Ian's S4s refurb

[Chillidoggy]

18 minutes ago, Barrykearley said:

Yeah thanks for that - indeed the customer service is shit. Last Wednesday they were in machining and due out Friday. Friday they weren't sure and thought it might be Monday - today they advised another couple of days - apeshit just about covers my response to that !! Should now be despatched tomorrow - and no doubt it will be via a single winged bloody pigeon.

 

 

Well, you can't say I didn't warn you about it. I'm sure it'll be fine, but honestly, their front desk is populated by burger-flippers.

[Chillidoggy]

Waiting for air-con man to turn up and tell me if it's alive or not. I'm pacing up and down like an expectant father.

[Chillidoggy]

Wahay!! I have no leaks, and air-con that works!

Now it's on to the brakes.

[Chillidoggy]

Oooooh, matron!

[Yellow Peril]

Looks like I need to have a chat with Peter (PNM) and spend some more dosh when I do the next round of updates/upgrades

Very nice!

Edited April 26, 2016 by Bibs

[Loose Cannon]

That looks so much better than the weedy Brembo setup.

[Sparky]

Yellow pads, mmmmm.

[Chillidoggy]

23 minutes ago, Sparky said:

Yellow pads, mmmmm.

 

I was forced to paint them in a bid to avoid being banished to the hinterlands for all of eternity.

[Sparky]

Must be some of dat dere high-friction paint.

[Jacques]

Sorry for asking, but isn't there something better in brake pads to these calipers, than ebc? I am thinking in the line of Ferrodo DS2500 and others for spirited street driving and a bit track day once in a while. But as I said, for spirited street driving. So, no pads that is supposed to warm up first to temp, before braking.

Kind regards,

Jacques.

[Chillidoggy]

2 hours ago, Jacques said:

Sorry for asking, but isn't there something better in brake pads to these calipers, than ebc? I am thinking in the line of Ferrodo DS2500 and others for spirited street driving and a bit track day once in a while. But as I said, for spirited street driving. So, no pads that is supposed to warm up first to temp, before braking.

Kind regards,

Jacques.

 

Jacques, I have a question: Have you fitted the same brake kit to your car, used the same pads, and found they are not to your liking?

[Jacques]

No no, not at all. I am sure it will brake well. I just spent a fortune buying original Sport350 front calipers, and a strange lotus and ap branded rear 4 piston set as well. On top of that comes 4 brake discs, hoses, pads, brackets, bolts etc. I am into this, because while I have been renovating my brakes all around, and they Work fine, they are simply not up to the parformance of the Esprit. THey brake like crap and are outright really dangerous! A real joke, and brakes are not something to be taken lightly, in my Humble view. Hence the project.

The reason for my question is, that I have used a variety of ebc pads on my former Golf II (heavily modified) and Corrado G60 (later, faster version), and I was not very satisfied at all with the ebc green and yellow stuff. Now, I run Ferrodo ds2500 and they bite constantly and hard, also on fast driving with often and heavy braking on the Corrado. I would want something similar for the Esprit. I would not want the ebc on my Esprit. The only thing they did really well, was a lot less brake dust. Some would say I just cruise around, and won't ever need serious brakes, but I see it differently.

What are you using for the rear? Brembo standard as per late S4 and v8? Or the matching calipers from pnm, or Elise Mk1 calipers?

I think they are working on a different solution for the rear, as the parking pistons should be rather vague; something like maybe Electric parking brake.

I think mine are very close to the pnm rear ones, just blue and had some Lotus/SP Racing branding on them. I have been told, that it was Lotus themselves WHO did this in the very late 4 cylinder days in their motorsport department/Development department, and they Would have used these on the further developed 4 cylinder cars, had the V8 not taken over. You can take a look at my thread Little Red Riding Hood eventually.

Anyway, I am going to install these sets, and brake the crap out of them  I have another set of the Black AP Lotus branded front calipers for future use, just in case, as they seem to be hard to come by these days. This type of calipers are now out of AP's programme, and they have another stiffer ones on the shelf now, but of course not labeled Lotus/AP Racing, which I need for legal purposes.

