AutoBlip Review (In Progress)

jayel579 said:

Unfortunately a tool like this doesn't allow groups to sort out the folks who should be at the track and who shouldn't. Not everyone is cut out to be on track. I am not trying to exclude anyone from trying it but in the end, for anyone who has done a track event, you have seen those drivers who shouldn't really be on the track. I am not saying the heel/toe technique is the sloe reason they should be excluded but it can be an indicator.

Click to expand...

I will certainly grant you the fact that a certain percentage of folks who sign up for an HPDE event fall in the "OSB" category... Other Sports Beckon. That said, they are at the very trailing edge of a bell-curve, and aren't as numerous as you may think. Heel/toe proficiency is certainly NOT on the list of things I would consider if making a recommendation to simply pack it up and go home to a student.

For the vast majority of the novice-level drivers that come out to the track, they don't know that they should be rev-matching, since they never even thought of the vehicle dynamics involved in braking/downshifting/turning-in/apexing/accelerating-out.

Heel-toe isn't the be-all/end-all for track driving. It's a technique that helps you be faster and more consistent, but that's about it. There's nothing inherently wrong with braking early, getting down to turn-in speed, releasing the brakes, downshifting, getting into maintenance throttle, and then turning in. Heel/toe simply lets me carry an extra 100-200' or so of acceleration before I start the braking event. Yes, it's worth tenths, if not full seconds per lap, but again, it's not something that would justify ejection from an event, either. Also, I'll argue that if you're a track newbie, there's already MORE then enough going on around you that is unfamiliar and critical to keep a handle on that trying to learn to heel/toe at the same time would be potentially dangerous. Think situational awareness...

Remember, guys, this is supposed to be fun. The barriers to entry are already high enough!

My personal thoughts on the AutoBlip thingey are that it's a neat gadget, but absolutely no substitute for learning to heel/toe properly. As was mentioned before, if you learn to heel/toe, it works in EVERY car you drive. If you haven't noticed, I'm pretty big on driver training...

SoundGuyDave said:

Also, I'll argue that if you're a track newbie, there's already MORE then enough going on around you that is unfamiliar and critical to keep a handle on that trying to learn to heel/toe at the same time would be potentially dangerous. Think situational awareness...

Click to expand...

Absolutely agree with this sentiment. I had been practicing heel toe while daily driving my car before getting serious about track days, but my father hadn't. The first couple times he went out on track, he asked me if he should try, and I said not until you are comfortable enough with the track to introduce another thing to think about. He also began doing it when driving the car on the street, and finally became comfortable enough with both the process and track to introduce it into his sessions.

SoundGuyDave said:

[...]

Heel-toe isn't the be-all/end-all for track driving. It's a technique that helps you be faster and more consistent, but that's about it.

[...]

Click to expand...

What Mr Dave says is all true, except for the "...that's about it." If you are a competent-or-better singer, you can take great satisfaction in knowing that; heel-and-toeing offers the same rewards. If you know you've "got it", you can be smug in every aspect of your daily existence: that little kernel can glow within and re-center you during minor or major setbacks.

I started the practice in my first car (1949 Ford; in 1954; heel on the brake, toe on the foot-feed) and adopted it as the usual way to get around. No telling how many gallons of oil got sucked past the valve guides or piston rings of thirty-something cars over the subsequent sixty years, but it was worth every drop.

Wow. So it's been some time and am long due for an update.

I was finally able to make it out to the track a few weeks ago. My verdict is just as the Boss guys were saying and to say this thing is amazing is an understatement. It works so well and yet is so simple. I never had to think about it. It just works. Now I will say it definitely serves no purpose on the street as you just (SHOULDN'T) won't be going that fast. I just turn it off everytime I start up the car, much like the TC. Check out the video.

*Note: I actually forgot to turn it back on in the first part of the video. Also, because it was so bright that day I had to play with the picture in the video so you could actually see outside the car.

I am glad you did not let the nattering nabobs of negativism dissuade you. Saw this on Trackmustangsonline. Much nicer crew over there. Much more open to discussion. Less likely to jump on you with unwarranted criticism. More West Coast oriented. Much more on the cutting edge. Younger, smarter, crowd over there. And ultimately a better place to learn what works and does not work on our automobiles. You tried it. It works great. In the face of the heel toe purists.

