johnfelstead

Phil, you want to try sitting in a proper group A rally car in the forrests, now that is unbelievable braking.

DavidLewis

With all this positive talk on using slicks, I'm looking forward to a dry day on Sunday.

Even if it does mean Mike Rainbowman whops our ****'s

P.S. Someone remind me where all the new icons are? I'm bored with the originals

PhilBennett

Nice hard set of slicks are Michelin S9's. You might even get a set second hand from one of the European Clio V6 teams as that is what they use.

I don't know if anyone has any experience but Mintex 1166 or 1177 should be OK for track use.

The Leda are adjustable in bump and rebound in one? What spring rates? Only it would be interesting to see what you feel. My friend has standard springs/dampers.

John - is your Impreza a proper Group A car? Bring it on Sunday - they are doing loads of building work on the infield at Donington and we can practise our car control!

I was at the Autosport awards in London and speaking with Robert Reid he says that on ice with studs it is like braking on tarmac!!

Blow Dog

Cheers John.

Phil,
I use the 1166's, have done for the last track day at donnington and will do on Sunday. They are VERY good brakes if you are on a budget and cant afford a 1200 quid brembo set like me. I am a hard driver, especially on track days. The pads should last you about 20k miles but mine were replaced after 7k. I was coming in every 4-6 laps to cool the brakes off, its down to how hard you drive as I was braking very late.

Cem

Paul Wilson

WRC/Group A get better braking on ice with studs than on gravel! They also use 3 fully mapped diffs and lock them up to aid braking (back brakes also brake front wheels)
Some teams also use quick release couplings to change the calipers for different stages
Apparantly cars are totally undrivable when the diff control packs up.

PhilBennett

Err - this might sound like a bodge BUT it works.

When I was road rallying (those were the days!) we disconnected the windscreen washers and re-aimed the pipes to the brakes.

Cheap - but effective water cooled calipers! OK it is a manual system but it is a quick fix.

Pete Croney

John

Its great to know that we have contributors with some serious competition pedigrees.

With regard to how this thread started, I was talking to Jack McFarlane a while back and he told me a great story.

He is mates with the Knochill instructors and wants to do some serious, but low cost racing. They invited him up to trial an XR2 race car. These are available for approx £3k (two seasons old) and because the price makes it available to a lot of people, the series is very well subscribed.

Although the cars look like Bags O Sh1te and only have approx 120bhp, within an hour, Jack was lapping in the same times that he manages with his 22B, on a good day. Good suspension and brakes are definately what it is all about.

Just to prove the point, the Vectra Challenge cars (rep cars from Luton with big brakes, race suspension and only one seat)lap Dono National in approx 1'19". Their qualifying times are even better. On Sunday, we will not be within 6 seconds of these times, despite having much more power/torque and 4 wheel drive.

As for power, ever seen a TVR or 911 on the track? You can't touch them on a dual carriageway, but they eat our dust on the circuit.

Pete
REALLY looking forward to Sunday

johnfelstead

the rally car is a pucka Group A Cossie, with ALS,WI, mag 50mm suspension etc.

we led the BTRDA silver star championship for most of last year, finished 5th overall in the end after 2 DNF's.

The race esprit was suffering from boiling the fluid a couple of years ago when we went to perf friction 93 compound, i rigged up a quick fix where i ran some copper pipe around the caliper with some 1mm holes drilled in it and swaged over the end of the pipe. The other end i attached to some high temp silicone hose and fed water to each caliper pipeing by a screen wash pump. I rigged up a timer so that each time the brakes were hit it would scwert water at the caliper body for all the time the brakes were on plus 3 seconds after the brakes were released. Worked a treat. Fixed the problem perminantly by making some new pistons from stainless steel. we priced these pistons up for our car from AP ( we run F3000 brakes front/rear) and they wanted about £1200, so we took the alloy pistons out and had a local machine shop make us some exact replica's in stainless, cost us £100. AP are robbing Barstuards at times.

The rally car is in bits at the mo as we are reshelling it to fit the WRC rear suspension, its not a toy anyway so only used in anger. We are putting an active box in aswell if the funds allow after the reshell.

cheers
john

Stef

Pete.
I have to admit, that ride was the clincher for me regarding uprating my brakes (sorry it wasn't with you though!! )
Also, regarding Craner, when I have the ***** to look at my speedo I am normally travelling at between 110-115mph, but I don't often take it flat out due to lack of grip compared to you on slicks.
Would slicks really enable me to go much quicker through Craner?
If so, I guess that stiffer suspension and slicks are the next item.

Phil.
Could you mail me any suggestions for obtaining these, who, where, etc? Ta!

See you all there.

Stef.....even more excited!

Scott J Davies

Pete & Chaps

Reading this thread has just cost me a fortune and the wife a holiday.

Seems that suspension and brkaes are the way forward. Gutted that Sunday is full, ah well next time.

Have a good day ya jammy Ba$*%$rd

Anders

Once you have addressed stopping and handling via Scooby Sport.

TORQUE should be the obsession!

Then it is uncle Bob the sorcereer

johnfelstead

Then learning to drive properly

Scott J Davies

Then Track days?