Brake set ups

[5hane]

ok, instead of bulding up my xflow im going to invest in some brakes/suspencion ect..

 

well im wondering what brake set ups people use?

 

i was thinking..

 

m16 midilites or power lites (advice please)

http://www.rallydesign.co.uk/product_in ... s_id=13897

 

http://www.rallydesign.co.uk/product_in ... s_id=13899

 

the m12 or UNF dont really matter at this stage..

 

well there for the fronts.

 

and for the backs

 

ether...

 

M16 handbrake calipers

http://www.rallydesign.co.uk/product_in ... s_id=11370

(whats neededto fit these ont the back?)

 

or..

recon sierria rear brakes

http://www.rallydesign.co.uk/product_in ... s_id=13593 (i can recon mine £100 a pair)

 

or should i just buy a kit for the back?

https://www.burtonpower.com/product_main.aspx?home.aspx (at the bottom)

 

i was wondering, do you thing 4 pot powerlites on the front and back is a bit over kill for a tuned xflow.. and i should stick with the sierria rear brakes?

 

im not too overly botherd about price as ill have a kick ass system, and they shouldnt need replacing for a very long time.

 

o and if i go for 4 pots all round i will get a bias pedal box to finish it off

 

thanks

 

o this is mk2 escort btw

[SAF_Capri]

I have a set of wilwood midilites upfront, with 260 vented discs, from rally design, ..not cheap in my opinion but well worth it, definatly a step up from standard capri calipers, ..i havnt bothered with the rear set-up, just new drums and shoes, as something like 80% braking is done by the front of the car, (..feel free to correct if wrong) a good suspension set-up helps immensly with the braking process too.

 

hope it helps

[escort new boy]

on a road car you will not need rear disk brakes, if you haven't already got 9" drums on the back swap them to 9" and 4 pots on the front should be fine

[X FLOW EDDY]

on a road car you will not need rear disk brakes, if you haven't already got 9" drums on the back swap them to 9" and 4 pots on the front should be fine

 

Same hear, princess 4 pots up front and 9in capri rear drums, and bilstenis all round.

[Retromotorsport]

If your improving the front ..leave the rear alone , by improving front brakes you give the rears less work to do.

 

On the race escorts the rears do bugger all, infact the rear axle can be lifted off the ground.

The reason the racers go for discs is speed and weight.

Speed in fixing things like if a shaft breaks.

Weight as in you've payed x ammount of pounds to shave grammes of the flywheel then you go and stick dirty great big heavy 9" drums on .. most of the weight of the drum is around the outside, makes a great flywheel.

 

Of course, paying out all this money is fine, if you can use them, cheap tyres wont grip as much as good ones, if your going to be using Ditchfinders then dont improve the brakes, improve your tyres .

You only need to improve the brakes if you get brake fade , when after repeated applications the brakes fade, to the point where you cant lock the wheels even when wedged up against the roof with both feet on the middle pedal.

 

In some championships where the rules state standard brakes the M16 and non vented disc did fade after 15-20 laps, modern pad material helped lessen this, but the discs did suffer. The Vented M16 set up is good, with decent pads and decent rubber they can very effective. The next upgrade was to use the M16 type caliper from the Granada 2.8i's The Mk2 granadas, its looks the same (yes we was cheating) but has a bigger pisto/pad area. On the cheats we took the spacers out and fitted them to the non-vent. but the are made for vented discs, you need longer fixing bolts and some spacers to centralise the caliper on the disc, around 7mm from memory.

 

Of course if you in a racecar or a car that has a lot of power and is quite heavy (cossied powered springs to mind) then yes, you will need better brakes, the heavet car means you have more weight to stop, but also more pressure on the tyres giving better grip. On the racer with slicks, you have a massive grip imrovement, which means standard stuff will soon fade.

Going over to bigger discs gives more control of the braking, which is important to the racer as he needs 100% braking with no locks ups, and the bigger surface area helps with heat.

 

Some people fit huge brakes to their road car and secretly say they havnt had much improvement. This is down to the brakes being good.. too ggood at coping with heat, if the pads dont get heat into them, then they work as well .. cold pads are like overheated pads, they work, but not as well as pads in the right temp range.

 

Moral of the story ..

Look at what you need, 90% of your driving on the road , maybe a trackday once a year, with standard tyresizes and just good road rubber, the M16s fine on a vented disc.

If your trackdaying a lot .. then by all means fit big discs and alloy calipers, but use 2 sets of pads, road and a track set.

 

Notice i dont mention the Princess 4 pots .. thats because i've never found them to be an improvement .. was a cheap 4 pot when you could get them in teh breakers, but the Granada M16 aleays out performed them.

