Brake cooling

[Nefarious]

Having managed to boil the brand new SRF I put in weekend before last at a trackday at Knockhill last night I think I need to look at some sort of brake cooling mods.

For those who don't know KH, it's particularly hard on brakes, as there are a couple of very heavy braking points with only straights between them for cooling. I know the place quite well, and can't seem to help myself giving it death every time (apart from warm-up/cool-down laps of course).

So what's my best bet? Rig up some ducting from the ventilation intakes to the back of the discs? Will that make the heater/blower even more pathetic than it already is? Does it really achieve a significant difference in terms of cooling?

[trackcar]

you should never be boiling the lfuid in a road based car.. we dont have any brake ducting on our t350 racer and we dont have any issues at all even with a splitter limiting under car airflow and adding aero downforce and sticky slicks!!

[Nefarious]

trackcar said:

you should never be boiling the lfuid in a road based car.. we dont have any brake ducting on our t350 racer and we dont have any issues at all even with a splitter limiting under car airflow and adding aero downforce and sticky slicks!!

Any suggestions as to what could be up then? This is the second time I've managed it (although last time I pretty much stayed out for a full 2 hour session)!

This time I put in a total of about 40 laps, in 5 sessions of 7-10 laps each with 5-10 minute breaks in between.

[ro_butler]

This is going back a bit, but I seem to remember a chap called William Ball making some ducting for his brakes. He also had some videos of his track sessions where you could hear his brakes sqealing a lot.

Sadly I doubt his posts have been kept as it was a long time ago, and I dont know how to contact him. Maybe someone else can remember.

Anyway it has been done.

[optimax sniffer]

when ducting, is it better to have the ducted air directed towards the caliper or the disc?

[Nickccc]

Johny W has cooling ducts fot his race Cerb,

[ro_butler]

optimax sniffer said:

when ducting, is it better to have the ducted air directed towards the caliper or the disc?

Usually towards the centre of the disc.

[BCA]

ro_butler said:

This is going back a bit, but I seem to remember a chap called William Ball making some ducting for his brakes. He also had some videos of his track sessions where you could hear his brakes sqealing a lot.

Sadly I doubt his posts have been kept as it was a long time ago, and I dont know how to contact him. Maybe someone else can remember.

Anyway it has been done.

Good call, yep, I remember WB's brake ducts... two metal ducts I believe right underneath the car to direct air in. You could see them underneath the car when he was on track and I think he said they were quite effective? Cant remember what he did exactly, but you could always ask the man himself... hes on here as "TVRolet"

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/profile.asp?h=0...

Edited by BCA on Tuesday 10th June 12:56

[Nefarious]

BCA said:

ro_butler said:

This is going back a bit, but I seem to remember a chap called William Ball making some ducting for his brakes. He also had some videos of his track sessions where you could hear his brakes sqealing a lot.

Sadly I doubt his posts have been kept as it was a long time ago, and I dont know how to contact him. Maybe someone else can remember.

Anyway it has been done.

Good call, yep, I remember WB's brake ducts... two metal ducts I believe right underneath the car to direct air in. You could see them underneath the car when he was on track and I think he said they were quite effective? Cant remember what he did exactly, but you could always ask the man himself... hes on here as "TVRolet"

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/profile.asp?h=0...

Edited by BCA on Tuesday 10th June 12:56

Ahh...funnily enough, I met him last night at the same trackday. Tuscan was looking very nice, and very fast.

[BCA]

He was pretty bloody handy in a Cerb too... I think he used some properly loud ferroda(sp?) pads - they used to squeal like hell, but he liked the way it made people infront dive out of the way.

[tvrolet]

ro_butler said:

...but I seem to remember a chap called William Ball making some ducting for his brakes...

Hellooo. First post in the Cerb forum for many's a year. And, just for coincidence I was at the same track session with the Tuscan

Yup, I used to fry the brakes on the Cerb at KH...but nowhere else. Things I learned were first make sure the car isn't set to low. I dropped the ride height on mine as I guessed it might handle better. I recall I ran a day at Croft and it felt great, but the brakes fried far worse at KH. Not soo surprising when you think about it as the only way air is going to get into the brakes is under the nose of the car...where there's also a splitter. Lifting thge car up to nearer to the 'standard' ride height helped a lot.

