Hi guys after looking around at a few different cars I finally found one I liked and bought it. It's a tiger Avon with a blacktop zetec and eaton
supercharger on a ones omen 500 ecu. I have a print out of when it was tuned and shows 175bhp at the wheels and torque is 163lbft at 6psi, I got the
car home Friday night and have been having some fun over the weekend. The car seems quite fast but back end swings out a fair bit if I accelerate too
quick and as I got a bit more confident with her I decided to chuck her round a roundabout only to loose the back end, panic and some how end up
facing side ways. I think I might need a few lessons on controlling a rear wheel drive car a I have always owned four wheel drive before.
The only down side I'm finding are the brakes which are like nothing I've experienced before, the pedals very very firm and it doesn't
seem to stop very well at all and I find myself really pushing down hard just to stop, any ideas? I've found a receipt that says cortina hubs and
green pads
I can not tel from the pictures but there is a good chance it will not have a brake servo. For the weight of these cars they generally do not.
Hence the firm feel of the brake pedal but it does mean you have to press harder to stop them. It also gives more feel back, but it is disconcverting
if you are used to servos and ABS.
The green pads I believe are harder then OEM spec on cars and will have less tendency to fade when used on a track day, but may need to get up to temp
before they grip the disks better and give that feeling of good stopping power.
Perhaps you may be better fitting standard road pads for a while when running about, depends on the callipers etc as you do not mention the set-up.
Have fun but be careful, typically with less then 350Kg on the rear of the car it is easy to loose the back end traction.
Someone will be along soon with better information.
Adrian
Correction may not need warm up see here for details
http://www.motorsportworld.co.uk/frame-detail.asp?PAGE=/green-stuff-pads.htm
[Edited on 30-9-12 by AdrianH]
Very nice, looks well built
What you describe all sounds normal, these are very different from any tin top and need to be driven differently and with a great deal of respect too
Light car, Cold weather, cold tyres, greasy roads make for challenging driving
Take it really easy till you get used to it all
What tyres are they, cant tell from the pics?
There just cheap tyres so I think I need to invest in some decent grip.
I'm not sure what I did wrong but back end swung out to the left I panicked and steering opposite direction and braked and ended up with rear
shooting to the right and car left side on to traffic on the roundabout.
I have defiantly learnt that I need to respect her bait more, especially round corners
Nice looking car.
As the man said on a Porsche car control day "your instinct if the back end starts to break away is the lift off. In a rear engined, rear wheel
drive car as well as your Se7en type which is very light on the back end, that effectively slows the back end inducing the spin. So when it does start
to go try keeping your foot in" - and it works believe me.
If you are exploring the limits this early into ownership the best thing you can do would be to sign up for a track day or car control day asap plus
pay the extra for some tuition.
Sure it accelerates like a bike but it sure don't handle like one.
HTH.
Cheers, Pewe10 
Yea cheap tyres are no good o these, id expect you'd probably light them up in 1st 2nd and 3rd with a heavy boot with that engine
I'd be looking at Toyo Proxes R1R , got them on the back of mine and love them already, if you dont want to run to 888s
descent tyres are a must and improved throttle control to tame what is a beast.
it should stop like its hit a wall so Id look at the discs and pads, possibly change compounds to a road pad if thats where you'll use it.
you wont need a brake servo either.
I would bin the green stuff pads and fit mintex 1144 pads - you won't regret it 
Yes I'm going to double check the brakes because there not convincing, I seem to push the pedal but it doesn't stop instant it seems to just slow the car down. If I ever had to do an emergency stop I really don't think it would do it.
Im going to buck the trend and say take it easy and get used to the handling on the shite tyres before you get fancy ones otherwise you
will just be going faster when you crash.
Also find an empty quiet piece of road and try an emergency stop and push the pedal as hard as you can this should tell you whether you have a brake
problem or whether you just arent used to non servo brakes.
Sounds like a car control day would be great for you tho
[Edited on 30/9/12 by MRLuke]
Driver training probably needed carlimits.com
The brakes as others have said are just normal un-servoed brakes. Mot light competition cars are like this and they just need getting used to.
Book a track day, book driver training and destroy your current tyres on the track day.
Car looks good.
Re the brakes, before you judge them to be crap, try comparing stopping distance/time with your tin top. You might be surprised.
What I have found is that the lack of "dive" under braking due to the lower centre of gravity and stiffer suspension, doesn't give you
the same impression of braking that you get with the road car. However, if you look at the speedometer dropping then you will realise that it is
slowing down very quickly. The firm pedal only goes to enhance this sensation.
