Brake cooling question
 

Has anyone tried getting more air to the brakes of their new age STi? It seems pretty common that on hard use they get tooooooo hot. Big one piece disk and an inclosed space. Something Mitsi's suffer from also I believe.

I was thinking that with removal of the front fog light covers and fitment of some kind of ducting I could vent air direct to the brakes. Anyone tried this? Come to think of it I was offered something along these lines a year or so ago but they wanted about £400 for what seemed like a simple job.

Anyone tried it? Would need a hole in the internal rubber mud guard and some ducting / method of fitting it would seem?

Gary

31 views and no comments?

They only know how to make there brakes shiney mate ;)

Can you not remove your fog lamp covers and run some ducting to your discs?

Dave

Thats what I want to attempt. It means cutting a hole in the inner rubber guard but im prepared to do that. Just wanted to know if anyone has attempted anything similar in the past and whether it worked or not.

It has been tried in the past with some degree of success. You can also run ducting from just underneath the front lip spolier, and direct it at the brakes.

The biggest problem is that the end results weren't really worth the efforts. Yes there was an improvement, but not enough to make a night/day difference. People with the Subaru 4 pot cast iron calipers still ran into problems with everything getting too hot, and even a set of humble AP 4 pots with 306mm discs cured the problem completely, so the development on this front sort of died out.

How about trying the Godspeed replacement disc/bell arrangement? It's bound to be better than a single piece disc ....

I am arranging a group buy if you're interetsted ..... Here

:D:D

I dont want to throw money at the car if I can help it. In fairness I would rather sell it than spend something like £2K on a brake upgrade. They really are the weekest link on the car and its kind of annoying.

Gary

It's only £350 for the STi8 Disc / Bell set up! But I know what you mean :)

When I finally kill my disks I will have to get my hands on something better than the OEM parts, but I dont really want to do it till I have to. I think I will give the cooling thing a go first though, that appears to be the killer.

Gary

if you look lateral and down to the foglight cover you can see a small hole in the bumper, ithought of directing air from front to brakes with some demon tweeks piping with air directors on p294 red 2005 demon tweeks catalogue then i got grooved discs and could not be bothered
martin

Yeah Martin but do the grooved discs REALLY keep them cool. Im talking about not being able to make them judder after 10 hard laps of the ring for instance?

Gary

10 Laps of the Ring? I think you're perhaps being a little unrealistic to expect standard road brakes to take 130 miles of abuse on a track? :notworthy No wonder they're juddering - the STi is not a light car!
- You say you would rather sell the car than invest in some decent brakes, but other than the odd Porsche - I can think of many cars that are equipped with a standard braking system that will cope with that .... :cuckoo:

On my track spec Golf VR6 I ran some 315mm 4 Pot Alcons (to fit under the 16" wheels) with Mintex 1155 Pads and never got any brake fade on any UK race circuit - ever. :)

Gutmann Pug - I wonder if these would help? AP Racing say these discs can still utilise your existing callipers ..... Strap Drive system

http://www.apracing.com/pics/cp5175t41cg8_subaru.jpg

i will find out at the end of the week! but realistically for ring laps ap 6 pots or equivalent would be needed
martin

When I say 10 laps I dont mean in a row I mean 2 at a time at the most. Thats the equivilent to doing 17 minute track sessions. Braking at the ring is also an infrequent thing so they shouldnt be being worked that hard.
It just appears that after a morning's hard work, maybe 6 laps I can start to feel judder which gradually worstens and ends up with me at home having the disc's skimmed. If I can get some cool air in there maybe I can prolong the agony.
Its not so much elongating their life, more trying to get a weekend out of them without vibrating my hands off under hard braking.

As for standard cars doing it, it may be light but I can hammer my pugs std disc's with mild uprated pads (admitedly) all day long and they never fade or warp.

Technology has come along way since my pug and yet still we cant get brembo's which last more than a good hard 20 minute drive without almost failing ..... not good I dont think

Gary


Gary

I know my mates Mi16 205 has the brakes off a 206 GTi 180 and I can hardly even get them hot! :(

Same road (at admittedly higher speeds) in my Scoob and they're glowing!

It's all weight ....
His car = sub 900kg :notworthy
Mine = 1400kg :cry:

So they should produce brakes which are made for the job.... The brakes in my other halves 1.6 A3 are better than the scoobs for gods sake

My wife's Clio 172 Sport has mega brakes - in fact I think they hold the Autocar record from 70 to 0 ..... but the Accountants make sure that most car maufacturers cater for the majority - not the minority who actually use the car to it's fullest extent! :)

My 944 turbo weights pretty much the same, and I do not warp discs.

15 year old clutter too.

I know its a big issue on the EVO's too. I guess it just goes to show where they cut corners to get a high powered engines but the ancillary parts can't cut it.

Time to get the jig saw out and have a little play me thinks.

Gary

Is there no way to get the piping along the driveshaft of the front wheels? This I think would be better as you are directing the air flow to the disc, rather then to the tyre?

Buck

Im hoping that I can make something up at work which takes air from the fog light area, via large ducting through the inner wheel arch, then straight at the back of the disc, caliper area.
Im aware some kind of bracket will be needed to keep the ducting rigid and directed at the disc,but with a team of designers and 100 man fabrication shop at my disposal, plus a plastics rapid prototype machine sat directly behind me, you never know I might just come up with the solution :D

Work starts this weekend :D

Gary

http://zhome.com/ZCMnL/PICS/BrakeDucts/ducts.html

Not the right car, but may give you some ideas.

Buck

I think you want to be ducting air into the centre of the back of the disc rather than at the back face of the disc or the caliper. This is what the fabricated ally tubes on the previous link are trying to do. Demon Tweeks sell some pre fabricated ally bits (at extortionate prices!!). Look at them and copy them sounds the best bet.

Your aim is to get a good flow of high pressure cool air flowing into the area that feeds the air into the ducts that run through the vented disc itself. If you can achieve this the whole disc will run cooler and the caliper will get less hot as a result of this rather than as a direct result of the air.

If you just blow cold air onto the back surface of the disc then it will be cooler one side than the other, recipe for warping I would have thought. Likewise with the caliper, blowing cold air over one side but not the other doesn't sound too clever.

Makes sense, will have a look friday afternoon then see what I can start getting up together.

Gary

Blowing air at the disk should work better at places like the ring, where there are long straights between braking areas.

Or, how about a water spray? Seemed to help Audi in the 80's with their monster Gp B Quattro. And it would look cool, with steam coming from your front arches :)

Or make up some wheel covers like the Gp A teams used to fit to the front wheels.

Dave.

Please note post #12 :D

You can get some subaru parts that look like this...

Fog Lamp Trim Kit - Silver Part No. H4518FE050TG £32.50 (inc VAT)
Fog Lamp Trim Kit - WR Blue Part No. H4518FE050PG £32.50 (inc VAT)

BTW Gary - where do you get your disks skimmed?



http://www.fs66.dial.pipex.com/image...eed/Car_11.jpg

Gary, lucky for you I have prepared the cheapskate guide to brake cooling :D

http://bbs.22b.com/cgi-bin/ultimateb...=000306#000000

Have fun, I did ;)

F

Hi Gary,

Did you get anything made up in the end?

I too am interested in using the foglamp holes for ducting. Must have far more potential than the tiny slots others have used...

Andy