Upgrades - Advice welcome

[Davewelly]

Hi All

I'm looking to upgrade the Braking system on my S2, I want to add discs to the rear and increase the size at the front.
Whats the best way to do this?
I'm also looking to improve performance and as my tappets are worn and need replacing I'm thinking of stripping the engine and making improvements, again any suggestions would be appreciated.

Cheers
Dave

[GreenV8S]

What type of improvements are you hoping for, and how much? And what's your budget?

[Davewelly]

No real budget tbh, just want what's best. Don't want to spend thousands tho!!

[Gerald-TVR]

Davewelly said:

Hi All

I'm looking to upgrade the Braking system on my S2, I want to add discs to the rear and increase the size at the front.

Why the bakes are more than OK for normal road use, or are you going to sprint/hillclimb?

[Davewelly]

Had a close call under heavy braking and have little faith in ford fiesta discs with rear drums. Would like a braking system that is a bit more capable;)

[GreenV8S]

Davewelly said:

Had a close call under heavy braking and have little faith in ford fiesta discs with rear drums. Would like a braking system that is a bit more capable;)

The standard brakes will lock the wheels without much trouble if they're working properly.

The main reason to upgrade brakes is to cure overheating problems, but you're unlikely to have that problem unless you drive hard on short twisty race tracks, or race down mountains. My S2 went on lots of track days and got driven quite hard without any real problems. I didn't even bother taking the dust shields off.

It doesn't sound as if you particularly need an upgrade, and it doesn't sound as if you have money burning a hole in your pocket either, so I'd suggest you spend a little time and money getting the existing brakes working properly.

[Davewelly]

I simply would like better brakes. The cost is not a problem as long as the result is improved safety. I was merely looking to see what others had done, not too sure why I have to explain the reasons but appreciate some may feel it's a waste of money.
I take it then that nobody else has upgraded their braking system unless they are racing in some way??
Maybe I'm just poor driver!!

[phillpot]

Davewelly said:

have little faith in ford fiesta discs with rear drums.

Discs and drums are Sierra, anything that can stop a whapping great saloon car and five adults (and possibly a caravan on the back) should be able to stop a little sports car pretty smartly.

While I agree many owners do like to "up size" while overhauling their brakes (me included) I would suggest that firstly make sure what you have is in good working order ? I didn't have a problem with my original/standard brakes, I just wanted the challenge of fitting larger front and rear discs.

[stainless_steve]

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...
This any good?

Do a search should find a bit of info.

[techbotics]

Blimey you guys... I have Granada cosworth front @ 278mm and a set of Granada cosworth rear disks etc about to go on. This change needs spacers at the front.

I'm happy with them so far.. Or for cheep as chips front upgrade sierra xr4i fronts fit @ 260mm

as others have said some don't like to upgrade but I have no problems if you don't like it swap back.

Cheers Damian s3

[v8s4me]

The sierra xr4i fronts @ 260mm are great & simple upgrade for relatively little cost. Check your servo though. If it's rusted at the bottom and leaking going bigger won't make much difference.

[Davewelly]

techbotics said:

Blimey you guys... I have Granada cosworth front @ 278mm and a set of Granada cosworth rear disks etc about to go on. This change needs spacers at the front.

I'm happy with them so far.. Or for cheep as chips front upgrade sierra xr4i fronts fit @ 260mm

as others have said some don't like to upgrade but I have no problems if you don't like it swap back.

Cheers Damian s3

Alleyuja!!!

Thanks for this info, just wat I needed.
Where did you get your parts?
So what you needed was:
Gran Cossie Front discs, pads, Calipers and spacer? Where did you get the spacer?
for the rear what exactly did you need?

Cheers
Dave

[Davewelly]

v8s4me said:

The sierra xr4i fronts @ 260mm are great & simple upgrade for relatively little cost. Check your servo though. If it's rusted at the bottom and leaking going bigger won't make much difference.

Cheers for the tip.
My current braking system is in good working order, just want bigger

[Alan Whitaker]

Hi All
The old brake debate, brakes only do one thing they apply a friction to the brake disc or drum, tyres do the stopping combined with a balance between front and rear, just putting larger brakes on is the sports car thing, we all know sports cars have to have very big brakes (or do they) power output applied to the drive wheels and the need to hit a braking point dictates how you set up the brakes.

On the road we have road traffic and speed limits, if you drive within the limits and conditions S front disc and rear drums are quite sufficient for the job but when you need to brake at the last minute at high speed you need a different type of braking system and brake pads.

Many of the problems with cars and braking is the wrong choice of material for the pads and shoes, racing brakes need a lot of temperature to be efficient i.e. racing pads on the front with cold brakes and you are in the s#1t.

Bottom line is if you have problems stopping look at other things before changing brakes, you may spend lots of wonga and still have s#1t brakes.


Alan

[Davewelly]

Jeez, its like listening to my mrs telling me that I'm wasting money again!!

[Mr Plow]

Hi Dave

I upgraded to 285mm front and discs on the back, I had to use a brake bias valve to get the balance right, and got a hand brake cable specially made. To put discs on the back there is a little more to it than just bolting bits on, I had to get a couple of bits machined.
The calipers, discs and pads were Wilwood, supplied by either Rally Design or Burton Power. Again for the rear you need a couple of donor parts from sierras that had discs. If this is the route you take and want more info let me know.