Barbaro - there's a difference between skepticism and negativism. I suggest you try to learn this.


Norm

Can the AB be installed normally off? Would it screw with the calibration?

I'd like to do this mod, but, at least for now, I street my car more than I track it. I'd like to have to turn AB on and TCS off when I track the car.

I love the thought of going into first gear on an autox on really tight low speed turns rather than lugging second. I just don't have the confidence to drop into first at speed as it stands now. Especially with a 4.10 rear gear. It's just too easy to upset the car.

I am pretty sure it defaults to on when you start the car, You could always unplug one of the brake/clutch switch wires if you are not using it that often. The calibration is set by 2 knobs. After installing a handful of these things and testing all the cars on track I have to say it works very well.

Norm Peterson said:

Barbaro - there's a difference between skepticism and negativism. I suggest you try to learn this.


Norm

Click to expand...

What I have learned is that noone here knows what they are talking about who has not used the thing. The blind spot is a mile wide here. Many here demand hard proof of everything, which is fair, but offer none in support of their own opinions, which usually relies on supposition, based upon conjecture, all uninformed by experience with the thing we are usually talking about.

So, often here, "new" idea gets shot down by a bunch of amateur purists and self interested vendors. But the ball does not move forward that way. People have to try things, buy things, waste money, frustrate themselves and in that process we find out what works and what does not.

And I am interested in both objective data and subjective opinion because both are important. But I am only interested in the opinions of people who have gone through that process, not a bunch of armchair self appointed traditionalist, who have not. So when a guy comes on here and says he wants to use auto blip. I am thinking great, another subjective data point. Another person putting his money and time on the line to try something new. Others on here are so impressed with their own uninformed opinions that they got to tell the guy why it won't work, or its cheating, or you will never know the pleasures of heel toe etc ad infinitum . . . Who wants to read that shit. Not me and not anybody else apparantly, if you look at the traffic on this forum. The proof is in the pudding.

This has become an echo chamber where too many people's opinions reflect each others. It became insulated because the little contact with the outside world this forum previously had, resulted in such a conflagration that it had to restrict outsiders. Now outsiders have been invited back in as this is no longer a private forum, but there is little on here that is not dealt with more comprehensively in other places because there is more diversity of opinion in open forums.

So That is what I mean when I refer to the crew here as the Nattering Nabobs of Negativism. With my regards to Spiro Agnew.

That's when the reader has to be able to separate reasonable technical questioning (skepticism) from subjective opinions (which could be anywhere on a spectrum from utter negativism to blind faith). Skepticism can be reconciled with knowledgeable commentary, negativism as an (ass u me d) attitude perhaps not.

FWIW, there are far more significant reasons why forum traffic ebbs and flows . . . the replacement of a specific chassis by its successor (S550, with its own dedicated site) probably being the biggest, and shifts in interest being another. Old hands eventually tire of answering the same old questions, and presence on the forum being neither as long nor verified by rising post counts in individual threads.

If the technical knowledge is there, and for as long as there are people who seek it, people will still come. There's another Mustang forum where I'm finding less to bother with over two month's time than I did in a week back around the time I bought my '08.

I tend to be skeptical of most electronic assistances, specifically because I have no idea what biases were built into the programming and how well (or not) they're going to mesh with the way I've had half a century practicing how to operate manually whatever it is. While I can see how my track times would likely benefit from a better way of braking and downshifting for a turn than what I'm currently limited by, I'm not at all convinced that automating part of it is going to be better for me. Certainly not given the situation where one of my cars might have auto-blip and the others wouldn't (none of my cars has been an automatic since ~1970, so the muscle memory is pretty firmly established).


I knew I'd heard N N of N somewhere before . Just couldn't place it.


Norm

Norm Peterson said:

Make that "has no clue about rev matching and needs to have auto-blipping" and that's a clear indication as to the extent of needed instruction. Trust me, such people exist. How well they take instruction is a separate matter.

Of all the cars I've owned over the past 40 or so years - every single one of them having manual transmissions - none of them have been particularly suited to H-T, so I've NEVER learned.


Norm

Click to expand...

