Brake pads

[Lee b]

Evening everyone
After a bit of advice, I have standard discs and pads on willi 2 , just find the brakes a bit soft when you push on a bit. Any advice for improving braking, I'm not looking on spending a fortune, better pads,
Discs or brake fluid, anyone got any ideas?

[16v_paddy]

1st thing I'd do is get some new braided flexi hoses all round and some decent brake fluid then see how it is then look into getting some better pads when they're ready to be replaced :wink:

[schakal]

Evening everyone
After a bit of advice, I have standard discs and pads on willi 2 , just find the brakes a bit soft when you push on a bit. Any advice for improving braking, I'm not looking on spending a fortune, better pads,
Discs or brake fluid, anyone got any ideas?


if its softer compared to another williams . it could be one of many things
including air in the system .

ideally take it to a garage where they have brake testing equipment to
show how many kgf each side is braking first and take it from there .

[Lee b]

I've never driven another one it's just compared to my bmw and other modern cars it feels not quite enough bite on the brakes.do standard brakes feel like this or are are they normally More than enough

[16v_paddy]

They are good enough but do deteriorate over time so just renewing everything usually makes a massive improvement

[Smokey McPot]

I found this.

New pads, discs all round, and calipers up front made a world of difference. Weren't cheap though.

[fab]

ideally take it to a garage where they have brake testing equipment to
show how many kgf each side is braking first and take it from there .
do this mate and you wont go wrong.


You dont fook with the brakes :!:

[16v_paddy]

ideally take it to a garage where they have brake testing equipment to
show how many kgf each side is braking first and take it from there .
do this mate and you wont go wrong.


You dont fook with the brakes :!:

I tend to disagree there a bit, from my experience dealing with garages, particularly one with apprentices & trainees in there, it's the newbies that go to work on the brakes because they're so important & it's good to learn about the workings of them over the other components on a car.

The only time I let a garage do anything on my brakes is to bleed them & that's because it's easier for them to do it with a pressure bleeder & I'm too lazy to be pissing about dragging someone round to help me do it, anything else brake wise is pretty simple & very easy to do

[schakal]

ideally take it to a garage where they have brake testing equipment to
show how many kgf each side is braking first and take it from there .
do this mate and you wont go wrong.


You dont fook with the brakes :!:

I tend to disagree there a bit, from my experience dealing with garages, particularly one with apprentices & trainees in there, it's the newbies that go to work on the brakes because they're so important & it's good to learn about the workings of them over the other components on a car.

The only time I let a garage do anything on my brakes is to bleed them & that's because it's easier for them to do it with a pressure bleeder & I'm too lazy to be pissing about dragging someone round to help me do it, anything else brake wise is pretty simple & very easy to do


testing brakes on the rollers is not a job to carry out on the braking system , read it properly before you post unrelated sheet :?

[fab]

anything else brake wise is pretty simple & very easy to do

I would tend to disagree with you there a little. :)

Going around swapping out calipers may be piss easy but it's expensive and very time consuming as well as hassle to be honest.
then you dont know if your handbrake cables are at fault or your rear brake bias thing is working as it should or not.

Either way your car is going to end up on an MOT braking system so your better off knowing well in advance if your brakes are not up to standard. Sorry to say but visually inspecting or guessing the braking force is not going to tell you if your handbrake or front braking force is correct.

Looking back it should of been the first things to have got done on my own car.

[Lee b]

Thanks for all the advice, the brakes pasted mot last
Year with no issues and work fine In normal driving, so their not knackered or anything, as I said really I was hoping to change the fluid , perhaps uprated pads, just wanted to know the best to go for.

In an ideal world it would be lovely to renew it all but as we know these cars seem to eat money so I don't want to spend uneccesarily.

[fab]

I suppose the only re-assurance I can offer you is that when you drive more modern cars (especially with abs) and then jump into the williams at first it can feel that the braking system is inadequate. But it usually takes me 30mins of pottering around warming things up before I start to get more exuberant at which stage it's all systems go and I should say stop also for that matter :D
Their light cars and as such do not require as much braking force as a car that weighs twice as much. That make sense?

[stevie_b]

just wanted to know the best to go for.

For fluid the best one to go for is Castrol SRF. It's pricey per litre but you won't need any more than a 1 litre bottle to do a full flush and refill. Since brake fluid is hygroscopic it needs replacing regularly anyway to maintain peak performance, so I'd do that early on in any 'refresh'.

As for the feeling of braking force, very similar to fabs' comments, modern cars (you mention a BMW) quite often have more servo assistance than the Williams. I've had a 16v for 14 years now and the brakes were always very good, but as I have had newer cars since (including BMWs) you do get used to the servo assistance they provide and so jumping back in the Clio it does feel as if the brakes were lacking in bite, whereas I know they won't be any different from when that was my only car and felt strong!

