PDA

View Full Version : 4 pot caliper myths



Mark_Ritchspeed
19-03-2005, 20:04
Just been looking at a thread from Cliosport . Needless to say it really pisses me off when I read things like these statements from people who dont have a clue what they are talking about .

"problem with the wilwood is they don't have any dust seals, so need stripping and maintaining every 2/3000 miles"

YES , thats why my bottom of the range Wilwood calipers are nearly 4 years old and covered @ 40k miles without any problems


"you'd be a fool to get non dust sealed calipers for the road"

WHY , because some "respected" tuner has told you that and wants to sell his twice as expensive kit ?



"I do know a lot of people who use Hi-Spec big brake kits and they're all pretty happy"

Try and find someone who has used these on track with a heavy , powerful car and punishes brakes and they will be able to tell you how crap Hi-Spec stuff is .



Over the coming few months (as I get back into the trackday scene again) I will quite happily demostrate how my cheap , low quality , non dust-sealed set-up has never faded , leaked or seized in nearly 4 years of complete abuse .

Bear in mind I had already spent nearly £3k on brakes in one year experimenting before getting a set-up that worked every single time without fade, was easily serviceable and above all value for money . In my old Willy 3 I went through 17 sets of front discs IN 1 YEAR listening to various "respected" tuners advice on the matter .

In the prevailing years since using the Wilwood set-up my discs now last 4-5 track days before needing replacing . I used to change discs every single trackday and sometimes during the actual day.

In 99% of road going cars THE weakest single item in the brake set-up is the standard IRON caliper . It is NOT the discs , pads , hoses or fluid . It is the iron calipers that simply cannot dissapate heat which causes your pads to disintegrate , your discs to warp and your fluid to boil .

And before some clever bloke comes on here and says wheres the evidence ? I am not a scientist , I do not have figures on paper , its all practical experience at demolishing brakes on road and track. And yes , occasionally they have actually caught fire .

RANT OVER :x

p.s That wasnt supposed to be a rant , I just wound myself up a little . :shock:

northy
19-03-2005, 20:08
nice post.....so will there be any deals on brakes from your good self mate ?

Mark_Ritchspeed
19-03-2005, 20:17
Yep , looking to finalise prices for about half a dozen kits (to start with) over the next week or two .

At the moment the Clio kit is looking at about £400 delivered , which includes , calipers , choice of pads , braided hoses , brackets and fluid. We "may" be able to get this price down slightly further , but it is already undercutting an all in price from Rally Design . As their kit price of £325 does not include , pads , fluid , hoses , delivery or vat .

By the time thats all factored in you are looking at nearer £500.

northy
19-03-2005, 20:19
nice...hopefully my yozzasport kit will do the business for me.

Im sure a few on here will be needing them. The williams brakes arent the best are they !

KingStromba
19-03-2005, 20:33
Mark, sound like you know your stuff. Brakes are on my to do list. Im completely standard at the moment, and i do think i could do with a fast road set up. I dont take my car on track, but may do in the future.

I have braided line to fit and as i say apart from that i am standard. What are your recommendations? Even if i dont upgrade i will need new discs and / or pads soon anyway so might be a good time to uprage a bit.

Could you give me some prices when you have them and what i am looking at. Pm me if you dont want to put them up here.

Am am pretty untechnical so simple technical explantations with reasons would be much appreciated.

Mark_Ritchspeed
19-03-2005, 20:52
The first thing to ask , is do you overheat the brakes on the road ? If you dont and the car doesnt go on the track then stick with a fairly standard set-up.

Never , ever bother with drilled discs . They are weaker and crack or warp in no time . The only drilled discs that work , aren't actually drilled at all . They are cast that way with the holes already in the discs . Porsche discs are a good example of this and they seem to get reasonable wear rates out of them.

Grooved are another iffy one . Multi-groove discs are all about the show and should be avoided . The maximum you should need is either 4 or 6 grooves , but the biggest problem with these is the grooves fill up in no time and then the discs start to vibrate and become noisy. They are also weaker than plain vented discs . This isnt a problem for WRC cars as they have new discs every service between stages.

Personally , wherever possible I stick with plain vented discs which are the strongest ones available . In other words standard discs.

Pad choice is a personal preference , but in my experience the uprated Tarox rally pads were about the best ones using standard calipers . Mintex M1144/55's are also very good but pretty expensive . I must admit its been a while since I used standard calipers , but I seem to remember the Ferodo (ds2500 , 3000) were pretty good.

I havent tried EBC in recent years , but I refuse to trust a manufacturer who can release such substandard products in the first place . I remember using their Greens and Reds in the early days and they were just plain dangerous. By all accounts they are supposed to quite good now , but I wont be trying them to find out.

Edited to say , their may be other better alternatives available now but I havent used standard calipers for @ 4 years.

KingStromba
19-03-2005, 21:00
If the calipers are the week point, could you just get an uprated caliper, braided lines, fast road pads and standard disc?

What would that be like?

Craig
19-03-2005, 21:11
on my old blue 16v i just had grooved/drilled disks, mintex pads, and braided lines and it was bang on! more than enough for the roads!

had wilwood 4pots on the banana, they were great, but didnt really get the use they could handle!

