bowsaaa

Following on from the AP vs Willwood thread has anyone got any coments on the HiSpec range, they are priced in between willwoods & AP's, parts are freely available & plenty of pad choices. I almost ordered some last week but made my excuses & put the phone down at the last minute.

frayz

iTrader: (7)

Ive ran a set of billet 4s with 330's on an escort gti.. Personally i liked em, only thing i would say would be that they are a bitch to keep clean and they corrode easily.

Please bear in mind this was over 4 years ago now so things may have changed????

Personally having owned them i cant knock them, however i have not used APs or Wilwoods myself.

Im on a set of brembos at the moment of which i think are quite good but could be better IMO

Sorry thats not much help is it lol



Like the look of this though

New Subaru Impreza Conversion


For the ultimate in performance braking we now offer the Mega Monster caliper on a massive 380mm curved vein rotor. This conversion combines our most powerful caliper with our biggest rotor - unbeatable stopping power.380/35mm Mega Monster Conversion £1505

andy97

iTrader: (1)

You probably dont know how lucky you are. There are a few threads on hispec, especially their customer service!!

stockcar

we are now using KAD systems as a good compromise between value for money and performance, far superior to any other "budget" brake kits we've looked at but cheaper than AP...................

alyn

P1 FEK

iTrader: (1)

I've heard very bad things about poor customer service and quality issues.

Check this out from another forum. unfortuatley this does'nt seem to be an isolated case!!