[16v_paddy]

ideally take it to a garage where they have brake testing equipment to
show how many kgf each side is braking first and take it from there .
do this mate and you wont go wrong.


You dont fook with the brakes :!:

I tend to disagree there a bit, from my experience dealing with garages, particularly one with apprentices & trainees in there, it's the newbies that go to work on the brakes because they're so important & it's good to learn about the workings of them over the other components on a car.

The only time I let a garage do anything on my brakes is to bleed them & that's because it's easier for them to do it with a pressure bleeder & I'm too lazy to be pissing about dragging someone round to help me do it, anything else brake wise is pretty simple & very easy to do


testing brakes on the rollers is not a job to carry out on the braking system , read it properly before you post unrelated sheet :?

I was referring to the don't fook with the brakes bit :roll: I just cba to delete your post that was included in the quote :wink:

[schakal]

ideally take it to a garage where they have brake testing equipment to
show how many kgf each side is braking first and take it from there .
do this mate and you wont go wrong.


You dont fook with the brakes :!:

I tend to disagree there a bit, from my experience dealing with garages, particularly one with apprentices & trainees in there, it's the newbies that go to work on the brakes because they're so important & it's good to learn about the workings of them over the other components on a car.

The only time I let a garage do anything on my brakes is to bleed them & that's because it's easier for them to do it with a pressure bleeder & I'm too lazy to be pissing about dragging someone round to help me do it, anything else brake wise is pretty simple & very easy to do


testing brakes on the rollers is not a job to carry out on the braking system , read it properly before you post unrelated sheet :?

I was referring to the don't fook with the brakes bit :roll: I just cba to delete your post that was included in the quote :wink:

:gay:

[16v_paddy]

http://i214.photobucket.com/albums/cc144/kato400/smileys/gayfight.gif

[Lee b]

Hi guys, I've been offered some drilled and grooved discs are these likely to make enough of a difference. What pads would I put with these?

[stevie_b]

Depends how hard you are going to use them. If it is for road use then drilled discs will probably be fine, but for track use they are prone to problems under extreme heat (cracking) and best avoided. Grooves are okay though.

The best pads I have used to date are Pagid RS29s. Where other pads have had fade these seem to have stood up to anything and are often used in endurance racing for that reason. I'm not sure that they do them in Clio fitment though (I'm not running standard calipers) so other pads I have seen favoured on here are Ferodo DS2500s and Mintex 1144s (which I have on the rears on my Clio)

[Lee b]

It sounds then that these discs then aren't any better than standard then, is that the case or are there benefits to these discs?

[16v_paddy]

The grooves help to de-glaze the pads & the drilled bits help to dissipate the heat a bit better. But loosely speaking you want to avoid discs that have holes drilled all the way through as they will be prone to cracking, but that's usually down to them being made from really cheap metal that will have then been weakened by the holes being drilled, you do get them on silly spec braking systems on supercars etc but they're obviously in a different league to a little french hatch :lol:

Do you know what make the discs are and if they've been drilled with holes all the way through or just a bit of the way through?

[Lee b]

Not sure sorry, guy didn't know the make and I don't know if they have holes right through, I'll find out, it sounds like hassle these discs for little real world gain!

[16v_paddy]

Not sure sorry, guy didn't know the make and I don't know if they have holes right through, I'll find out, it sounds like hassle these discs for little real world gain!

Well in reality it's the pads that make the difference as they deposit the friction material onto the disc for them to be able to grab on to and slow the car down so don't worry too much about the discs

[16v_paddy]

Just to add, I've noticed very big differences on mine & other peoples cars just from using different pads & everything else to do with the braking system not touched

[stevie_b]

but that's usually down to them being made from really cheap metal that will have then been weakened by the holes being drilled, you do get them on silly spec braking systems on supercars etc but they're obviously in a different league to a little french hatch

Nah, the holes are a problem even if the disc material is top notch. These are OE Porsche GT3 rotors, so not cheap metal - you can see the cracks emanating from the drilled holes:

http://img294.imageshack.us/img294/6232/gt3012br4.jpg

[16v_paddy]

:shock:

Now I'm wondering if those fancy carbon ceramic discs with holes drilled in them do the same thing :?

[16v_paddy]

:shock:

Now I'm wondering if those fancy carbon ceramic discs with holes drilled in them do the same thing :?

[16v_paddy]

:shock:

Now I'm wondering if those fancy carbon ceramic discs with holes drilled in them do the same thing :?

[Lee b]

Thanks for all the advice guys and gals, I think judging by the advice that I'll just change the fluid and get some mintex or ferodo pads

[Laine_16v]

A clio never needs grooved or drilled discs, besides the obvious problems a drilled discs gives (shown in the picture above), it will genuinely give you o noitceable gain.

Get a set of good quality brembo OE vented discs, and you will be doing the right thing.