Worked very well for me
Looking for as Locost as possible. Standard Sierra discs. Had brake fade and poor braking. Btw have balance bar.
Suggestions please.
Pad material
If you dont want the expence of alloy calipers etc. Cheapest option is going to be pads.
What do your car weigh?
This is why i fitted 283mm discs and Brembo calipers to the front.
[Edited on 1/4/12 by madteg]
Dont know what the pads are , came with the original car. Just looking at Rally design, their willwood callipers are not too pricey With larger discs
and different pads seem to be the way to go. Got 15" wheels and car weighs about 475 kg.
[Edited on 1/4/12 by Lightning]
try red stuff pads
I had red stuff on my Saab - Wouldnt have them again, road or track. They have absolutely no feel, imagine having ceramic or porcelain pads then thats
what they feel like. I paid a lot of money for my Viggen front discs, and the red stuff pads trashed them pretty rapidly, forget using red stuff
with cheapo discs, they eat them.
Green stuff is a different matter, good feedback, good bite when you want to slow down. Much more predictable.
Retropower have converted me to Mintex 1144 for the Fiat.
I use green stuff, no problems
mintex 1144
Worked very well for me
Vented discs will help keep temps down, plus decent pad material. I am building a nice stockpile of old stock asbestos pads, now they really are
good probably on a par with the 1144, and WAY better than greenstuff in my experience. Just do not breath the dust.
I would suggest finding out what the problem is first.
If your fluid is boiling or overheating, change the fluid.
If your discs are overheating, check the calipers are releasing fully and that all four corners are working as they should. Stamping on the brakes
whilst they're 'having a moment' should tell you if the fronts are giving up or the rears are.
If it's the pads that are failing, try a different compound (as suggested). If the discs are overheating, then look to upgrade.
It seems a bit of a false economy if you're buying stuff to fix a problem that may not be there.
mintex 1144 +1
used them on track days, hillclimbs & sprints.
good bite when cold and will stand up to a lot of abuse before they fade
avoid the red stuff pads
quote:
Originally posted by owelly
I would suggest finding out what the problem is first.
If your fluid is boiling or overheating, change the fluid.
If your discs are overheating, check the calipers are releasing fully and that all four corners are working as they should. Stamping on the brakes whilst they're 'having a moment' should tell you if the fronts are giving up or the rears are.
If it's the pads that are failing, try a different compound (as suggested). If the discs are overheating, then look to upgrade.
It seems a bit of a false economy if you're buying stuff to fix a problem that may not be there.
Ducted cool air will help, brakes convert kinetic energy to heat, you then need to dissipate the heat, if you car has a full body the heat builds up.
There is your answer cheap unknown pads ----- cheap pads are never up to the job.
On tin tops you can tell the difference between cheap pads and OEM spec pads by doing a handful of stops from 70mph in quick succession with
minimum cooling time between stops.. Under this test cheap pads often start to fade after the first test stop high quality pads only start to
require appreciably more pedal effort after 3 or sometimes 4 stops.
Fit a set of M144
It is nothing to do with the brake fluid fluid boiling as that gives you long soft pedal not increased pedal effort.
Also if you are inexperienced on the track particularly if you are used to driving FWD cars it could be you are over braking and dragging the
brakes into the corner.
quote:
Originally posted by britishtrident
There is your answer cheap unknown pads ----- cheap pads are never up to the job.
On tin tops you can tell the difference between cheap pads and OEM spec pads by doing a handful of stops from 70mph in quick succession with minimum cooling time between stops.. Under this test cheap pads often start to fade after the first test stop high quality pads only start to require appreciably more pedal effort after 3 or sometimes 4 stops.
Fit a set of M144
It is nothing to do with the brake fluid fluid boiling as that gives you long soft pedal not increased pedal effort.
Also if you are inexperienced on the track particularly if you are used to driving FWD cars it could be you are over braking and dragging the brakes into the corner.
(no pun intended
) You won't need to do a big brake upgrade imho.
My Elise suffered horrid brake fade on track. All it needed was SRF brake fluid and good quality carbon lorainne CL5 brake pads. It could driver round
any track al day long after that.
You have got brakes designed for a car that weighs say 1250kg in a car that weighs half that.
Decent fluid and Mintex pads and you will be fine.
Hi Lightning!