[5hane]

thanks

 

so you recon some M16 calipers on the front and as i have some seirria rear brakes just stick with them on solid disk's?

 

ok thank you !!

[Retromotorsport]

so you have the calipers ...

 

but

no discs,

no caliper cradles,

no shafts machined to take the discs ..

no extra handbrake mount in the tunnel,

no rs 2000 mk5 handbrake cable,

no cable to escort lever bar,

no new plumbing fixings,

no caliper cradle to axle axle brackets ..

 

thats a lot of purchases ...

 

then you have to think that unless you use the weld on brakets that a few of us do, you'll have to go bigger than 13" RS wheels

 

stick with the drums ..

[Fiesta Steve]

Look at the pic in my sig, thats me on the brakes, I don't think rear discs would stop me any quicker

 

Standard brakes and good rubber work for me

[Retromotorsport]

Look at the pic in my sig, thats me on the brakes, I don't think rear discs would stop me any quicker

 

Standard brakes and good rubber work for me

 

 

Again... improve the end that works and leave the end thats floating above the ground alone

 

the only time rear brakes have to work is when the fronts fail ..ask Gaz after he fitted his brakes up, he had no fluid going to the front and was stopping just on the rears, no weight transfer and the back was digging in (pull the hand brake up and feel the back drop down .. ) he went through a set of rear shoes quicker than he could say the Duratecs shit even if its beaten the pintos

 

Brakes are a minefield .. Ford did a good job with the capri .. but teh capri carries more weight between the axles and more importantly more rear weight .. so leave capri drums to capris .. unless your competing where 1000's of a second count dont worry about the rear discs, its a bling bling thing on a road car that uses standard width rubber, and is overkill as in standard form the will overbrake unless you have downforce .. even on the sierra that the came off they had a lock out valve for hard braking ..and that car has even more weight ..!!!!

 

It does worry me sometimes when i see people messing with brake balance ... i always have visions of cars going backwards into a wall/crowd /ditch after the driver has to brake in a corner ,never brake in a corner unless its life or death, your likely to spin, even with well matched brakes .. with rear calipers i can almost garrentee you'll spin .

[Retromotorsport]

Ahhh and before someone says " steves braking and turning in his sig pic "

 

its FWD ..he has to so he gets the intial turn in , then nails the power to drag the front around .. the rear lift helps to get the back round ..

Some left foot brake to lock the rear slightly whilst also on the power to get the car to turn in ..

 

FWD and RWD ..two totally different animals, but the brake principals are the same for both

[X FLOW EDDY]

Notice i dont mention the Princess 4 pots .. thats because i've never found them to be an improvement .. was a cheap 4 pot when you could get them in teh breakers, but the Granada M16 aleays out performed them.

 

 

Are you saying that princess 4 pots are a waste of time then? I am about to have a set recondishiond !!!!!

[5hane]

but

no discs,

no caliper cradles,

no shafts machined to take the discs ..

no extra handbrake mount in the tunnel,

no rs 2000 mk5 handbrake cable,

no cable to escort lever bar,

no new plumbing fixings,

no caliper cradle to axle axle brackets ..

 

when you put it that way lol

[sambo]

 

Good thread! Mr. Retro is very helpfull on this one, cheers!

[Retromotorsport]

Notice i dont mention the Princess 4 pots .. thats because i've never found them to be an improvement .. was a cheap 4 pot when you could get them in teh breakers, but the Granada M16 aleays out performed them.

 

 

Are you saying that princess 4 pots are a waste of time then? I am about to have a set recondishiond !!!!!

 

Some swear by them, just in my experiance if your going for better brakes the Granada M16's work better, the princess brakes where marginally better than the standard m16s .. you can get new granada calipers from the motor factors for your old M16's ..remember they look the same, they are just bigger ..

 

As for them being a waste of time..its cost / improvement, with teh right disc to cue teh pad overlap they work, theres no denying that, but what are they costing now ?? price up a set of M16 willwoods and disc s etc and whats the difference between them an the Princess 4 pots and disc to suit .. and the willwoods are lighter, less unsprung weight etc .. I dunno..

personally on a road car i would go Granny m16s

 

Dan Braid with the flat front rs2k with the rs 2k mk5 engine had me fit them in 2000, around 2001 he got a big brake kit using princess calipers .. and huge disc .. his words " crap " .. he went back to the Granny's i belive

I fitted them to the Jensen healeys i converted to ford axles and hubs .. as they use vauxhal viva brakes which really are crap. And the owners have all said they brillient ..

 

Its a little work to get them to fit ..and from memory its just a 2.8i disc from a capri , 4 spacers to centralise and the longer bolts to fit them to the leg .. and thats it, we used to use EBC greens on the road