Fitting 240 calipers

Post by **IvanAE86** » 21 Apr 2006 08:12 am

Wow...must be very hard on the brakes then. I find myself having more problems with the amount of grip the tyres can provide for braking than the actual brakes themselves. But the track I usually drive (zandvoort) is not that hard on the brakes, just 2 places that require all out braking, and the brakes wont overheat if you apply them firmly (instead of using them progressively like you would on the streets).

Post by **Bilbo** » 21 Apr 2006 05:13 pm

we use mintex on the road rally car with whatever fluid is in and have no problems at all, we've had the discs glowing nicely red without any fade or loss of pedal. we've done 2 events and a few 12 cars on them and some miles to and from work and they are still fine. the thing is when you first drive car from cold they are rubbish,so you have to be carefull till they get some heat in them.
rallydesign were selling new wilwood dynalites last year for £180 a pair plus £20 for universal brackets-i so wish i'd bought some because they sell for more that second hand a year on

Post by **Carl** » 21 Apr 2006 05:25 pm

It was the rear brakes the caused the most problems for me - overheated and locked up about half way through. Probably a combination of old shoes and excessive use of the change direction lever TBH!

This whole brake upgrade is a bit of a nightmare. So for now I'm tempted just to renew everything (cylinders, shoes, drums, pads, discs and fluids) and see how it goes. The more open mk2 alloys I have should help and the foglights have been taken out to let a bit more air through too.

Post by **Bilbo** » 21 Apr 2006 06:28 pm

yeah it is a bit of a mare to find something to bolt straight on. i've bit the bullet and[hopefully] will have some drilled and grooved 240x19mm discs to mess around with. just need some hubs now before i have a trial fitting with 240 calipers......

i dont know if you can still do this,but you used to be able to send a stnd set of shoes to mintex and they would fit competition linings !! may be worth an e-mail to see if they still do this kind of service.....

Post by **IvanAE86** » 22 Apr 2006 05:25 pm

I actually think the mintex pads do a great job when they're cold. Last wednesday on the track, I was actually driving the car with virtually no rear brakes at all.. apart from some obvious decreased stability the car stopped very well with just the mintex pads and badly worn linings in the back.

Back when I was still using ordinary pads for trackuse I had some ducting installed from the holes in the foglights (I took out the glass) to the discs. That did a decent job at keeping temperatures in check too. Drove without the brakeducts this last trackday and had no problems with temps using the mintex pads.

I'm sure the brakes will cause problems once you really start giving them a hard time (very frequent hard braking), but for anything less I think the stock system can be made to work sufficiently.

Post by **Carl** » 23 Apr 2006 10:35 pm

The problem with road rallies is that there's plenty of stopping or slowing right down which really punishes the brakes. I think I'm quite hard on them anyway which clearly doesnt help.

I've got a few things to try on the hubs to see if I can get something to work, but if they dont work I'll just put the brake upgrade on the back burner for the time being.

First things first though - need an MoT!!!!!!!!!

Post by **sven360** » 24 Apr 2006 08:03 pm

Carl wrote:The problem with road rallies is that there's plenty of stopping or slowing right down which really punishes the brakes.

If your owt like us - very much hazard avoidance and lastminute dot com

Post by **Carl** » 24 Apr 2006 09:56 pm

sven360 wrote:
Carl wrote:The problem with road rallies is that there's plenty of stopping or slowing right down which really punishes the brakes.

If your owt like us - very much hazard avoidance and lastminute dot com

Yep, which is probably why the back brakes were in a worse state than the fronts on my black GLT after its last event

Post by **85GLT** » 04 May 2006 07:04 pm

The thing you are not seeing is that yes the holes line up perfectly but neither part has threds in it. I found this when I looked at it a few years ago. The solution I came up with is to helicoil the hub.
I concluded it is easy to fit the caliper but the hard thing is finding a disc that will fit. If anyone is will to do the reserch to find a sutabile bolt on disc. then this would be a great mod for these cars.

Post by **foggyjames** » 05 May 2006 01:47 am

In for the updates

cheers

James

Post by **IvanAE86** » 06 May 2006 10:17 am

So the 240 calipers will bolt straight on with a little work? would it be possible to just run a tap through both ends (maybe drill one side a bit bigger to do this) instead of helicoiling? I dont know of any places that do that over here.
Maybe if you could provide us with some pics/measurements, you never know what we can come up with.
I dont really need bigger brakes just yet, but once I get around putting that B21ET engine in I'm pretty sure I will be craving some..

Post by **IvanAE86** » 08 May 2006 01:25 pm

Reconditioned 240 calipers seem to be going for about 88 euro's over here (reconditioned).. This bigbrake conversion is getting pretty interesting at those prices. Would it be possible to make some side by side pics of the strut with the girling caliper on vs the stock caliper?
Just to get an idea of what needs to be done to the hub/disc.