Preseason updates? Show us what you're doing!

[Caithness]

They can chew up rotors all they want at 40 bucks a set, but how do they stop while cold? If they have acceptable cold stopping power I might get a set of R4-Es.

How quickly do they warm up? If I were autocrossing the car, would I have trouble warming them up for each run?

 

[Evan K.]

R4-E's for the race track

R4-S's for the autocross and street

 

[Ludachris]

I've only ever used street pads (until this coming year) but from what I've learned from autocrossers, race pads don't tend to heat up fast enough when autocrossing. You're probably better off using very high performance street pads that perform well cold and hot - at least if you want to be competitive.

 

[lethal_vr4]

A spacer is milled with brake fluid passeages to fit between the caliper halves. I'll see if I can get a pic for you of my Supercar Engineering modified Brembo's

Pics of the spacer.

You must be logged in to view this image or video.

You must be logged in to view this image or video.

You must be logged in to view this image or video.

 

[Ludachris]

Updates of what I'm doing:
http://www.dsmtuners.com/forums/showthread.php?t=253515

 

[stealthTT]

Pics of the spacer.

Will you take it apart and show us the guts? I want to see how much cutting has to be done to this spacer. Does fluid flow from one half to the other? I see a crossover line for the brake fluid and two bleeder screws. I'm curious why the average joe couldn't do this.

 

[lethal_vr4]

Will you take it apart and show us the guts? .

Too much work, sorry.

I want to see how much cutting has to be done to this spacer. Does fluid flow from one half to the other? I see a crossover line for the brake fluid and two bleeder screws.

Fluid does flow from one caliper half to the other and through the spacer. If you take apart the caliper you will see the fluid passeges, which could be used to make a template of any spacer for any given caliper.

 

[Caithness]

I'm not going to be able to afford any road racing for a while to come, so if the R4-E compound doesn't work well in auto-x or on the street then the R4-S it is for me. Unfortunately it will have to wait a bit because my total brake upgrade/maintenance parts list is over 550 dollars and I just bit the bullet to buy a set of Hankook Ventus RS2 tires in 225/50/16 for my 16x8 RX-7 wheels, and a set of Ingall's FastCam front camber bolts to dial out around 1.5 to 2.0 degrees front negative camber. I hope to have it all mounted and a good street/mild auto-x alignment done before next Thursday, where I'll put it all to good use running down the drag strip . Seriously though, I'm signing up for a beginner's Auto-x instruction day run by the local autocross club, 24 entry limit, double the usual seat time and plenty of instruction all for 60 bucks. Now that my tires will no longer be bald and will pass tech, I just need to find a way to patch my brakes up to "adequate" level so they won't fade during the runs, without spending 550 dollars.

 

[eclipsh]

Brake fade during Auto X? Your area must have some very large, high speed setups. Even at the largest venue in New Mexico we never leave 2nd gear or come close to overheating brake pads (and my pads suck).

 

[Ludachris]

Hey Jordan, you really shouldn't be getting brake fade in an autocross run. The run is too short and you shouldn't be on the brakes a lot anyways. Make sure you bleed them before each event to get the air out of the lines and use good fluid. Once you change pads you should be good.

Factory calipers and rotors with good pads, SS lines and good fluid should prove to be adequate for autox events (good tires make all the difference). If you're having braking issues it might be something not working right.

 

[Caithness]

I feel like I might be able to make it through an autocross with these brakes, but I'm not sure I want to take the chance. If it was a good-condition stock braking system I wouldn't worry but the rotors have excessive runout and shake the whole car while braking. The front pads were old and probably cheap parts-store pads when I got the car 4 years ago and they've gotten much worse. The rear calipers don't work properly and make odd noises when you apply the brakes. The master cylinder leaks brake fluid, but it is a slow leak and before the pressurized part, so no air gets into the system- I just have to refill the reservoir every week or two. I still worry it could fail at an event. I have experienced brake fade while driving local twisty roads that even my old Honda Accord with stock brakes had no problem with.

I think I'm going to focus on the front brakes and the master cylinder and worry about the rear brakes later. I need new rotors and pads, so I'm going to go ahead and upgrade to dual-piston calipers and be set for the long haul, as the cost on the rotors and pads is about the same for single piston and dual piston calipers. I'm going to get reman dual piston calipers from Discount or NAPA or Autozone, whichever is cheapest. I'll also get new rotors from one of the three, and order some Porterfield R4-S pads. I'm going to try to figure out where the leak is, and hopefully it's just a new seal and not an entirely new master cylinder that's needed, because I think they cost over 150 dollars. Finally, I'll try pulling the rear calipers, cleaning them, and greasing the slides, but I've done that before and it didn't fix the problem.