Norm, this new auto blip device might just be the ticket. H-T will also work, provided the brake and throttle are at the same height..and close together.

If I only drove the Mustang and always used it, perhaps. The main sticking point for me comes when driving one of the other cars in the driveway, which are all manual transmission cars and which I rev-match-downshift in just as regularly as I do in the Mustang's street driving (read: most downshifts, and there's a lot of them).

I've actually wondered from time to time if a less computerized way of de-clumsifying the Mustang's situation exists that doesn't risk inadvertently getting way too much braking with grabby pads or any throttle kicks while braking moderately hard without the downshifting. This was so much easier on a motorcycle . . . even with two separate brake controls.


Norm

I think Norm's last point is the one dead on target. The AutoBlip (or any other car-specific mod) may be the best thing since sliced bread, but it still is no substitute for proper driver training. If you learn to heel-toe, that is a portable skill, even if you need to learn the muscle-movements for two or three styles (toe-brake/heel-gas; ankle-roll, or heel-brake/toe-gas). The AutoBlip simply isn't portable. On "fun only" track days, I have a group of friends that pretty much swap cars at random. If I couldn't heel-toe, that would take me right out of the fun chase in any of the other cars. Once you feel out the mechanics, it really only takes a couple of corners to figure out what you have to do to properly heel/toe the car.

Now, if you have some form of impediment (physical handicap or simple lack of coordination), then this could be a VERY useful device.

In many ways though, for the "normal" driver, this is no different than the ABS argument during driver training. If the only way you learned to "threshold brake" was on an ABS car with a great system, the first time you get into a Spec Miata, or 944, or older 911, etc, and you just jump on the brake pedal, you are going to flat-spot the tires. Better to learn to brake (or downshift in this case) properly, and have the ABS there as a safety net in case you over-do things, than to rely on the technology. With respect to torque-arm equipped cars, a botched downshift will result in MASSIVE rear wheel-hop. If you never learned to heel-toe, then you pretty much can't drive a TA car hard without risking a spin or driveline damage.

This is why instructors (ALL of them that are worth a damn, anyway) preach "modding" the driver first, before touching the car. For entry-level drivers, learning first the importance and benefit of rev-matched downshifts, then learning the technique of executing it is all part of the process. Insisting on adding another $400+ "gotta have it" mod only increases the initial cost of getting into this sport/hobby, which simply isn't a good thing. This is particularly true of the lurkers that are seriously considering checking out this whole "corner carving" thing, but if they listen to the Putatively Progressive Pissants, they will believe that unless they have 6-pot 15" brakes, roll cage and containment seat, torque arm, coilovers, slicks and an AutoBlip, they will die a horrible, firey death at the first corner. The reality couldn't be further from the truth. Nobody comes out to the track their first (or fifth!) time with all the skills needed to go to the pointy end of the field. They are all learned. Heel-toe is simply one of the skills to master, like threshold braking, trail-braking, or feeling and utilizing a tires slip angle consistently.

and....what happens when your autoblip doesn't blip? It's third party electronics...it's gonna fail eventually. I'm all for driver aids that make you faster, but a mathematician that can't do math without a calculator isn't worth much.

If the 370Z can do it....via the ECU, I'm surprised why it's not offered on more cars + vehicles. The new fangled AB device only kicks in when the clutch + brake are pushed in..at the same time. No rocket science here, no reason why this can't be done in any other modern manual tranny vehicle.

As mentioned b4, F1 does the same thing, no clutch to push, all ecu controlled, paddle shifters.

Back in the 90's, when Damon Hill drove for McLaren, ( his team-mate at the time was jaques Villenue).... Damon had ABS..and Villenue didn't. And no other F1 team had ABS either. Damon won the championship that year, hands down. So it was ...either ban ABS, or let everybody use it. Consensus was... let all the teams use it if they want.

AB is so easy to implement, via ecu as an OEM feature.... or a standalone device, that I can see it being as common as ABS..and coffee cup holders..within a few years.

I had a side bar with Andres, and they are not producing the AB for 3-wire throttle applications anymore. They made a few (of which some of our forum members have them) and they aren't making any more due to a lack of demand.

So if anybody has one that would fit my '05 GT, and they are too ashamed to use AB after reading this thread, let me know, and I'll take it off of your hands.

