshire with the system deactivated, and without the driver using heel-and-toe. Lacking rear-end stability, the 370Z was six- tenths of a second slower than with the Synchro Rev Control switched on, which also made shifts far smoother.

If you have the skill to heel-and-toe, there’s nothing like the sense of satisfaction you get from a well judged gearchange. Yet Nissan’s system can help even experienced drivers. If you are doing a lot of track laps, the brakes heat up and the pedal goes soft and long, making it hard to reach the throttle on downshifts. In the 370Z, you simply switch on the Synchro Rev Control instead.

Overall, Nissan’s technology is a superb invention that’s a very impressive and, for now at least, unique driver aid.

VERDICT: Synchro rev control
* Technology: Nissan Synchro Rev Control
* Car tested: Nissan 370Z GT (£30,200)
* Also available on: Nissan 370Z GT Ultimate
* Price on tested car: Standard on both
* Other manufacturers with similar technology: None so far
* Hit or miss? HIT
 

Details

WHY: Unique add-ons are rare today, but Nissan’s Synchro Rev Control is the only system of its type for manual cars.