Which Brake conversion?

[Last S4]

I am looking to replace the rear discs soon, and thought that if there is a better option now is the time to consider it.
I would like better stopping power but dont need anything track spec. Just slightly bigger discs all round and a better master cylinder.
What are the options?

Thanks, Steve

[GreenV8S]

I believe your setup is the same as the V8S had as standard. If you have standard brakes all round I would suggest looking to the fronts as the first thing to upgrade. The brake balance is imo biased slightly too far to the rear which makes it tail happy under braking. My S2 was similar, and I've been in griffiths and chimaeras which had the same trait. I think the person at TVR who designed the brakes liked to have the cars set up that way, but IMO it's a bad design especially in a powerful rwd car where extra engine braking can be applied. By spacing the original front callipers out from 240mm to 285mm the balance improved considerably on mine. If anything the bias was slightly forwards which ment the car tended to straighten up under heavy braking - much more comfortable than one trying to swap ends. I wouldn't recommend moving the bias any further forwards than that though.

I also found that under hard use the front tended to overheat well before the rear, and increasing the front size to 285mm increased the cooling dramatically. Even with the 4.6 driven hard on track it was OK like that. If yours is driven on the road I doubt you will run into overheating problems though if you have fresh fluid and the correct pads. So that's the first thing I suggest you concentrate on:

Make sure the sliders are not worn, are clean and greased and move freely without any play.
Make sure the part of the calliper that the pads run in are clean.
Flush through with new fluid, at least DOT5.1 spec.
Fit a good brand of fast road pads, Ferodo DS2500 for example.
Bed the new pads in according to the manufacturers instructions.

The last step is very important and often missed.

[Barkychoc]

Going up to 260mm front brakes (same as Griff 500) still uses standard sierra components and is just a bolt on job.

Theres another step up using granada / mondeo components, you have to drill the caliper mounts bigger & use caliper spacers, but other than that its still a bolt on job with ford bits.

[Last S4]

So if I understand this correctly:
1) to fit the 260mm discs I need to replace the existing calipers and discs with ones from a Sierra of some type.
2) To fit the 285mm discs I have to fit spacers to the existing calipers and just replace the discs.

Is that right? If so which model Sierra has the 260mm discs and where do I get the spacers from?
Thanks guys.

[zombeh]

2.0 sierra with ABS has the 260mm discs that'll fit the S (not the same discs as the griff)

[tozerman]

I fitted a 278mm brake conversion to my S3C, I got it from a chap on here (hansdaal) and it came with new escort cossie brake calipers and discs + pads, if you do a search you will find my pics that I posted,personally though I would leave the standard rear discs alone and just keep them standard with good quality pads. The big front disc conversion is by far and away the best improvement you can make to the car, you wont believe the difference it makes over the standard 240mm set up.
Just found the link to my earlier thread see below

http://www.pistonheads.co.uk/gassing/topic.asp?h=0...
Cheers....Tony..

Edited by tozerman on Saturday 15th August 17:09

[Barkychoc]

You have to change the calipers for either of the ford based upgrades.

I can only advise on the 260mm setup, for which you need

2 x calipers and caliper brackets from a sierra with 260mm front discs.
Make sure you get the caliper brackets, calipers often come up but without the brackets.
These are xr4i, xr4x4 models and later models with ABS.

You need discs from a rear wheel drive model with 260mm discs, so XR4i or later 2WD models with ABS.
XR4x4 discs do not fit - the offset is wrong to allow for the front wheel drive hardware.

You will also need a new set of pads to fit.

I did a post somewhere a while back but can't find it now.

Edited by Barkychoc on Saturday 15th August 17:27

[Last S4]

Barkychoc said:

You have to change the calipers for either of the ford based upgrades.

I am quite happy to change the calipers. I fitted 307HDI discs to my 205Mi16 and had to use different calipers altogether with spacers too - afterwards the self adhesive balance weights on the alloys had to be removed as they hit the calipers! Fantastic braking though.