Impressions so far...let's put the btrakes on...

[griff59]

Two weeks ownership of my Griff, all is well, it's strange how driving such an extreme car can become a "normal" experience in such a short time, well almost normal, I'm not quite 100% comfortable in her just yet, and every drive still leaves me physically drained wanting a cold beer and a cold poultice!
What makes a TVR special to me is that I know, no matter how long I have it, it will still continue to have that thrill and sense of mystery that it had before I even drove it.
It's lived up to my expectations completely, but one thing I'm not getting used to is the braking, I'm used to driving a modern ABS equipped car, and I have to keep remembering that I don't have that on the Griff, in fact, it's one of the first modifications I'm going to have done, uprating the braking system. Any help and guidance regrading improving the braking would be extremely welcome.

[griff59]

steve-V8s said:

What is it that you don't like about the standard arrangement ? There was a fashion for fitting bigger discs and “better callipers” but I have never really understood why, unless perhaps you are thrashing round a track and things are getting a bit overheated.

Provided it is all working correctly I have always found the standard arrangement nicely balanced and perfectly adequate. Even with the softest of racing slicks fitted the car still stops nicely.

Fitting new standard discs and some reasonable pads, Ferodo 2500 for example gives plenty of stopping power and reasonable feel. For a better feel on the pedal swapping the flexible hoses at each corner for braided ones gives a noticeable improvement. If it hasn't been done recently you could treat the entire system to a complete fluid change.

Thanks, braided hoses have been fitted. But nothing else has been done.
It's when the brakes are cold, the first few miles that stopping power seems inadequate, the more I use them the better they feel. I pulled up at some traffic lights a mile from the house and they barely worked, it was quite disturbing, but a few miles down the road they felt more or less OK, strange?

[griff59]

steve-V8s said:

If they don't work from cold it could be you have pads which are really meant for circuit use, a lot of people seem to sell these. They need to be quite hot before giving any bite and shouldn't really be used on the road.

Do they actually not work or do you just have to press harder ? Could be the servo is not as it should be or there is a leak in the vacuum pipe. There is a one way valve in the pipe which is often missed but is worth checking.

Another thought with the symptom you describe is the master cylinder. It has two separate pistons with four outlets (only three of which are used on the Griff ) the idea being if there is a catastrophic failure on one of the circuits the other will still work a bit. The down side to this system is when the seals get past their best fluid can circulate around inside the cylinder rather than getting forced down the pipes, this effect can be intermittent if the sealing edge if the washer has badly degraded.

You could seek out a local friendly MOT man ( you will need to find one at some point anyway) and ask him to pop it on the brake rollers, would be a very quick test and even if it reveals no problem would at least give you some confidence that all is working.

Thanks, I'll get all that checked out, it's just had an MOT, and the brakes were flagged up, but the dealer rectified the problems and it passed the MOT fine. The car was given a thorough going over by the dealer and whole car was checked before delivery.
As you say, it may have racing pads, I'll get that sorted out straight away.

[griff59]

Brakes seem OK this morning, just went to top up at the local BP and all seems fine right from cold, typical!
I'm off to the Lydden Hill Classic today, I'm going as part of the TVRCC, should be lots of fun.

[griff59]

ChimpOnGas, I'm going to sum up by saying that I'm definitely not happy with the overall braking performance of my car, it may be as intended, and about the same as any other stock Griffith, but it definitely "does not" inspire confidence.
If it is posdible to upgrade, and at the £500-ish you mentioned then that would be money well spent IMO.

[griff59]

Barreti said:

Do you have a 4.x or 5.0ltr car.
I thought I'd ask because not everyone knows the 4.x cars have smaller front brakes and its an easy upgrade to fit the 5.0ltr setup.

Mine is a 500, I had a really nice drive on Sunday, down some lovely country lanes and B Roads. On a long straight section there was a bend coming up and the road narrowed more than I expected after the bend and I had to brake sharply to pass an oncoming car, my car pulled to the left a bit which was concerning, and the braking power was sort of "OK" but not inspiring. It was a good test, and it still leaves me wanting to upgrade the brakes, I'm in no doubt about that, and that Brembo conversion is already on my shopping list.

Edited by griff59 on Wednesday 11th July 17:13

[griff59]

ChimpOnGas said:

Love this

And I can't see Neill Anderson spending all that time developing better brakes for the last run of Griffiths and Chimaeras if he didn't think it improved the cars, TVR may have had the AP calipers on the shelf from the new T cars but to develop a five stud conversion and have special wheels cast or the Griffith & Chimaera takes some investment.

Development is all about moving things on to deliver improvements, Neill Anderson knew this as it was his job after all, if we all just sat about saying what we have is fine we'd still be living in caves.

I love my Brembo brake upgrade, it made a huge improvement to my car, fine is fine but better is better..... and better brakes are a big improvement on these cars

For the record the wheels on the Griffith I saw recently had five stud versions of these wheels fitted to the never to surface Speed Six Griifith.



They looked exactly like the above but had five studs not the four we see here on the aborted Speed Six Griifith.

I think I'm becoming very confused regarding not only this thread but also my post about the vacuum advance pipe. I've learnt a couple of valuable lessons since posting on Piston Heads, don't ask about modifying a car that I don't fully understand yet as I've only owned it for a few weeks, and I haven't even had a chance to get used to it in standard trim.
Also, I've got to start trusting my own judgements, even though I've now got used to the standard brakes, at the earliest opportunity I'm going to get them upgraded, in standard form, as you say Chimp, they are fine, but that's not to say they can't be a hell of a lot better.
It's a question of where do you stop, we can get used to anything, on an original car, but you can make so many improvements that the car then ceases to be original, and looses all the feel of the original.

[griff59]

Rob_the_Sparky said:

I guess you have to realise that TVR didn't have the deepest of pockets and development is expensive so you can not expect TVRs to be as well tested and developed as more mainstream cars. This means that there are some areas where there is room for improvement in the design. The trick though is separating internet fact from fiction, as is always the case TBH. These two threads are very informative and many thanks to the knowledgeable contributors.

Yes! I've been a TVR fan of many years standing from a distance, but owning and driving one is a completely different kettle of fish. You do have to remove the modern production car concept completely from your mind. But that's what's so charming an attractive about my Griff, the fact that it's a bit rough around the edges and needs a bit of TLC is why I like it. I was thinking about what it might be like to not have it now, it's unthinkable, driving it is a real "event" and I still arrive home sweaty and exhausted feeling like I've just been struggling with a WW11 fighter plane! Also the attention you get on the road, it's not "bad" attention, people seem to really like the car, there's no envy or bad feeling there.
In the short time I've had my Griff all these things I'd really miss if I'd gone out and bought a BMW/Nissan etc.

[griff59]

griffdude said:

Griff59, what kind of mileage has your TVR covered over recent years?

It had a rebuild in 2011, chassis, engine cam, at 71,000.
It's covered 10,500 since.

QBee said:

Griff59, simplest thing would be to drive one or more of our cars with the bigger brake upgrades to see what you think of them.
Only depends on which of the Scottish islands you live........or perhaps you actually live somewhere quite central?
My Chimaera has similar brakes to Chimpo's and Classic Chim's and is situated in the East Midlands, and you are most welcome to try them.

I'm down in Kent, thats really kind of you, maybe we can arrange something?

[griff59]

Just wondering, where did you get the kit for £500?

Thanks,

Griff.