Should I get bigger brakes?

Real tech discussion on design, fabrication, testing, development of custom or adapted parts for Pontiac Fieros. Not questions about the power a CAI will give.

Moderators: The Dark Side of Will, Series8217

Post Reply
Dough19
Posts: 50
Joined: Thu May 26, 2005 11:39 pm
Location: Bloomington, IL

Should I get bigger brakes?

Post by Dough19 »

So my car is an 87GT with 88 cradle so it has 88 rear breaks and 87 brakes up front. I have been autocrossing the car for 3 years using Resbestos pads in which I have a grippier pad up front, and a regular pad for the rear. This has worked well as far as brake balance for the car.

This season I am planning on doing some autocross and HPDE events. So at the end of last season, I bought some Porterfield R-4S pads since the one time I used the Rebestos ones they got really hot and smelled a lot, when on the roadcourse.

The R-4S 88 rear pad seems to have more contact area than the 87 front pad. This is causing the rear to brake harder than the front. When autocrossing, this made the car extremely hard to drive fast, as you can imagine.

I guess the two options would be to get a porportioning valve to adjust the brake bias, or get larger brakes for the front of the car. If I go with larger brakes, they would have to clear 15" rims which narrows it down to the Grand Am upgrade or the Labaron upgrade.

Suggestions???
Top
Indy
Posts: 993
Joined: Wed Nov 17, 2004 12:22 am
Location: the middle of a wheatfield

Post by Indy »

Image
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v87/F ... CF1085.jpg

Bigger.
Indy DOHC Turbo SD4.....someday.
Oh, and f*ck the envelope. (RFT Insurgent)
Top
dratts
Posts: 61
Joined: Sat Jun 24, 2006 9:26 am
Location: Petaluma

Post by dratts »

I have 13" brakes on my car, but for every day driving I advise people against larger brakes. You however are one of the people who could benefit from larger brakes. In ordinary driving you can lock up all wheels and never overheat the rotors.
I'd rather have a free bottle in front of me than a prefrontal lobotomy
Top
p8ntman442
cant get enough of this site!
Posts: 3289
Joined: Wed Mar 30, 2005 2:37 pm

Post by p8ntman442 »

I would say, upgrade the fronts (cheap) and also get a proportioning valve from wilwood to balance them.
Top
The Dark Side of Will
Peer Mediator
Posts: 15751
Joined: Wed Nov 24, 2004 11:13 pm
Location: In the darkness, where fear and knowing are one
Contact:
Contact The Dark Side of Will

Re: Should I get bigger brakes?

Post by The Dark Side of Will »

Dough19 wrote:I guess the two options would be to get a porportioning valve to adjust the brake bias, or get larger brakes for the front of the car. If I go with larger brakes, they would have to clear 15" rims which narrows it down to the Grand Am upgrade or the Labaron upgrade.

Suggestions???
The Grand Am upgrade isn't really worth the gain in unsprung weight. Go for the LeBaron front, gut the stock prop valve (but not the shuttle valve) and plumb in an aftermarket prop valve. The rears are heavily DE-emphasized stock, so you'll need to use a prop valve that will allow less pressure reduction than stock, which means the stock prop valve will have to be removed.
Top
Post Reply

Return to “Technical Conversations on Pontiac Fieros”