Hi all.

I've got a bit of an issue with my brake setup. Im ussing cortina front brakes with std pads and solid disks and xr4x4 rears std pads n discs

I took it out for a drive the other day and the brake is hard and blead fine, but there in no stopping power and no chance of locking them up. I have a brake bias which is not seized up.

The car is 650kg and arround 260bhp. would you recomend bigger front brakes, the car is mainly for track fun.

what's your pedal ratio?

there's no reason that setup shouldn't stop your car just fine.

even if you had full bias the wrong way, it'd be locking one set or the other.

are your pads bedded in?
tom

You could try some different pads - Mintex 1144 or Ferodo DS2500 have had good reports.

Is this the first time you have driven the car?

Cortina front disks and calipers should have plenty of stopping power.

Are you sure that a couple of the pistons aren't siezed in the calipers, which is quite likely if they have been lying around for a few years?

All down to pedal ratio and master cylinder size -- basically you have removed the servo and halved the pedal ratio. When you press the pedal the working hydraulic pressure is only roughly 25% what it was in the Cortina for the same force on the pedal.

What you have to do is use a more suitable master cylinder (ie one from a non-servo car) and if possible try and get more pedal leverage (difficult)

Go Brakes International Website.
Look up

Cortina Mk3 1970 1300 Non-servo
or
Fiesta Mk1 1977 997 & 1100 Non servo

or
Triumph Spitfire 1500 1975

Any of these will reduce the pedal pressure required to slow the car.

[Edited on 6/7/08 by britishtrident]

I had the same problem with my brakes, two feet on the pedal and no stopping power, after nearly running up the back of a couple of cars and changing my pants i took the front pads out, they looked glazed, so i ran a bit of 100 grit paper over them, now they are fine.

The pads are very old so that might be an issue. ill get some Ds2500's to start. Ill have to look at the calipers and if there seized! they have been stood almost 2 years. just a bit weird it didn't lock the rears, i got the cylinders from car builder solutions not sure size atm

so you have a bias bar pedal box?

that changes things slightly. what size cylinders do you have on the front and rear circuits? smallest cylinder wants to be on the fronts.

tom

I Have a Bias bar with 2 cylinders but not sure what size they are but there but the same size.