I also made up some 'ducts'...OK sheets of plastic that I mounted at an angle on the lower wishbones. They were maybe an inch lower than the splitter if looked at at ground level from the front, but even although they were lower than the splitter, as they were 'unsprung' i.e. moved up and down with the suspension I didn't have problems grounding...but perhaps there weren't as many speedbumps where it were all fields round here. The level of sophistication of the mounting was little more than a couple of slots at each end of the 'sheet' and jubilee clips on the wishbone. I'm guessing it did help as after I fitted them the sides of the car seemed to get far dirtier from brake dust than before.

And finally I ended up changing pads much sooner than 'normal'. Being a Scot it made me weep binning half worn pads, but as the pad thinned out you got much more heat transfer into the system as against a new thick pad. And I ended up on Ferodo DS3000 - loud, and not too great when cold (but usable..but I gather not recommended for road useby Ferodo), but at KH they were fade-proof. I think the DS2500 is more of an everyday pad, but I used the 3000s year round as the car was a daily driver.

Happily the Tuscan doesn't suffer from brake fade
So far....

[Nefarious]

tvrolet said:

ro_butler said:

...but I seem to remember a chap called William Ball making some ducting for his brakes...

Hellooo. First post in the Cerb forum for many's a year. And, just for coincidence I was at the same track session with the Tuscan

Yup, I used to fry the brakes on the Cerb at KH...but nowhere else. Things I learned were first make sure the car isn't set to low. I dropped the ride height on mine as I guessed it might handle better. I recall I ran a day at Croft and it felt great, but the brakes fried far worse at KH. Not soo surprising when you think about it as the only way air is going to get into the brakes is under the nose of the car...where there's also a splitter. Lifting thge car up to nearer to the 'standard' ride height helped a lot.

I also made up some 'ducts'...OK sheets of plastic that I mounted at an angle on the lower wishbones. They were maybe an inch lower than the splitter if looked at at ground level from the front, but even although they were lower than the splitter, as they were 'unsprung' i.e. moved up and down with the suspension I didn't have problems grounding...but perhaps there weren't as many speedbumps where it were all fields round here. The level of sophistication of the mounting was little more than a couple of slots at each end of the 'sheet' and jubilee clips on the wishbone. I'm guessing it did help as after I fitted them the sides of the car seemed to get far dirtier from brake dust than before.

And finally I ended up changing pads much sooner than 'normal'. Being a Scot it made me weep binning half worn pads, but as the pad thinned out you got much more heat transfer into the system as against a new thick pad. And I ended up on Ferodo DS3000 - loud, and not too great when cold (but usable..but I gather not recommended for road useby Ferodo), but at KH they were fade-proof. I think the DS2500 is more of an everyday pad, but I used the 3000s year round as the car was a daily driver.

Happily the Tuscan doesn't suffer from brake fade
So far....

Thanks for the tips. That sounds a lot easier than rigging up ducting through the vent holes.

All the points you make are true, and going against me - My car is running pretty low (although I'm loving the current set-up, so not keen to change in a hurry). My pads are past the half-way point and I've got some Pagid yellows to go in (and some Pagid Blues for the back).

[jesfirth]

I have brake cooling ducts on my car for track days - the brakes have never failed since they were fitted. The job is a simple one.

Remove the indicators

Buy some lozenge shaped white leds and fit them in the smaller hole beneath the old indicator hole

The leds have little resitance so if they are used alone the indicators will flash twice as fast -so
keep the old indicators wired in series but just leave them appropriately fixed inside the wing

Buy 2m of the orange 65mm flexiduct - demon tweaks etc sell it

fabricate (around a glass or similar) new intake ducts which you bond into the inner wing where the indicators used to be

Fit the new flexiducts to the fibreglass ducts

Cut circular holes in the inner wing panel at the bottom inner side of each arch

pass the flexiduct through just below the wishbones and cable tie the ducst to the wishbones. The lexiduct can be run right inside the wheel finishing 5mm or so form the face of the disk.

The cooling is so efficient that I have to cover them up for sprinting as the brakes just dont get hot.

i am useless at posting photos so if you email me i will send them to you so that they can be hosted by someone alot more techie than me

cheers

Jes