upgrading the tiddlers...

[antonyb]

Hi all,

I have the "small brake" setup on my 4ltr chimaera... as per non-upgraded factory spec. (1995)

I need to change all the disks within the next month or so and was wondering about upgrades. I have 17" wheels on the car so i can fit something suitibly large in there. I dont do track days (worst luck) but need something suitable for fast road use. At this point my budget is pretty reasonable.

I am told that i cant just do a disk size upgrade as I only have the "little" calipers

So... lets go for a full upgrade, my question is to what?

Any body got any experience with this?

Ta. Ant.

[M@H]

www.pistonheads.co.uk/gassing/topic.asp?f=8&h=&t=168849

Cheers
Matt

[antonyb]

lovely thanks

[Steve_T]

The same single pot 60mm caliper is used on pretty much all sierras bar the 2wd Cosworth. These will be the calipers on your car I'd expect. You have a number of options from here:

1) Space the calipers out with suitable brackets and run a larger disk. From the post on the other thread it sounds like you can get replacement calipers with should fit the standard upright and accomodate a larger disc.

2) Use 2wd Cosworth 4 pot calipers and a larger disc. There's a chap on here that's done it - I think you need Cosworth 2wd uprights to do this. It might be hard to obtain these calipers as they're popular with kit car builders, you may also need these calipers reconditioned.

3) Upgrades with aftermarket calipers, discs and suitable brackets. With 17s on your car you can run as big a setup as you like, if that's the look your after, but I'd say you'd not need to in terms of stopping power. Also, I'd note that huge rotors add to the undamped mass of your wheel and can negatively impact the handling of your car. Even if you don't notice any change in the car, you will in your wallet!

I'd say wait and see how Nick's setup works out before deciding.

Cheers,

Steve.

[antonyb]

thanks for the advice steve, i have emailed Nick to ask him about his pending setup...

on another note - i noticed in you Chim's profile the following:

"ACT Trumpets,
Bosch Meter,
Bosch Injectors,
Tornado Chip,
Mark Adams Rolling Road Session,
Heat Wrap for the induction hose"

I was tempted to get the Mark Adams chip and rolling road... are all the other components you got required when doing this?

How'd that work out for you?

ta

ant

[Steve_T]

Depends how far you want to take it. I was intending to do pretty much everything bar a mechanical cam. On a 5L you tend to run out of fuel when you get the induction flowing well (i.e. ACT Plenum). This is where the Bosch injectors come in. They also have a better spray pattern, giving better cold start performance as a spin off.

One thing I'd picked up from speaking to a few folks is that you can find one component in the chain, can hold you back significantly, so I did the meter and the induction hose partly to ensure this didn't happen and partly to because these are the cheaper upgrades to do. We did find that the induction hose gets very hot on a chim' on the rolling road, so the heat shield is needed here, but is probably not so much on the road.

If you speak to a tuning specialist (I used Austec) or someone like Tim Lamont at ACT, you'll get an honest idea of what will work and what is not necessary for your car.

I did get benefit from my mods, the car was no longer struggling for breath over 5k and would pull clean through to 6k rpm. In retrospect I should have either kept the money for the Cerb' or spent upgraded sooner to enjoy it for longer. However she was a great car for me and now represents a good option for someone else to complete the upgrade path with an ACT plenum. I'm about to do similar to the Cerb'.

Regards,

Steve.

>> Edited by Steve_T on Friday 22 April 18:12