Colin, AKA Spanner Juggler and I had a discussion on brakes many moons ago, around the time when he was having issues warping the OE discs on his then new +8.
I think Colin was going for multi piston calipers and fancy discs...I questioned the logic at the time in that I can lock the fronts on my own mid 80`s +8 with standard the set-up my thinking was built around mere mortals such as I, who seem unlikely to attempt any fancy braking techniques when faced with an emergency stop situation, who would more than likely lock the fronts up even earlier with increased stopping power, and thus potentially increase the stopping distance..?
Colin being no stranger to competitive driving no doubt makes far more use of braking power than I might ever hope to, proof of that perhaps being that the OE discs warped in Colin`s "normal" road use...?
Ok so I could understand that the MMC`s design spec for brakes might not contain much in the way of scientific exploration to achieve a perfect balance for brakes relative to the light weight of the Trads,and in terms of to avoiding lock up..and my hope would be that any upgrades might provide an improved performance resulting in providing a better feel to the brakes on a track day, or when pressing on somewhat, my thinking along the lines of better cooling and hopefully more control in normal braking, but perhaps increasing the risk of early lock up in an emergency..?
Just thinking in type and claiming zero expertise.
Morning George
Smiling at your post here as I also got berated by more than one Morgan pal for never braking and so giving no warning of tight bends when in convoy 🤣. What happened in the case of the +8….. it was6 weeks old when a colleague from Volvo Sweden flew into Glasgow and we had a week visiting distilleries in your wonderful homeland (and I discovered Glengoyne). On day 2 a brake judder started, pedal modulation and pulling to the O/S, classic disc warp! A week later it was grabbing and snatching so I rang the dealer from Scotland and had it booked in.
On collection I had driven to the first proper ‘stop’ about 300 yards and nearly mounted the pavement. I took it straight back where they informed me that MMC had insisted they only change one disc. The car was lethal so I rejected the repair and the first of many battles with MMC ensued. They finally relented and supplied a second disc and the dealer fitted it FOC, very good of them as I had not bought the car from them (they were still saying 18 months for build) but they were my regular dealer. Anyway those discs lasted about a month.
My style of braking comes from motorsport plus (my excuse) being trained at Fords rally school, MIRA advanced (when I was a test driver at Jaguar) and Volvo’s Halared driver academy…. I brake late and hard and for a short time just before turn in and later, if required, trail brake to transfer weight over the front wheels.
Anyway whatever I was unhappy with the OE equipment so sought out a then unknown to me Peter Mulberry of Mulfab. As luck would have it Peters workshop was about 8 miles from my home. We instantly hit it off and Peter explained that the issue is that the standard new discs from MMC are very ‘green’ metal, they are not de-stressed in any way and warp with any serious provocation, he said he collected warped discs and had them surface ground for the racers he supplied via Chas Windridge as once through a heat cycle and trued they were fine. Also one clad of racer was not allowed vented discs.
Peter showed me his 300mm vented disc kit, I asked for fitting instructions and he didn’t have any and that started our collaboration of me writing some sets of fitting instructions for his products in exchange for very special ’mates rates’ on parts, happy days!
So George, the facts are the car kept it’s OE 4 pot calipers as they were fine, the pads were standard but the discs were 300mm so the caliper mounting brackets were different and moved the caliper out a little giving more torque effect on the rotation of the wheel for a given clamp load/C of F.
To me, and I think the core of our debate back in 2002, was my view that whilst the overall stopping distance was almost certainly the same the ‘feel’ was significantly improved. After fitting I never had a front lock up and after working on the very same car 2 owners and 15 years later it still had those same 300mm discs on it. No judder, no pedal modulation, brakes were fine.
As a footnote, that car was replaced in 2008 with a new +4 4 seat, then a 2 seat and that by a 2012 4/4 and none of those had a brake or disc issue…. Perhaps I had slowed down and was less ‘hooligan’ by then 🤣🤣
BR
Colin
