I know people who have spent serious money upgrading brakes on hobby cars that they do hardly any miles in anyway. Four pot calipers, drilled and grooved discs, braided hoses, etc. I can't see why they should be any better in normal use and I'm not going to spend the money to find out. Tyres and the driver are probably the biggest influence on stopping distance given the same car, speed and conditions.
Upgraded brakes in normal road use can be a useful upgrade especially when the powertrain of the car has been upgraded.
Take my Caterham as an example.
From the early 60's Lotus and then Caterham used Triumph Spitfire calipers and discs on the front and drums from whichever axle they used at the time (Ford or BL). When I bought my first Caterham in 1989 it was built just like that. Compared to the Golf GTi I owned at the time the brakes felt OK, just on the road but on the track I felt they needed improvement. So I did what most racers were doing at the time and fitted a set of Ferodo DS racing pads on the front and some higher rated shoes into the Ital axle at the rear, it was a definite improvement for stopping power and feel.
When I built the 2nd Caterham it came with exactly the same front brakes but the rears were Sierra calipers using standard sierra pads onto the same Triumph Discs used at the front. I junked the standard front pads and fitted the same Ferodo material I had fitted to the first car but the wisdom from people familiar with this later set up was that the rear was over braked and needed a valve in the brake line to reduce pressure to the rear. Initially it felt fine on the road but on the track the rear was far to eager to lock up and I fitted a rear valve which improved matters. Ran it like this for about 18 years but over that time the brakes on my road cars had improved greatly, the power on the Caterham had increased form about 135 bhp to 175 bhp and the friction of aftermarket pads had reduced due to new legislation. I needed new pads but a Mintex was now the flavour of the month. Tried it and it was rubbish, could not get a firm pedal. Ferodo did a similar pad which gave a good pedal but nowhere near as much stopping power as the previous pads.
Eventually concluded I needed to act but the options for uprated caliper kits were confusing. The Caterham kit was very expensive plus the pads were also pricy. You also needed a new master cylinder. One company did a kit using Willwood calipers and large discs but there had no dust seals and were intended for track use and the pads were pricy. Another company did a kit which used off the shelf pads and discs but the calipers had no dust seals and they got pretty poor press for aftersales.
So I bought the kit that used the Willwood calipers. Arrived next day and returned immediately. The parts supplied to mount the calipers was total tat and the discs supplied were machined in a dangerous manner, got a refund with the help of Mastercard.
More thinking and I spoke to the company that supposedly did poor aftersales. They were extremely helpful and brought a kit to my attention that they did not actively market since it was more expensive (buy still way less than the Caterham kit), had dust seals and used off the shelf pads from a Volvo (EBC's £14 a set). They could make them with a piston size that would not need a new master cylinder which was another bonus. The large discs were a good price as well and would still fit under my 13" wheels because of the shallow design of the caliper, looked brilliant, so I ordered a set.
Took about 4 weeks since they were made to order and when they came they looked great. The brackets were sturdy and all the fasteners were top spec. Everything bolted on perfectly until I came to the brake pipes which were about an inch too short on full lock. Their poor aftersales was turned on and they initially refused to help but to get the car on the road I simply bought some different fittings for the ends of the braided hoses (perfect fit now) and argued my corner, they paid out my parts costs eventually.
How are they on the road, simply brilliant. The car stopped like a modern car with easy modulation of stopping power and no instant locking up. After a few weeks I removed the pressure reducing rear valve to see if it was still needed, it wasn't, the rears were still not locking first.
At MOT time I was getting a higher reading on the rollers for the fronts for the first time ever.
6 or so years later I still do not regret spending the £600 approx doing the job. Still using the supplied standard EBC Volvo pads on the front but I replaced the rear pads with EBC's to match. Only issue there was the fronts were new spec Ultimax 2 and the rears original spec Ultimax (guess there is not much of a market for Sierra rear pads now) and the rears do produce a bit more dust, will check to see if they do Ultimax 2 eventually.
Edited by skidpan on 27/12/2020 at 15:03
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