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Race Car Modifications

Here are some pictures of the front brakes. I'll include some pictures of the brackets and so on in the next couple of weeks. I'll also include some detailed pics of the rear brakes.

Disc and Caliper

These front brakes are a recent addition to the car. The previous front brake setup used early model 200B rotors (253mm) and Toyota Hilux 4 piston calipers. These calipers were a literal bolt on, when used with this early model strut.
The older setup suffered a great deal of heat stress, causing the discs to go a very dark blue - an indication of severe amounts of heat. To their credit, the brake pads (Howards Race Brakes Comp 2's) never faded or had any problems other than rapid wear.

The new setup consists of naturally aspirated 300ZX alloy 4 piston calipers. These calipers are substancially lighter than the Hilux caliper and take a slightly larger pad. The other obvious advantage is that they are designed for a vented disc.
The disc used is a vented Saab 9000 disc. It took a fair bit of measuring and research to come up with this disc, but no spacers are needed and the whole setup fits in a 14 inch wheel. The hole in the centre of the disc for the hub did require a small amount of machining, but nothing dramatic.
Brake pads used in this new setup are Pagid RS14's.

Front Caliper Bracket

Here is a picture of the front caliper bracket. We were initially going to make these, but a great deal of care needs to be taken in welding them onto the strut. The reason for this is that while the top half of the bracket welds onto the extruded strut tube, the bottom half needs to be welded to the forged stub axle. In welding to a forging, the metal must first be preheated, the welding then takes place and finally the assembly must be cooled in a lime bath. While this is something we could have done, it was decided that we would take it to Rod Kilby of Lockleigh Enterprises as he only charged $120 to make up both brackets.

Pagid's

As mentioned above, I'm using Pagid RS14 front pads. The specifications of the Pagid RS14 pads are as follows:

Friction Co-efficient:

  • Operating: 0.51 - 0.57
  • Cold: 0.46 - 0.48
  • Fading: 0.41 - 0.43

    Temperatures:

  • Constant: 400 degrees C - 800 degrees C
  • Short Period: 950 degrees C

    As can be seen from the above figures, the RS14 is an excellent pad from cold right through to racing temperatures.

    While the old pads were good, I decided to move to the Pagids for a number of reasons:

  • I found that in my car, the Howards pads didn't work well when cold. Other friends of mine haven't had this problem with their rally cars, so it would appear to have been perculiar to my setup;
  • The old pads had been quite abrasive on the disc. While I attribue the majority of this to the fact that the brakes were obviously running at ridiculous temperatures, I know the Pagids could cope better with this;
  • A good friend of mine has run these pads in his rally car with great success. The work very well from cold and are also capable of handling high temperates.

    Overall the Howard's pads were very good, but I feel the Pagids are worth the investment.

    The other option I could have gone for is to have run a Carbon Metallic pad such as Cool Carbon, but I have been told by a number of people that these types of pads tend to reduce pedal feel. The Pagids don't appear to have this effect.



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