The key thing though is that you should be able to lock up the front wheels without having to bend the brake pedal. Depending on your setup you might
find that one wheel locks up before the other but that's okay as long as a bit more pressure locks up the other side. Your rear end should not
lock up before the front otherwise it can be very dangerous but you should be able to lock up all four corners with enough brake pedal force.
Obviously don't lock them up for long or you will flat spot them.
Oh, and just to cover my ar$e, don't try this unless it is safe to do so... 
I had greenstuff pads in mine! took them out and run standard pads now even on trackdays.
are you sure it's supercharged? doesn't look like it on the pictures?
Haha yeah it's deffinately supercharged, it's hidden away but you might just see it in these photos
I had EBC greenstuff pads on my tin-top for a bit (just to give them a try)
I've also tried the EBC black ones, all the Ferodo OE ones, and Motorcraft ones (i.e. Ford OE one)
but I recon the Mintex OE spec ones are much better than all of them
they bite better from cold, they have more feel, they don't fade as much, they lasted thousands of miles longer
and they cost half as much as the green pads too 
(I havn't tried the Mintex upgraded ones like the 1114's yet)
[Edited on 1/10/2012 by mcerd1]
From the pics it looks like you may have a standard 22mm Sierra master cylinder which will make the brake pedal very solid and needing a big push to
get much brake effort.
I had the same and switched to a 19mm Fiat non servo MC and the brakes were tranformed. I picked the Fiat one cos it was cheap but I believe an early
Fiesta non-servo MC is a straight swap and costs about £40-50.
I use EBC yellow stuff pads, which the guys at EBC recommend for a llight car like ours. They work great and are don't cost much.
Stu
You'll learn this on a car control course.
Hitting the brakes as the back comes out is fairly common as you immediate reaction is to try and slow down in your moment of panic. This unloads the
rear tyres even more and will send the back shooting round.
Have fun!
quote:
Originally posted by Sierra
There just cheap tyres so I think I need to invest in some decent grip.
I'm not sure what I did wrong but back end swung out to the left I panicked and steering opposite direction and braked and ended up with rear shooting to the right and car left side on to traffic on the roundabout.
I have defiantly learnt that I need to respect her bait more, especially round corners
Yes sorry I saw the intake pipe over the top and thought it went into the plenum! Very neat that install.
Thanks for the info guys, at the moment the pedal area is very tight and the brake and clutch pedal are quiet a bit further forward from the
accelerater which makes it difficult to quickly switch from accelerater to brake so I would like to somehow move brake and clutch pedal back about
30-40mm but not sure how yet. Might have to be floor mounted but ideally would like to try and work something out with the standard ones.
How easy is it to change the mc for the fiesta/fiat one? I'm not very mechanically minded
Welcome to it!
I have mintex 1144 pads (part worn off someone on here) which replaced the green stuff (afaik, certainly painted green) that came with my car and they
are better i would say, however, the diffrence is not chalk and cheese so it sounds like you want to do some further investigation.
The non-servo and lack of abs does take some getting used to and I have a few moments when I was new to my car (think country lane, sliding
all-wheels-locked towards a landrover) but while it is firmer, and can suprise you when you then get back into your 'tintop' , you should be
able to easly lock the wheels.
Im on Yokohama A539 tyres which are not quick your soft-compound A048 T1R or R888 but work fairly well for the price and are List 1B which allows me
to use them for autotesting.
quote:
Originally posted by Sierra
Yes I'm going to double check the brakes because there not convincing, I seem to push the pedal but it doesn't stop instant it seems to just slow the car down. If I ever had to do an emergency stop I really don't think it would do it.
quote:
How easy is it to change the mc for the fiesta/fiat one? I'm not very mechanically minded
Been through most of your woes with my Avon and can tell you its now a pretty well sorted track toy after 2 or 3 years of developing it with some help
from various people on here. Just have a search on my username and i'm sure you'll find most of what your looking for.
SEE HERE ABOUT BRAKES
I wouldn't take any chances with crappy tyres. I wrote my seven off a few years back because the Pirelli P 6000 that I had on the car had been on too long, loads of tread but the rubber had gone off. I was caught in a brief shower and even though I was driving like Bambi on ice the back end let go with disastrous consequences. I genuinely couldn't believe how little grip I had.
As per your U2U.....You can see the bung in the un-needed 4th port.
[Edited on 4/10/12 by laptoprob]
Any ideas on how to neaten the back end cause I'm not a massive fan at the minute. I'm thinking possibly remove the middle brake light,
remove number plate surround, smaller number plate light, smaller fog light and do I need the 2 reflectors?
Where's best to purchase these things
Go for a square plate to start off, it tidies the rear up loads.
I agree with rob the square page looks great...