"Hi-Spec Brake Discs and Installation
Here you can see the discs i used on the car before the new ones arrived.These are Pagid grooved discs, which have warped and now also worn down to their minimum thickness.... time for a change!
The Hi-Spec discs are cheap for a two piece disc, at £364 all in delivered.The company quotes upto 10 days from ordering.It took them 12 weeks(!!) to supply mine.The admin side of things seem very lacking, i was offered various reasons for the hold up, including broken down CNC machines and lathes, through to their not been enough staff.Sounded very much to me like they need to invest alittle more in the company, there again, what do i know??(apart from it took 12 weeks for my brakes to arrive!).
When the discs finally arrived i was over the moon, until that is i noticed that all i had actually received was the product itself and a parts list.NO receipt, NO Invoice,NO instructions(baring in mind these arrive in kit form) and NO bedding in procedure!
Another problem was that the bells arrived untreated as bare alloy.When i rang to query this, i was told there had been a mistake, and that silver simply ment 'bare alloy' so that they could be polished, for shows and the like.If you wanted them anodised there was only one colour choice, and that was gold.Its a shame this fact was'nt made clear to me upon ordering.
At the same time i took the opportunity to find out alittle more information, the nuts and bolts clamping the bell and rotor together had to be tightened to 11NM (8 lb/ft), and once fitted i had to follow gentle running in procedure for 300miles.
Right!
The pictures to the left show the various stages in fitting the discs to the car.First is the old Pagid disc, second the new Hi-Spec discs as they arrived.Bolted together you can see how good they look too... awesome!
Installation is alittle more fiddly.I raised the car off the ground on axle stands, and removed the front two wheels, followed by the old discs.The calipers i bolted back into place temporarily. Getting someone else to rotate the opposite wheel, i then took note of any run out of the hub using a dial gauge, and did the same for the other front hub on the opposite side.Thankfully there wasnt any at all, and the tolerances were within Mitsubishis limits. At this point the discs should be fitted, and wheel nuts fastened up to hold them in place against the hub, at the time however i did not realise this, and expected the new discs to be spot on (read further down). If the discs show alittle run out, you remove them and rotate them one stud on, check runout again, if its worse, remove the disc again, but this time rotate back to the orginal position, then back one more stud. Tighten disc and check again. Using this method it will be possible to almost eliminate runout completely.
Moving on i pressed the pistons back into the calipers using G-clamps pressing against the old pads, and then cleaned all the old dust and copper slip off the calipers using degreaser.The new pads (Ferodo DS2500) i greased the rear and sides of the pad with new copper slip and installed them into place.The retaining pins are removed using a fine punch/hammer(hitting the pins towards the rear of the caliper) and replaced using firm pressure and light hammer action in the opposite direction.
The discs (already bolted together) where then fitted to the degreased/cleaned up hub and the caliper mounting bolts tightened.
You can see from the picture opposite theres not alot of room for error.
I chose to replace the brake fluid at the same time for a better grade.This turned out to be alot easier than i had first feared.I used a 'one man brake bleeding kit' from Halfords, but had someone watch for air bubbles in the fluid non the less.(they werent needed). Start from the wheel furthest away from the master cylinder (in my case the nearside rear) and work back towards it.( i.e. nearside rear, then offside rear, then nearside front, finally offside front).Always remember to bleed the outside nipple first.To replace all the fluid you will need approx. 1 litre of fluid.
Fluid of choice was 'ATE Super Blue' supplied by Nick of N.R Autosport, which not only been blue in colour (great for seeing when the systems fully purged of old fluid) it also has brilliant performance :-
Dry boiling point min: 280°C
Wet boiling point min: 200°C
Slightly better performing fluids are Motul RBF 600 and AP 600, the best been Castrol SRF, though this isnt recommended for road use due to the frequency of it needing changing (every 6mths).
Last two pictures show the fitted product.
If i encounter any problems over the coming months then they will be reported both on here and the MLR without haste, though i sincerely hope dont have any cause to do so.
________________________________________
Update 18.04.03 ... Just received information from 'Wheels' off the MLR forum that he's experiencing problems with runout on his new HiSpec discs.This to to do with the tolerances of the alloy bell, and how it fits onto the hub.I myself have suffered a slight 'pulsing' through the pedal once the brakes are really hot over the last few days, and so it would seem that my bells have the same kind of run out problem, only not as bad.
14.06.03 .. Just recieved back brake discs from Hi-Spec after re-surfacing, due to warpage.Brakes still do not feel right.
07.08.03 .. Just recieved back brake discs again from Hi-Spec after they warped again, .... i took them to N.R. Autosport at Lincoln to fit them for me. Nick refused to fit the discs, on the grounds that the tolerances where too far out.
I contacted Hi-Spec and Geoff (one of two directors) tried telling me there was no problem .. 0.27mm of run out was perfectly fine, refusing to admit there was a problem! Infuriated i rang Nick and got him to have a word with Geoff. Geoff now wants me to re-send the discs back a 3rd time!! .. at a cost of another £15! Not to mention the accelerated wear rates, these discs are less than 4mths old and havent even covered 3000miles yet!
As such i am contacting my local Trading Standards, i have spent over £30 already sending these discs back and forth, tonights 100mile round trip down to Nick was a total waste of time, these parts are NOT suitable for my vehicle, and i also consider them to be also dangerous, which places Hi-Spec in a very dodgy legal position ... watch this space!!
________________________________________
03.04.04 .. I have now given up on these discs, i have AP Six Pots on order, which although arent cheap, will do the job, unlike the Hi-Spec discs which are a total shambles, very much like the company that makes them! Trading Standards dont seem interested, saying that i will have to pay for independant testing. (!!) Anyway, here are some of the choice quotes from various conversations with Hi-Spec :
Hi-Spec : "go to Trading Standards, i dont care, but your not getting your money back'''
Hi-Spec : "i can guarantee you will have them tomorrow ... or maybe the next day"
________________________________________
After sending me a complete new set of disc's (after the two re-skims), i find that the new bells they sent are out of tolerance, i ring them and get the reply :
Hi-Spec: " ahh, i thought they might have been, those ones had been on the shelf for quite awhile"
I mean, he sends me out a set of new bells, even knowing they probably arent right?!!!!!
________________________________________
.....admits that he has NEVER checked for sideways run out of the disc, EVER, and has only ever checked to make sure both faces of the discs are parallel, this means that the two time's that he has re-surfaced the discs, he hasn't been addressing the problem with the discs at all, total waste of time and my discs!
...Apparently their CNC machine broke down last week (its the third time this year i've phoned them and they've told me the CNC machine has bust)
....they are all boxed up in the office ready to be sent out, for some reason they never went (this is the third time i've heard this excuse IIRC, its nearly as frequent as the CNC machine breaking down)
Heres the relevant threads on the MLR for those interested :
Mitsubishi Lancer Register Forum - Hi-Spec Discs Page uploaded..
Mitsubishi Lancer Register Forum - New HiSpec Discs
Mitsubishi Lancer Register Forum - Hi-Spec Two Piece Disc's .. the update
Mitsubishi Lancer Register Forum - Expensive Door Stop's
________________________________________
Statements copied from various forums re: Hi-Spec and their brakes (i have the links to the specific URLs etc. if you wish to veiw the original posts - all still working 11.1.05 ) :
They look great - did hi-spec deliver on time? I order some a couple of years back on a 14 day turn round and 6 weeks and many calls later gave up and went the Tower view route - more expensive but at least they arrived.
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This is why I have stopped dealing with Hi-Spec (and won't deal with them ever again). In my case I gave them a little over eight months, called them every two weeks, never got called back, always told the parts were almost ready and would be with me 'next week'. My opinion of their customer service is unprintable!
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I once bought a Hi-spec kit for the Chimaera 520.
When the discs got hot and expanded,they started cutting into the calipers at the bridging part.
Took weeks to sort it out, no refund of postage costs or anything.
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i have hispec brakes with volvo calipers they are good but he is so slow it took me about 8 months to get them and ALL the bits i needed. an alternative coulds be rally design of faversham
manta16v
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I can tell you a tale about Hi Spec,Geoff Beddings is more than a tad odd,
he is a stranger to the truth and that's being kind!! I have being trying to
buy a pr of Calipers/bkts for my mk3 T for the past 5months, I sent him an
OE calliper as a pattern, you would not believe the excuses,from no dust
seals to they are packed up and will be with you on mon ,tues, wed, pick a
suitable day of the week you fancy I,ve heard them all.
Even worse my son has an Mr2 Mk1 of which Mr Bedding says he has made
numerous sets of brakes for that Model, wrong,again 6months later he is
still waiting for them to have the correct size Bkts, having first sent
discs and bells together drawings, came back wrong, went out and purchased a
mk 1 hubcarrier bolted the disc and bell to and sent it back saying now get
right, it was sent back still wrong, set it up again with spacers to the
correct depth, all this time being told they finished all o.k ,weeks have
passed having tried to get hold of him for over a week now he has decided
the discs are wrong, he will not respond to calls or faxes, he will never
return your calls, he has cost us a considerable amount of money,and I am
currently considering suing him for all the trouble and cost.
YOU DEAL WITH THIS FIRM AT YOUR PERIL>
Regards."

bowsaaa

hmmm, maybe i'll give em a miss then!! Mite look into those KAD design's instead.