Pentalab said:

As mentioned b4, F1 does the same thing, no clutch to push, all ecu controlled, paddle shifters.

Back in the 90's, when Damon Hill drove for McLaren, ( his team-mate at the time was jaques Villenue).... Damon had ABS..and Villenue didn't. And no other F1 team had ABS either. Damon won the championship that year, hands down. So it was ...either ban ABS, or let everybody use it. Consensus was... let all the teams use it if they want.

AB is so easy to implement, via ecu as an OEM feature.... or a standalone device, that I can see it being as common as ABS..and coffee cup holders..within a few years.

Click to expand...

Here's the difference, though. Both Hill and Villeneuve KNOW how to threshold brake. ABS then becomes a safety net. Villeneuve was able to shoot for 95-97% total tractive capacity under braking, allowing 3-5% as a safety margin to avoid flat-spotting the tires. Hill, on the other hand was able to TARGET 99.999% of total tractive capacity, and essentially eliminate the safety margin, relying on the electronics to cover his ass if he pushed it that tiny bit too far. If the ABS system simply packed it in, though, that would simply put them on an even par. A driver who NEVER learned to threshold brake, though, would continue to happily MASH the brake pedal until his tires were essentially square, because he didn't know how to modulate pressure, or know what impending lockup feels like coming back through the pedal.

Assume two equally quick drivers. One knows how to heel-toe, the other doesn't. Which one would you want in the car as co-driver if/when the AutoBlip failed?

Using or not using the AutoBlip isn't the issue, in my mind. It's fine to use a "driver aid" as a safety net, but only if you have the skills to CYA if it all goes pear-shaped. Traction Control (Bosch) is awesome, but if you're going to rely on it to cover your ham-handed driving, things are NOT going to go well if the system goes down (and it does) and you find yourself starting to have the ass-end swing around on you. If you don't know what to do to correct oversteer, you're toast.

This is purely philosophical on my part, and I'm not saying that "all driver aids are bad," not by a long shot. My car has ABS on it, and I'm very happy knowing that it's there. My point, throughout, has been that it's much better to learn the skill first, THEN make the educated decision to use a device, rather than to learn only what the device will let you. Is a DSG better than an H-pattern box? Yes, for racing, it is. That said, if you never learned to use a clutch in the first place, you'll be in trouble if you get into a car without a DSG.

Wouldn't you LOVE the chance to flog an Australian V8 Supercar? 650+RWHP, under 3000lbs, functional aero, dog-ring sequential transaxle... Mmmmmm.... Oh, no auto-blip, and you have to heel-toe on the way down... And with a locker diff, it'll spin on you faster than you can think "trailing clutch oversteer" if you botch the downshift. Oops. $350K meets guardrail...

SoundGuyDave said:

Using or not using the AutoBlip isn't the issue, in my mind. It's fine to use a "driver aid" as a safety net, but only if you have the skills to CYA if it all goes pear-shaped. Traction Control (Bosch) is awesome, but if you're going to rely on it to cover your ham-handed driving, things are NOT going to go well if the system goes down (and it does) and you find yourself starting to have the ass-end swing around on you. If you don't know what to do to correct oversteer, you're toast.

Click to expand...

That is all very correct, but I think people here are ignoring one potentially important aspect of this device: the educational benefits!

Surprised? Well, think about it a second. This device essentially eliminates one of the ways someone could massively upset the car: downshifting into a corner.

When you're learning, it's easier to learn if you can concentrate on as few things at a time as possible. The track environment is busy enough as it is. It is far better to learn how to control the car when the only variables involved are those induced by steering, braking, and acceleration. Once one is familiar with how to control the car at its limits (and is more comfortable in the track environment to boot), then introducing heel and toe downshifting into the mix becomes both a safer thing to do and easier to learn, because now you can concentrate on learning to heel and toe downshift in the track environment without also worrying about the other things that must be learned.

The same would be true of ABS if it were something that could be turned off at will. Threshold braking is best learned when there is nothing else to really attempt to learn at the same time, though the nature of braking in general is such that there isn't a whole lot else you're doing at the time (well, except for downshifting, which sort of illustrates why the AutoBlip can be beneficial to learning), so learning it is easier in the track environment.