Mark_Ritchspeed
19-03-2005, 21:16
That is pretty much the set-up I have on mine .

This is the package we will be marketing , albeit with better calipers than mine is running on.

Will have to re-check my prices as I have a "feeling" that the kit for £400 includes new standard size discs .

northy
20-03-2005, 00:10
Never , ever bother with drilled discs . They are weaker and crack or warp in no time . The only drilled discs that work , aren't actually drilled at all . They are cast that way with the holes already in the discs . Porsche discs are a good example of this and they seem to get reasonable wear rates out of them.

Oh dear.

Just bought some Tarox sport japan disks for mine. Ill see how i get on with them :lol:

2 live
20-03-2005, 01:19
thort ud have heeded my warnings on the grooved variety my friend.....

richy
20-03-2005, 01:23
yup cant beat plain vented discs! and ur right about the calipers my o/s one is goosed lol

2 live
20-03-2005, 01:27
altho having said that...mine are grooved on the rear.....but they were free and unused..........hehe

richy
20-03-2005, 01:28
lol

edde
20-03-2005, 01:58
I think the calipers on the Mk2 2 are different for the bigger disk is there a posibilty to use them as cheap uprated calipers along with the 259mm disks the mk2 2's use?
I don't mean to be rude but I'm cheap if I can somehting which is 70% as good for 1/4 the price. £400 is very good value but its still £400.

How much are new disks for the £400 setup? Just thinking if I go though a set every few track days then it might work out a bit pricy.

Craig
20-03-2005, 09:36
i paid £380 for mine with disks, pads, calipers, braided lines, fluid, brackets etc, but they were end of line calipers at the time so cheaper. £400 is a good price all in!

MatBrown
20-03-2005, 11:25
Hi Mark,

Like King Stromba, i am also interested in an upgrade kit, if you could supply me with a breakdown of prices once you have them sorted that would be great.



Mat.

2 live
20-03-2005, 11:34
id be intrested in teh pads, calipers and brackets only.no lines fluid etc

dezmondo
20-03-2005, 14:56
Am very very interested in this, keep us informed of the price and availability.

Mark_Ritchspeed
20-03-2005, 15:23
I think the calipers on the Mk2 2 are different for the bigger disk is there a posibilty to use them as cheap uprated calipers along with the 259mm disks the mk2 2's use?
I don't mean to be rude but I'm cheap if I can somehting which is 70% as good for 1/4 the price. £400 is very good value but its still £400.

How much are new disks for the £400 setup? Just thinking if I go though a set every few track days then it might work out a bit pricy.


Its not being rude at all but there is no way you will get something to perform 70% as well for 1/4 the price.

(Also the actual size of the standard discs is supposed to be 258mm IIRC not 256 like I previously said :oops: )

The beauty of using this set-up , is it all fits beneath the standard 15" rims and all replacement parts are as cheap or cheaper than equivalent uprated pads etc for standard calipers. The actual discs are completely standard original fit items. IMO there is simply no need for a disc any bigger than the standard disc as its the calipers that are the problem.

The other thing is that the discs do last quite a few track days as the calipers are so efficient at displacing heat . As long as you still take care to do a proper cooling down lap for the whole car , something I have always done .

My current discs have done 2 rallies and 2 track days and still almost look like new.

The downsides to the kit is it doesnt look as good as big discs do under 17" rims , but then why pay extra for something that will perform no better than this set-up . The only improvements I make to any car are always to make the car perform better in one way or another . Cosmetics dont concern me.

I will gaurantee you that if you do a few track days , you will wonder how you ever coped with a standard set-up.

Its a shame the price of aluminium went up this year so much or else we could do the kits another £20-30 cheaper.

dezmondo
20-03-2005, 15:30
Although cosmetics don't concern you, what colour are the calipers?

Sad I know, and won't influence my decision (perhaps dayglo orange ones would - I would get a pair for the rear too) but it would be nice to know!

I think Silver

..........or Gold (maybe look a bit Chav like though?)

Mark_Ritchspeed
20-03-2005, 15:37
Black . To be honest if you do track days no matter what colour the calipers are , the amount of heat in the brakes will quickly deteriorate any caliper finish used . Also the less paint on them the better the cooling.

dannyt
20-03-2005, 21:39
i'd be interested also mark, this sounds like a good kit, i take it you can't run it with the abs unit?

some good advice there mark, cheers.

can we get a group buy organised then?

MatBrown
20-03-2005, 22:01
Can't see any reason why the ABS would be a problem, that is controlled seperately and nothing to do with the caliper.



Mat.

Mark_Ritchspeed
21-03-2005, 12:21
Works fine with abs . My ABS is removed nowadays but that is just a personal preference as I hate ALL driver aids .

I have also done a big brake kit for a heavily modded Evo 2 which is still using ABS with no probs . Having said that IMO the ABS system on the Evo is less intrusive than the Clio.

summeh
21-03-2005, 12:36
One of the reasons the willy 1 is superior to the 2/3, cuz it doesnt come with ABS :P

MatBrown
21-03-2005, 13:05
2 doesn't come with ABS, but has all qualities of phase 2.



Mat.

summeh
21-03-2005, 13:23
2 doesn't come with ABS, but has all qualities of phase 2.



Mat.

Like side impact bars? Just added wieght to be honest...

:)