Cheers

Liam

[Davewelly]

Mr Plow said:

Hi Dave

I upgraded to 285mm front and discs on the back, I had to use a brake bias valve to get the balance right, and got a hand brake cable specially made. To put discs on the back there is a little more to it than just bolting bits on, I had to get a couple of bits machined.
The calipers, discs and pads were Wilwood, supplied by either Rally Design or Burton Power. Again for the rear you need a couple of donor parts from sierras that had discs. If this is the route you take and want more info let me know.

Cheers

Liam

Hi Liam

I would love a list of your parts and where you got them from, cheers for the input.

[GreenV8S]

Davewelly said:

I simply would like better brakes. The cost is not a problem as long as the result is improved safety. I was merely looking to see what others had done, not too sure why I have to explain the reasons but appreciate some may feel it's a waste of money.
I take it then that nobody else has upgraded their braking system unless they are racing in some way??
Maybe I'm just poor driver!!

Reason I asked is that 'better' means different things to different people. Some people view big brakes as a fashion statement. Preferably with big shiny callipers and lots of cross-drillings and so on. And for those people that simply want bigger brakes, there's nothing wrong with that (although cross-drilled disks are just wrong, m'kay?). But if you're considering this because you want to improve the performance of the car and think that bigger brakes will achieve this, you need to think more carefully about what problem you're trying to solve. There are two main benefits from bigger brakes. They give better cooling, so you can drive the car harder for longer without the brakes fading. This is not really relevant to an emergency stop situation, though. And they give a higher contact speed and lower contact pressure which translates to a more linear feel and less tendency to grab near the limit of grip. But these benefits will be more than offset by the problems you introduce if you muck up the brake balance. So if you're thinking about doing this for performance reasons, which (if any) of these problems are you trying to solve? If you're overheating the brakes in a V6 S there's something very unusual about the way you're driving or there's something wrong with the brakes. With the right pads and fluid, and correctly adjusted and lubricated, these brakes can be worked very hard indeed. I regularly stayed out on track for 30 minutes at a time in my S2 and usually tyre temperatures brought me in before the brakes did. And if you're only driving on public roads, you should almost never be in a position where subtleties of pedal feel under hard braking are a concern. I can't recall ever being in a position to need the brake upgrades on public roads despite the best part of 200K miles of driving quite quickly sometimes.

My experience is this: On a V6 S the standard 240mm disc/drum setup is fine for road and track if you have the right pads and fluid and everything is working correctly. On a V8S the standard 240mm/250mm setup is fine for road use but marginal if driven hard on track. The brake balance is also some way out as standard. A 285mm front upgrade is imo ideal - sorts out the brake balance, and gives more than enough heat dissipation even for hard track use. Even with highly tuned 4.0 with about 40 bhp more than standard and driven very hard on track it was still fine on the 285mm upgrade. A 4.6 taking it to about 70 bhp more than standard was marginal hitting slow corners at the end of long high speed straights but 300mm all round sorted that out fine. Even with very substantial power increases since then they're still fine.

If you're changing the spec of braking components, the arithmetic involved in correcting the brake balance afterwards gets quite complicated. I've seen no end of upgrades that looked great but had no attention paid to the brake balance and were an accident waiting to happen. So, given that brake upgrades take a lot of time and money to do and are difficult to do safely, and (in my experience) unlikely to be necessary for the vast majority of people, this is why I'm asking if you understand what you're trying to achieve with the upgrade and whether an upgrade is actually necessary to achieve that.

If your problem is that the car needed uncomfortable amounts of pedal pressure to give you enough braking in an emergency, the most likely cause is that you have the wrong grade pads or the pads have not been bedded in properly - it's also possible that the callipers are not all working properly (if a calliper sticks in the slider the resulting dead pedal can be quite frightening).

Edited by GreenV8S on Sunday 17th April 12:31

[phillpot]

Nagging over, think folk were just trying to say if your brakes are crp there's a problem with them, its not a design fault.
But if you've got to buy new bits why not buy bigger bits (that was my theory)?

Up sizing the fronts has been pretty well covered on here, I found all the info/advice I needed using the search facility.
Rear discs and calipers I bought from a guy upgrading his Griffiths, they are the earlier solid discs (Sierra XR4?).Rather than change the bearing carriers (different size bearings) to get the caliper mountings I bought a pair of adaptor brackets from 3GE Components. Handbrake cable is Granada/Sierra but will need shortening, or you can buy the real thing (genuine = £50+, Granada = £10 Ebay).Finally some Goodridge flexi's from Stevson Motors, if you already have braided hoses they can sell you just the extra two to go to the calipers

[Alan Whitaker]

Hi
"Jeez, its like listening to my Mrs telling me that I'm wasting money again"

You could go to

www.compbrake.co.uk/

or HighSpec

http://www.hispecmotorsport.co.uk/

I am sure you will get a nice set of bling callipers / discs and fittings, there are also Wilwood, AP and Brembo all have the bits to fit.
If you go oversize on the discs you may have to change your wheels also with bigger callipers you may have to fit spacers to the discs due to the being wider.

Changing brakes is not a big job its getting all the bits to work efficiently after after you have done it.

Alan

Edited by Alan Whitaker on Sunday 17th April 07:50