Cheers,

Jacques.

Edit: I may need to buy the ebc myself for starters, but as soon as I find other better pads, I will swap them in a giffy. No doubt.

[Chillidoggy]

Different brake pads suit different drivers, with different driving styles and different cars. If I buy a set of brake pads I don't like, I can easily change them. It's not like I've  bought a house, or anything.

Hi-Spec is developing a new 4-piston caliper for the rear, incorporating an electric parking brake rather than a separate unit as originally intended. It will be available from PNM at some point in the future, yet to be announced. I will continue to use the Brembo rear brakes until it becomes available.

[swindon_alan]

This incessant, unrelenting debate about brake pads drives me nuts. A while back when I got mine back from the repairers I decided to circumnavigate the whole thing and got the angle grinder on the floor pan. Unfortunately it has had unexpected consequences which I wasn't expecting.

I went to the doctors this afternoon.

[Barrykearley]

@swindon_alan I bought some pad749 apex for the rear - and kept the nearly new yellow stuffs in the front - will let you know if I can't stop and I need to borrow that angle grinder

[swindon_alan]

I have seen your feet Barry and I think that compared to the original Brembos and the Kelsey-Hayes ABS combination which was capable of pulling 1G I think that your back legs should manage about 5G. Consider a swap out buddy...

[Jacques]

Actually, I meant it seriously. I had smoke coming out of the front Wheel wells, and another couple of times, a relative long time from pushing the pedal, to actually breaking. Not what I want, but each to his own of course.

Jacques.

[Bibs]

Even the most extreme braking applications don't smoke Jacques,  I'd suggest there's something else need looking at there... 

[Jacques]

Yeah, too small brake discs, which overheated and fried the pads. That was another problem. The pads themselves were troublesome at both cars. The DS2500 Works as intended.

Jacques.

[Chillidoggy]

Jacques, you're in danger of becoming a keyboard warrior. Facts, boy, facts! When you come back and say you've got empirical evidence in the same model of car with the same set-up, then fine, then you'll be worth listening to. Until then you sound like you're saying that rump steak is terrible just because you don't eat it!

I anticipate that my car should be running next week, and I shall of course be posting on how I feel it's performing with all the new bits.

[Vanya]

9 hours ago, Bibs said:

Even the most extreme braking applications don't smoke Jacques,  I'd suggest there's something else need looking at there... 

Hot damn! How hard do you drive your car Jacques? 

I've only ever managed to set brakes on fire once, on a Scania truck on the test track - got annoyed at the long stretches between pass-by noise runs and drove the crap out of it at the end points. Whole tractor unit was engulfed in smoke for a good while when I stopped...

Haven' repeated the phenomenon on the Esprit though... 

Sometimes the SE brakes do feel Fred Flintstone though....albeit I think that's my ABS system. The regular vacuum servo'd SE feels great!

[Barrykearley]

@ian29gte - don't care what they compare like - that new front set up looks bloody amazing !! They will be good - the end

[Chillidoggy]

1 hour ago, Barrykearley said:

@ian29gte - don't care what they compare like - that new front set up looks bloody amazing !! They will be good - the end

 

And more's the point, you won't be able to see any of that God-awful yellow colour once the wheels are on.

[Jacques]