A set of decent pads easiest and muchos cheapest option to begin with i think. Try that and see if the problem persists. Failing that, if your car
is the one i think it is (which has been rebuilt and different colour scheme i see), then i assume you are running Sierra front uprights. You could
splash out on the Rally Design straight replacement Wilwood callipers they do, but i found on my Spire GTR running a 253mm disc (i think) they
weren't really giving me a great deal of stopping power or confidence esp off a long straight into a tight corner. If you go for the slightly
more expensive option calliper wise, still Wilwoods, cant remember if Midi or Power lites the bigger of the two anyway, you can fit bigger discs but
will need to run Audi discs on front and requires a spacer on the hub. Obviously Audi can then do grooved discs, but i wouldn't recommend vented
discs on a 475kg car. You will NOT get ENOUGH heat in the brakes and you will be no better off. Been tried with poor results.
I have seen the whole Audi brake disc arrangement many times on the Spire and done to good effect.
Paul at Spire should be able to point you in the right direction in terms of exact parts required as i am a little vague on details.
Food for thought.
Thanks for all the above. Clearly the first port of call is the pads. However I have just put larger discs on the TVR which uses the same uprights and the difference is obvious. even though it had the same calipers. i have to get this sorted as not slowing down enough for a hairpin is scarey.
Try Pagid Blues.
Are you sure its the pads that fade, and not the fluid boiling?
I had a real brake problem on the last lap of donnington, about 10 years ago, and all the was, was the fluid boiling
Fluid was OK i've got DOT 5
I have a standard Sierra disc / drum set up with EBC Yellow stuff [and previously Halfords] pads. The problem I had was getting them hot enough to
work properly on track, particularly with the Halfords pads.
The EBCs work better and need a bit less pedal pressure for the same brake effort.
quote:
Originally posted by Lightning
Fluid was OK i've got DOT 5
Beg ya pudden. It has DOT 5.1
Note that properly good brake pads are not cheap - if you are used to spending £30 on a set of pads for your tin top, then spending well over £100 on
a set of good pads may come as a shock.
FWIW I really rate Ferrodo DS2500 and DS3000, loads of initial bite and they just don't seem to drop off significantly even at very high
temperatures. Recently a friend with a Civic rally car had some brake issues shortly before a 2 day event, and ended up swapping the brakes with his
road car which was a bog standard Civic with small discs and DS2500 pads. The brakes were stinking every time he came back to the service area, and
the discs were glowing dark red but he said it still had a perfect pedal and they were pulling the car down with no problems.
Get a decent fluid, like this
http://www.opieoils.co.uk/p-894-motul-rbf-600-factory-line-racing-brake-fluid.aspx
and a decent set of pads. Ferodo DS2500, Mintex 1144, Hawk, Pagid etc are all good brands so find come that fit and try them. Mintex 1144 work well
on a light car but I prefer Hawk now days.
There is no point in changing the fluid type unless the fluid is boiling.
Fluid boiling is easy to spot the pedal travel very suddenly increases by a very large margin.
All conventional brake fluids (except DOT 5.0 which is Silicone based) absorb moisture from the atmosphere, the water content of the fluid
dramatically lowers the boiling point of the fluid. As a rule of thumb in service a DOT 5.1 fluid will absorb about 0.5% of moisture per year.
Any water contained in the fluid will boil long before the fluid does. For this reason normal brake DOT 5.1 fluids should be changed every 2
years.
Most competition fluids arer only rated as meeting DOT 4 although they have a dry boiling point well in excess of DOT 5.1 the reason is high dry
boiling point competition brake fluids are generally much more hygroscopic than normal brake fluid so require much more frequent fluid changes.
On the chart below the wet boiling points are quoted at 2.5% moisture content.
Dry boiling point Wet boiling point
DOT 4 230 °C (446 °F) 155 °C (311 °F)
DOT 5.1 270 °C (518 °F) 190 °C (374 °F)
[Edited on 4/4/12 by britishtrident]
quote:
Originally posted by skydivepaul
mintex 1144 +1
used them on track days, hillclimbs & sprints.
good bite when cold and will stand up to a lot of abuse before they fade
avoid the red stuff pads
quote:
Originally posted by jeffw
Get a decent fluid, like this
http://www.opieoils.co.uk/p-894-motul-rbf-600-factory-line-racing-brake-fluid.aspx
and a decent set of pads. Ferodo DS2500, Mintex 1144, Hawk, Pagid etc are all good brands so find come that fit and try them. Mintex 1144 work well on a light car but I prefer Hawk now days.
quote:
Originally posted by Fizzer
quote:
Originally posted by jeffw
Get a decent fluid, like this
http://www.opieoils.co.uk/p-894-motul-rbf-600-factory-line-racing-brake-fluid.aspx
and a decent set of pads. Ferodo DS2500, Mintex 1144, Hawk, Pagid etc are all good brands so find come that fit and try them. Mintex 1144 work well on a light car but I prefer Hawk now days.
+1 - works for me...