That said, heel and toe downshifting is something that can and should be learned and practiced on the street. It's difficult enough, however, that it took me years to get to the point where I could semi-competently heel and toe downshift with double-clutching, and I'm still not really good at it despite having been doing it consistently on the street for 20 years.

My point, throughout, has been that it's much better to learn the skill first, THEN make the educated decision to use a device, rather than to learn only what the device will let you.

Click to expand...

I disagree, at least when there are multiple simultaneous things to learn. Once you've learned the skill, then of what use is the device except as a fallback? The nature of this device in particular is such that once one has learned to heel and toe downshift reasonably well, the device barely serves any purpose. In fact, I would find it to be a major impediment, because double-clutch heel and toe downshifting is something I do automatically, regardless of how well or badly I might do it.

No, I think the best reason for using this device is to temporarily remove the need to have learned heel and toe downshifting, so that one can concentrate on other things.

It is quite unlike stability control (though not entirely -- see below). Stability control essentially changes the nature of the behavior of the car at the limit, making its limits seem higher than they really are. Someone who learns with stability control on is actually doing themselves a disservice, because they will have to learn to control the car all over again when they turn it off. And the danger of that was illustrated with great clarity at my last event at Sonoma Raceway last yet. There, someone in an M3 decided he'd try driving the track with the stability control off for the first time, and despite being in run group 3, spun the car into the wall at turn 8 (the esses) and totaled it. The car was a very different beast to drive with the stability control off than with it on, and that driver learned that lesson the hard way.

There are some similarities between that and the AutoBlip, of course. Turning off the AutoBlip exposes you to the possibility of a botched downshift and loss of traction in the rear, and if you triy that while mid-corner, you'll quickly get in trouble. But as long as you limit your downshifting to straight lines, the trouble will be minimized. Put another way, it can change the car's behavior while downshifting, but it doesn't change the apparent general handling characteristics of the car.


Used properly as a learning aid, I think the AutoBlip could provide some major benefits.

Gotta disagree with you on several points. Surprise, right?

Heel/toe is NOT something that I (or any other instructor I know) teach in entry-level pedagogy. Point of fact, I've never had a student come from a different discipline (drag racing, motocross, karting, etc.) that had even a glimmer of the concept of heel/toe. It was always a "new" skill to learn once the driver had the basics down, and was ready for a fresh challenge. I also advocate learning it on the street (highway, really), NOT on a race track. Simple reason: on the street you should never be anywhere remotely close to "the limit," and as such, a botched heel/toe downshift will just jerk you around inside the car.

Next point: Never, never, never shift in a corner. Shift BEFORE the corner! I don't care how fast you are with the stick and clutch (even 60mS for a DSG), the instant you disconnect the engine from the rear wheels, you have altered the dynamic set of the car. A "clutch kick" is how drifters get the car sideways. Why would you want to take a chance on doing that if you don't have to? ALWAYS enter the corner under power (unless you're intentionally trail-braking for a specific reason).

Properly approached, you come into the braking zone in a straight line, and get on the pedal. Some ways into the zone, close, but not at turn-in, you do the heel/toe downshift, then either release the pedal, apply maintenance throttle, and turn-in, or trail-brake lightly down to apex, then power out, already in the correct gear for exit.

You make one immense point: "Once you've learned the skill, then what use is the device, except as a fallback?" On this we agree 100%. If you can heel/toe well and consistently, it's of little to no use. If, however, you're just at the point where you've been practicing, have been coached, and just plain suck at heel/toe, with no hope for improvement, then the AutoBlip lets you remove that impediment from your life. Valid use, valid reason. If you're chasing that last .001 second or so, then yes, it could potentially pay off, strictly from the pure steadiness of brake pressure. I see it in telemetry (or datalogging) all the time. Look at the deceleration curve at corner entry, and you'll see either a little dip or a little spike as the heel/toe is done. This is from a tiny alteration in brake pedal pressure as you maneuver your leg around. If you're time-trialing and are consistent enough as a driver to actually identify that slight reduction in pressure (which necessitates getting on the brakes 1-1.5' earlier) as what is holding you back from that lap record, then yes, this might just be the trick.

