best reasonably priced front brake upgrade

[shnozz]

come on then chaps, need some ideas...

[spivvy]

black diamond discs an pads ,standard size but dimpled and grooved certainly make a difference

www.motorsportworld.co.uk/frame-detail.asp?PAGE=/tarox-brake-discs.htm

>> Edited by spivvy on Tuesday 31st May 23:39

[HarryW]

Griff 500 260mm ones if you can get them donated by a 500 upgrading or one of the kits by Tower View, around £200 I think for 283mm with offset caliper bracket. Any bigger than that I think you are into rears as well and £1K prices.

Harry

[NickP_S2]

Drilled & grooved brake discs are a waste of space unless you are on the track. They generally eat through pads when used on the road. They require ducting to prevent excessive pad wear, but they do look nice.... on Corsa's.

Bigger is better.

Vented, lightweight discs are the way to go. Also consider upgrading the master cylinder.

[shnozz]

I know very little about brakes but presumably the bigger pads are only any good if you have bigger pistons or 4 pot? otherwise its more area to disperse the heat but no more in terms of contact to slow the car? I posted on the Griff forum but it would appear those are only 2 pot as well so am wondering what sort of improvement we would see with "upgrading"??

[shnozz]

any idea what the brakes are taken from? wondering whether these would fit http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=23013&item=7978016704&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW

[spivvy]

NickP_S2 said:

Drilled & grooved brake discs are a waste of space unless you are on the track. They generally eat through pads when used on the road. They require ducting to prevent excessive pad wear, but they do look nice.... on Corsa's. Bigger is better. Vented, lightweight discs are the way to go. Also consider upgrading the master cylinder.

tend to disagree here ,they are vastly superior to the originally fitted discs ,and pad wear would depend on the type of pad fitted also

[NickP_S2]

Unless you fit very expensive, high temperature brake pads when using drilled & grooved discs then they will wear down fast. The discs act like a cheese grater and you will find burnt pad debris all over your discs. This is a well documented fact, not my opinion.

[Rower]

shnozz said:

come on then chaps, need some ideas...

O K Shnozz ! No more imformation unless you tell us what lump you are dropping into Claires 'S'!

[Wildfire]

Rower said:

shnozz said: come on then chaps, need some ideas... O K Shnozz ! No more imformation unless you tell us what lump you are dropping into Claires 'S'!

No really, Griff 500 brake Upgrade. I've got them on my Griff 400 and they're great, couple that with some good pads and you're laughing. Well good up to around 270bhp ish or so. Unless you're going for even more power??
fishing for clues

[thegamekeeper]

Restore current brakes to 100%, fit temperature sensors to see what temperature your brakes are operating at during usual driving and fit pads appropriate to temperature. Cheapest way to get good brakes unless you are upgrading power considerably, and it wont affect your insurance

[GreenV8S]

I agree, keep to standard plain discs unless you are suffering from overheating.

Two things that improve the feel and progressiveness of brakes are to increase the speed between the pads and rotor, and increase the pad contact area.

Fitting grooved or (shudder) drilled discs reduces the contact area and also increases the pad wear, noise and dust. Unless you are working the pads so hard that you're getting gas build up between the pads and rotor, you don't get any benefit from surface features on the disc. They do look nice and sporty I grant you, but in perfrmance terms they're a downgrade not an upgrade.

[Hoover33]

BRAIDED BRAKE HOSES

[Colin Blues2]

I seem to remember seeing a thread a while back that you could fit the larger plain disks from one of the performance Fords as a direct swap.

Colin

[shnozz]

not much point though in having huge brakes unless I get some decent size calipers (well, decent size pistons or 4 pot) to go against the big disks. Admittedly I havent tracked the S but cant say I have ever had brake fade and wouldnt expect it to happen in a car that lightweight.

are the brakes taken straight from a sierra? if so I could investigate the performance upgrades for the sierra.

Am leaning towards a cheap Griff 500 upgrade as a cost effective measure. The new engine isnt anything that special so dont all get excited, but the next stage of modifying might mean selling the Griff brakes on to get something more substantial.

[HarryW]

TBH shnozz the griff500 brakes are more than man enough for road and light track use. If used with decent pads, fluid and good condition hoses etc they can be locked up at will. I think you will find Joolz still uses them on his V8S and he tracks it more than most with no apparent problem.
I'm not saying they can't be bettered just that they are more than adequate for the job IMHO.

Harry

[shnozz]

yeah thats what I am thinking Harry. Will give them a whirl in the first instance and then see whether they cut the mustard when the stakes are raised hopefully over winter.