Believe me, I'd rather not be doing these upgrades right now because of the monetary factor, but I didn't feel safe taking the car to this event on bald tires and bad brakes. Not to mention the possibility they might fail me at tech.

 

[jtmcinder]

I wouldn't over-focus on the fronts, especially if the car is lowered. The bias is much too far forward for autocrossing and lowering the car just makes it worse. At a minimum, try some much grippier rear pads than those in the front.

Just a thought.

- Jtoby

 

[Slow old poop]

I The front pads were old and probably cheap parts-store pads when I got the car 4 years ago and they've gotten much worse. The rear calipers don't work properly and make odd noises when you apply the brakes. .

Four+ years on one set of street pads? I think I'd go buy a set of $20 rotors at AutoZone and another set of those pads, whatever they are. I bet the rear pads are the original pads from a billion years ago.

The reason you are getting brake fade is probably because the pads are paper thin. The thinner they are, the faster they fade. Put a set of stock pads back in, and the fade probably will go away.

That noise you hear from the rear may be metal to metal. Even rear pads don't last a billion years.

Sounds to me like the brakes haven't been serviced in YEARS and all you need is some standard brake maintenance.


Rich

 

[boosted_91_tsi]

While you are in there doing pads and rotors, clean and grease the guide pins in the calipers and flush out ALL of that old brake fluid too. You could also throw on a set of speed bleeders to make things really easy.

 

[Caithness]

I appreciate all of the advice. The mod bug so common to DSMers is still hitting me hard to upgrade at the same time as maintenance, but the fiscal responsibility bug is fighting hard too. I'm going to do my best to think about this objectively and weigh all of the advice I've been given.

To address some of the points made-
eclipsh- We actually do have some high speed setups as most of our sites are long runways. There was even a point when speeds were getting too high with hard braking sections at the end at one club's event, with 70+ mph speeds attainable. But that is irrelevant for the moment as this school is held on a smallish, square police training site.

Ludachris- I agree that autocross will not put a lot of strain on the brakes on the average course. I also agree that stock-sized brakes with good pads are all I really need for autocross. If there's one thing Physics 1 taught me it's that the coefficient of friction of the brake pads is key and the area is relatively unimportant, so in the 45 to 60 second runs in autocross the heat dissipation advantage larger rotors have is not as important. The dual piston calipers do provide the advantage of more even force on the pads and more even pad wear. Good tires are very important, which is why I made new tires my first priority.

jtmcinder- The car has H&R lowering springs but it also has several hundred pounds of weight reduction. It's not much lower than stock. Right now the rear pads are probably grippier than the fronts, since I replaced them last year and the fronts are very old.

slowoldpoop- I replaced the rear pads last year. There's still something wrong with the calipers, which I tried to fix with a basic clean/grease but that didn't fix the problem. The fronts were down to a little more than 1/8th" the last time I looked, so they're too thin, but I've been putting it off until I could afford the swap to dual piston brakes. That 4 year figure only covers about 10000 miles of driving, BTW.

I haven't completely neglected the brakes since I've owned the car, I just haven't made them a big spending priority. I've cleaned and greased all of the slide pins, I've bled the brakes with good fluid several times over the years (currently on Valvoline Syn-Power 500* dry boiling point fluid- recommended by a local autocrosser when I was asking where to find ATE Super Blue). I replaced the rear pads with parts store pads because they were past their service limit. I've just been waiting on the fronts because they were still marginally thick enough and I wanted to redo the braking system all at once with better parts.

It looks like the absolute cheapest repair I could do is 42 dollars for "ImportQuiet" pads from Discount, 25 dollars to cut the front rotors, 20-30 dollars on junkyard rear calipers hoping and praying they are in better shape than mine, 25 dollars to cut the rear rotors, and possibly 29 dollars for new rear pads if mine have been destroyed by the old rotors/calipers. 150 bucks and in theory I'll have a functioning, slightly worse than stock (parts store pads suck in my experience) braking system. If this will be good enough to autocross with, I suppose it makes the most sense to do this now and go for the 500 dollar upgrade when I can actually afford it. I'm still going to have to give this some serious thought since if I go that way all of the money I spend now will be flushed down the drain when I upgrade in a few months. I hate buying parts twice because I cheaped out the first time.

