As it says IVA retest today and a disappointing failure.

This time noise levels hit 96 decibels, self centering was perfect and indicators e-marked. However still failed on one item - the park brake got 16% efficiency versus 18% pass mark.
Bottom line is that the Wilwood Powerlight handbrake caliper is just not getting enough mechanical leverage to secure the pad against the disc, no matter how hard you pull the h/brake up. Have spoken to Rally Designs Andy and he is going to try and design a revised mechanism that puts extra leverage directly on to the caliper. Once done hopefully will be good enough.

Anyone else had this problem?
Cheers
Ricky

sorry to hear about your IVA fail.

Keep us posted as i have some of these calipers and am now concerned....

[Edited on 24/11/09 by mads]

Mine were similar, i wonder if the examiner pressed the brake pedal for me, such a nice guy

The Viento is a little heavier than most sevens and I think this affects the calculations for the brake efficiency - standard sierra callipers work fine.

Good luck - only one last fence to jump and then on the road

Paul

willwood handbrake calipers seem to be crap mate had them on his stylus could not get a decent handbrake with them sold them on and fitted sierra rear calipers instead

Although my current car is fine, the first two cars I had with rear discs had terrible handbrakes - I much prefer drums for this!

The willwood calipers are short of leverage on the handbrake. I got around this by fitting a secondary lever in the tunnel which increases the mechanical advantage.

http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z282/adrianthorp/handbrakelinkage002.jpg

I'm not 100% happy with the first cable section pulling at an angle but it was easier than re-doing the cable ancorages and in practice works OK. I passed SVA easily with it and I've got a very nice handbrake that holds with little effort on steep hills and has good feel.

adrian

ps. If your using the willwood smart pads, switching to Mintex1144 pads might be enough to get you through.

[Edited on 24/11/09 by adithorp]

Sorry to hear the news, brakes are one thing we can not test without going to a MOT garage even then not everything can be tested. The idea of a second link sounds good if it can be done. Have to see what rally design comes up with.

Good luck

Adrian

Yep. I fitted a pulley which doubles the mechanical advantage, and extended the handbrake lever. The pulley system is here on my website.

HTH

Dan