Classic Alfa Forums

Hi Guys,

The standard inboard discs were overheating at Donnington giving us major concern approaching the hairpin bend.
Alfascozia kindly gave us the heads-up on where to source vented discs and four pot calipers for replacing the standard inboard setup. The clever bit is mounting the calipers correctly on the gearbox. Tom at BLS made a caliper mount pattern and then a production standard mount was drawn up and made in aerospace grade alloy which is stronger than most stainless steels. The brakes will be fitted in the next couple of weeks. Pics as follows: If anyone wants this setup then Tom can sort it for you. We will let you know how it performs after the first race in 2016.
Brgds
Simon

Looks great Simon, very nice looking installation, good luck with testing.

That is quality engineering.
Hope the set-up performs as well as it looks!

I've got a set of vented discs with spacers in the middle of std calipers waiting to go on when I fit the 1.7 8v engine

Hi Alfachris,
I think I remember Tom telling me that BLS used to do that modification and it worked very well.
I am going for the four pot calipers because I need to out-brake other cars which have better straight line acceleration as my car is 1300cc.

brgds
Simon

You've got a very nice set up.

Fingers crossed it works Alfachris. It looks good but you can get it wrong. The guys at Hitec said not to go for the 6 pot calipers as several customers had found them too powerful and gone back to 4 pot. I will also have the little brake cooling dustpans feeding air into the eye of each vented disc. That cooling makes a significant difference in our experience with the solid inboard discs. Should be even better with the vented discs centrifuging the cooling air from the centre of the disc to the outer radius.
Brgds
Simon

Does the Trofeo have a brake bias valve fitted Simon? If not I'd put one in to help stop the fronts locking up.

Hi Tim,

The Trofeo does have a brake bias valve but it only reduces brake pressure to the rear brakes.
I have a standard master cylinder and 8J wheels so I reckon I will be alright but if the fronts do lock up I won't push the brake pedal so hard

Next up is fitting Leda adjustable shockers with adjustable top mounts, lowering and stiffening the whole car. Ted suggested this when he first saw the car at Cadwell and Tom is on the case. It should make a huge difference. We found that the front shockers had dumped all their oil, the springs are just 150lb and the front suspension had negative caster so it was unstable. I can remember saying to Malcolm at Donnington that the car seemed to be dancing around heading into Craner Curves. Then its weight reduction and............fitting the big Trofeo spoiler on the back.

Brgds,
Simon

A bias to the rear is what is needed, set to give more pressure to the fronts than the rears, but as your fronts bite hard, the pressure starts to get the rears. Do you remember when we set Malcolm red sud at Brands?

Just a quick little (huge!) plug,

I have a pair of ex BLS front calipers to accept twin vented discs if anyone fancies?

They're nicely done of course and with the handbrake mechanism properly eliminated, you'll get good power and bite at last!

Pm as usual, shameless plug over!

My inboard brake-conversion are Tarox 264 mm discs together with Wilwood Dynalite II calipers, pads are Hawk Blue 9012





Ali

Lovely job Ali.
How effective are they when you hit the brakes at speed?
Brgds
Simon

902a wrote:My inboard brake-conversion are Tarox 264 mm discs together with Wilwood Dynalite II calipers, pads are Hawk Blue 9012





Ali

Are they tarox bell disc mounts too Ali or did you make them?

Very nice by the way!

Marlow Sud wrote: How effective are they when you hit the brakes at speed?

Looking forward to test it in March 2016 in Zolder/Belgium..

petrolhead wrote:
Are they tarox bell disc mounts too Ali or did you make them?

Caliper mounts and disc bells are custom made, not from Tarox..

I'm using Wilwood powerlite calipers and discs at 260?mm

Found them a big improvement without having to step disc off the gearbox but clearance is mm's

Only problem I have found recently when using Mintex pads was the pad wearing unevenly. Leading edge appeared to be wearing more heavily than trailing edge? solved it at Rockingham by swapping pads round as soon as a diffrence could be seen.

Whats the surface area of the Hi spec pads and the diameter of the discs?

rsfruitbat

This seems an appropriate time to shamelessly plug these bits i have up for grabs if anyone reading this is excited by the prospect of inboard brakes with a lot more bite!



These were built by BLS, handbrake eliminated and lots of brake effort, and will take typical 22mm twin vented discs or slightly larger.


Always a good idea for those that don't have quite the budget for aftermarket calipers, and good enough to race with as was the practice back then


Needs the dust seals replacing ideally for road use but not essential up on the gearbox really.



PM me if anyone's interested but i'll be putting them in the Classifieds shortly too.



Back to the thread chaps.......

Hi Guys,
Tom at BLS has done a lovely job of fitting the vented discs and four pot calipers.

That's excellent.

Hmmmmm I think he may have done that kind of work before.

rsfruitbat wrote:I'm using Wilwood powerlite calipers and discs at 260?mm

Found them a big improvement without having to step disc off the gearbox but clearance is mm's

Only problem I have found recently when using Mintex pads was the pad wearing unevenly. Leading edge appeared to be wearing more heavily than trailing edge? solved it at Rockingham by swapping pads round as soon as a diffrence could be seen.

Whats the surface area of the Hi spec pads and the diameter of the discs?

rsfruitbat

Hi rsfruitbat,

The discs are 265mm dia and 26mm thick.
The pad swept area is 113mm x 43.5mm.

Brgds
Simon

Very nice......don't forget to spend a bit of time setting the bias valve up with the new brakes.

My CD-ROM sized standard discs are feeling slightly inadequate now....

Are you missing a bit of girth Tim?