 

[eclipsh]

FYI, I did my 2-pot front upgrade cheap through the junkyard. You just have to be picky about what you grab. I got the calipers, brackets and rotors for $100. I got the rotors turned, greased up the slides and added new brake pads all around. I used a brass-wire drill brush to clean all the rust off and gave them a coat of high-temp mat-black spray paint. The whole thing cost less than $200. If you do this just make sure the seals are in good shape (or buy a rebuild kit) and you'll be fine.

 

[WHite97RS]

Hopefully...

Picking up some EVO VIII wheels
SS Brake Lines
General brake maintenance (check pads and rotors)
Maybe sway bars
Alignment

First AutoX is 3/11 cant wait.

 

[Ludachris]

Damn Jordan, and I just sold my old 2-piston calipers for $65.

 

[underradar92]

Jordan, do whatever you can to get the 2 piston caliper swap on there. If you ever want to try a track day with the 1 pot brakes you will hate yourself.

Been there.

 

[Quasimondo]

Had the put the Galant back under the knife. Coming home from a super bowl party, I noticed that my oil pressure was abnormally low and got lower the closer I got home. I'm sure there's some bearing damage, hopefully it's not anything else. When the weather warms up, I'll be tearing out the bottom end to replace the bearings, hopefully I didn't screw up anything more than that. While I"m at it, I'll throw in some tick-free lifters, and little things.

Suspension was changed out, gone are the AGX/pro-kit/evo8 frankencombo suspension. In their place is a set of Eibach struts and H&R springs. It's not as low as before, but that's okay.

Once I get the engine fixed and some new tires to replace the snow set, I'll be ready to rock and roll for this autox season.

 

[Caithness]

I got the tires mounted and balanced today. A friend of mine works at a dealership and it only cost me 10 bucks to have his connection in the service department do it. On the downside there were a variety of problems in getting them on there and the very outside of the rims got a few deep scratches, but only where you can't see it unless you're looking for it. The rims were pretty beat up to start with so it doesn't bother me enough to overcome the money I saved.

The tires are pretty meaty. I'd heard they run wide for a 225, and that was exactly right. I didn't measure widths or anything, but I had no sidewall bulge on the Ziex 502s and the RS-2s have a noticeable bulge. I'd say they're more like a 235 from some other companies, or a 230 if such a thing existed. They look pretty mean mounted on the car, though I'm eagerly anticipating my Ingalls camber bolts so I can tuck the 1/2" of tire that's sticking out of my front fenders with some negative camber.

I mounted them on the car and tried something new. I'd had some pretty thick spacers on the back (1/4" for RX-7 rims) and neither rim was on the hub. I had two 1/8" spacers so I mounted the rims with those instead. There was a good .2" on one side and the other was almost touching, but with more grinding of the control arms tomorrow both sides will have a good 1/4" clearance with 1/8" spacers and both wheels will be back on the hub where they belong.

As for the brakes, I've decided just to get some cheap pads and cut the front rotors to hold me over for a few months until I can do the whole braking system over. I think the master is leaking at the o-rings around those plastic pieces on the top, so I'm going to look into getting new o-rings.

 

[jtmcinder]

I'm going to try some 825# front springs and possible swap some camber for caster. The rears will stay at 425#, but I might add some camber. Alternatively, I might get a huge rear wing. The idea is to reduce the progression towards looseness as speeds increase.

I might also try to find the money for a FMIC so I can up the boost, but power isn't really the problem on 245 hand-me-down tires, so probably not.

- Jtoby

 

[Greg Collier]

I'm going to try some 825# front springs and possible swap some camber for caster. The rears will stay at 425#, but I might add some camber. Alternatively, I might get a huge rear wing. The idea is to reduce the progression towards looseness as speeds increase.

I might also try to find the money for a FMIC so I can up the boost, but power isn't really the problem on 245 hand-me-down tires, so probably not.

- Jtoby

Man... do I have the W I N G for you!

 

[jtmcinder]

I can imagine, given the purple widebody. But, please, go ahead and post a pic.

- Jtoby

 

[Greg Collier]

I can imagine, given the purple widebody. But, please, go ahead and post a pic.

- Jtoby

http://www.dsmtuners.com/classifieds/showproduct.php?product=57429&cat=7

It's the one I put in the classified. There's a picture of it on my car in my gallery when I first started racing the Laser.

And I had nothing to do with the Blue 2g wing... Hell I tried to give you that car if you remember...