Well, I suppose I had some spirited drives in my Golf II. After that, I installed larger two sizes bigger brakediscs, larger calipers and better pads, and didn't have the problem after. No more completely blue discs and no more smoke. Actually, the aluminium Wheels turned pretty hot. No, no problems, worked fine, serviced, correctly set up etc. And I will mention, that my car weighed 860 kilo. 239mm were too Little. 256mm were too Little. 280mm and better calipers and pads, and hoses did the job. Those were the front ones. The rears went from small to bigger as well, but never showed same amount of problems. I adjusted a bit on the valving too, and got shorter stopping distances, before locking up. I hate abs. I installed big strut stiffeners both front and rear, plus underneath between arms, and bigger arb's as well as fully adjustable coil overs, and installed full set of powerflex bushings, and weighted the corners, and welded the body several Places to get less Flex and fully welded arms to be stiffer, I modified the steering to be faster and more direct, I uprated ball joints, drive axles etc. to hold the bigger load, and to get best balance and stopping power. I experimenteed with home oil and grease mixtures in the Wheel bearings to roll better. Engine wise I made up a head with non-hydraulic cam followers, so that means shims, I used lighter shims and followers, ported the head, installed bigger valves, big thermoregulated oil cooler, bigger oil capasity and cooling sump with anti-splash plates, I had the old block (stronger) boiled and ball blasted to make it stronger, better cross pins, I experimented with colder plugs and the exact rotation on each sparkplug to get best flame and better ignition, I did bigger carbs, Cold air intake, enlarged the cylinders both in stroke and bore, installed forged crankshaft, conrods and pistons also with higher compression ratio, stronger bearings, crosspins, bolts etc. I uprated oil and Water pumps, and polished pistons, conrods and crankshaft by hand to fully mirrorfinish, and borrowed a Laboratory for a Whole weekend when I balanced the engine internals to 1/5000 of a gram. I made my own short shift and weighted shift, and experimented with both engine and  the gearbox oils to show less loss. I made up tubular manifold, and a full system backwards with one silencer only, and many other Things, such as forexample better supporting seats, blacked out everything inside to get better road focus and installed aan underpan under the engine compartment to get better airflow and deeper spoilers etc. and then some. The engine sounded completely happy at 8500 rpm. I followed a 91 carrera 4s up and Down the pass between Austria  and Italy. It went well. I began to build a perfected 16KR engine with 2L fast reving stroke, and install a tuned G-lader on it, but eventually sold the car, bought the Corrado and the Esprit, as they offer even more, also on other areas. I remember the first time my Porsche 996 friend drove with me in my Golf II, and he actually got scared over the performance and drivability. Was a good car. shouldn't have sold it for Pennies. Spent well over 175000 dkr - 17500 Pounds in parts alone and took me 1200 Building hours and two years constant working to make. I partivipated in an amateur minirallye drive (not rally but I don't know what it's called) - some sort of testdrive. 14 starting and finished 5'th. My first time ever. Never been on a track before. The others wree mostly heavily tunes Pug 206's with factory kits, whit broke Down all the time. That was 17 years ago, and today I drive like an absolute chicken. Not fast at all. I value my life, my wife and my Esprit way too much to do that Again  (died as 21 year old and was brought back after 6 minutes).

On the Esprit I have not had that unfortunate brake overheating experience. But I had the other experience of not having enough bite and power to stop the car in the distance I want it to. I don't take brakes lightly.

It's not that I can transfer more brake power than the tires can sustain before they slip, but I need to press so hard, that I Loose feeling and modulation. I don't want brakes that bite extremely hard from the beginning, so that you Loose feeling and modulation. I want a mix of the best qualities. Big discs can take more heat and harder and more stops, before they reach their limit. Pads should offer bite from Cold (street driving) as well as continous stopping power through heat cycles. So, what I also want is initial bite in clamping force from the calipers. One piston on a small disc does not offer that. big vented discs, which is bolted to centers, preferably by bobins, stay true better, and bigger aluminium calipers cool better, while their multible pistons offer better clamping force. When going fast (well, more or less, at least fast under specific circumstances), I want good stopping power right from the beginning, so I don't Loose some meters, and end up going fast towards the end of the braking distance. On a track, it's a bit different - brakinglate, brake as Little as possible etc. Say what you want, and by all means do how you want, I have no problems with that, but I had those experiences, and ebc green stuff and yellow stuff did not solve that job. You Guys may experience differnetly. Actually, I may end up with the same yellow pads on mine, I am about to order some, but as I said, I want other pads if available. Anyway, since it's not installed yet, and the Esprits dynamics are very different from my other car(s), it's a bit early to tell. Sorry for hijacking the great thread.

So, I was actually just asking about pads intended to be installed. Each to his own.

And yes, it's possible to overheat small brakes. I rest my case

Kind regards,

Jacques.

[Chillidoggy]

Aaaaannnd breathe.