However, the point you're making is that (boiled down a bit) the best use for an AutoBlip is to prevent situational overload in a novice driver. I have an alternative suggestion... Rearrange your priorities as a learning driver. Walk before you run. Concentrate on one thing at a time. Line first (consistency). Then braking. Then steering mechanics. Then eyes. Then throttle mechanics. Finally, the "advanced" stuff, like heel/toe, trail-braking, induced oversteer/understeer. These skills build on the earlier stuff. If you can't follow a line if they painted it on the track, there's no point in working on braking techniques, as there will be no metric for success. If you can't hit your braking points, then who cares if you nail your turn-in and apex points? I think you see where I'm going with this.

Early on, until the novice driver has all the above down, the last person who should worry about lap times or speed at corner exit is that driver. The novice run group is there for people to learn, and people learn at different rates. The normal M.O. for downshifting in that group is to brake early (but consistently hitting your mark and pedal pressure), get to corner entry speed (again consistently) and while still in a straight line, do a downshift off the brakes, then get to maintenance throttle, THEN turn-in. Yes, that costs time, but at that level, who cares? One point to make here, is that if you have a good instructor, who preaches consistency and perfect execution, you will have learned HOW to refine a brake point. Once you learn to heel/toe, then you simply move your brake point closer to the corner, which you can do easily because you learned how... I've seen (and been part of) this done to excellent effect countless times. Yes, the student starts out "slower" at the beginning of the weekend. By the second day, though, they're on-par in terms of speed. By the end of the second day, they're usually faster than the rest of the field. Particularly those that just jumped in with both feet. Those folks are the ones that can find themselves in over their head.

Bottom line: train the driver first.

HOW TO LEARN TO HEEL/TOE

Start in your driveway, with the car off, and the parking brake on. Figure out how you have to move your foot or leg around to execute the mechanics of things, and get some practice synchronizing your two feet and hand to do the downshift. Heel-Toe: Generally, the left half of the ball of the foot is on the right half of the brake pedal, and you swing your ankle outward to put the heel of your foot over the gas pedal. Foot-Roll: If your pedals are close enough together (or your feet are that wide), start with the same foot position, but notice how your foot is on both the brake pedal and the gas pedal at the same time. Just roll your ankle over to blip the gas.

Once you're fairly comfortable with this, it's time to try it on the highway. This is best done in the evening, when traffic is light to allow concentration. Get up to LEGAL highway speed, then, with your foot hovering over but not touching the gas pedal, blip the gas and downshift from 5th to 4th (or 6th to 5th, doesn't matter). If you execute properly you will NOT feel anything in the seat of your pants, you will just have changed gears. No jerk forward (not enough blip), no jerk backward (too much bip, aggressive clutch release). Keep practicing until you can do this consistently. It may take more than one day... Next, again at LEGAL highway speeds, practice going down two gears, one after another. Bam-bam. 5th down to 4th, then immediately down to 3rd. You'll notice that you have to blip harder the further down you go. Again, work for consistency, and with NO alteration in road speed. That is your goal. At 55mph, in my car (3.73 gear) 5th is around 2700RPM, 4th is about 3500, and 3rd is around 4300, so all three are usable.

Now that you have a feel for how to run up and down the gears, find a nice 35mph cloverleaf to practice on, and run it in 2nd gear (c. 4000RPM). At the exit to the ramp, upshift to 3rd and accelerate. As you enter the next lobe, brake, then heel-toe while you're on the brakes back down to 2nd gear. Focus on smooth brake pressure, with a minimum of spike or sag in braking force, AND a cleanly executed gear change. Continue to "lap" the cloverleaf until you have it all down pat.

Finally, for your drive home, and forever after, every time you come to a stop sign or light, heel-toe. Every time you slow down enough to want a lower gear, heel-toe. I do it pulling into my driveway... Make it completely automatic, where you can talk with your buddy while doing it, or sing along with the radio, or whatever. Once you're at that point, bring all that muscle-memory skill to the track, and then start the process of refining your brake points now that you can go so much deeper into the corner.

Know how to tell a real track-junky's car? Look at the brake pedal. If the right edge is worn away, but the left edge looks brand new, he might be a corner-carver...