Right finally realising how shite my brakes are...
I have GTI6 brakes on my 1.8 with good drilled and grooved discs. The front pads are good and I have braided lines on the front.
Today i met a car coming the other way down a very narrow country lane with steep banks either side. The golf stopped almost instantly and I just locked up sliding down the hill towards it for about 4m until i stopped.
1. Im running Nankangs that came with the car and are 1mm off the markers on the outside? I presume these are complete wank and i should be getting T1rs all round?
2. The rear pads were advisories in the last MOT which was about half a year ago and i haven't got round to replacing those so i presume they are shot! Maybe Ill replace everything with Green Stuff pads?
3. The brake pedal is spongy for quite a way which i presume is down to having the standard master cylinder and not the gti6 one? Please remind me the sizes again!
4. On an unrelated note i floored it in a tunnel but was so excited i didnt bring the clutch up all the way before shifting to second. *Clutch smell* and now my biting point has drastically changed and is probably about half an inch from the top. How much clutch is left once its got to this point? I presume i should be a little bit more gentle and presume it needs replacing in the next year?
5. I cant exactly put my finger on it. Ive got top and bottom OMP strut braces which admittedly aren't Rippthroughs works of art. Lowered 60mm front and back on Gmaxx shocks but the handling still feels wallowy as hell! Any ideas and what front shocks ~£120 can you recommend me?
6. 306 1.8 hatch or should I swap to the HDI estate when the clutch is swapped? D:
I havent been on the forum lately so all of these problems have stacked up over the past month or so! thanks. Sam
the way i see it is if you locked up and still went that far then its down to poor contact with the road? maybe let a little air out of tyres?
also if you wanna avoid locking up till you find what it is then i suggest pumping the brakes letting it roll then lock again to save killing rubber
Shit front tyres will do that to you. Get rid of the ditchfinders and buy some proper tyres like Michelin PE2s. Wonder no more.
They will last twice as long as a Toyo and give you twice the grin.
You have ABS, you shouldnt be locking up at all!!
If it was a bigger engined mk4 Golf, they have huge brakes and do stop much quicker than 6's.
No but seriously, they do (once, then they fade pretty bad!), I wouldn't expect a 306 to stop so quick.
Yes your tyres are shit, get some more, BUT as I said the other day, don't expect too much from T1Rs in the wet.
What do you want from the car? Hdi will give better power with a tune and be more economical. But if you like petrol then stick to the 1.8.
As for the rest, gti master cylinder, better tyres but if you have the money get something better than t1r's.
Get Mintex 1144, better than green stuff.
No idea about the clutch.
Omp are good for the struts, not looked at springs in ages but the belsteins upgrades should be good, as would be any of the major manufacturers but I think they might be more than £120.
rear brakes only account for 25%~ of braking so the fault won't really be there, but worth replacing anyway.
the master cylinder on a 6 is 21mm I believe I'll find the post that has it.
thanks guys. Im looking into tyres more and ill keep my eyes open for a GTI6 master cylinder.
also i meant that the ABS kicked in not locking up! Its the same affect of brakes doing their best but not actually stopping!
Phase 3 ABS is always a bit eager I found lol!!
I've never found my Phase 3 ABS eager at all, even with P6000s.
Once you've exceeded the limit of traction with the tyres, you're playing with the friction of the tyre sliding on the road surface... Not much...
At the end of the day, it all comes down to your contact patch on the road... If you've got no grip, you won't stop - simple as.
Heavy cars tend to stop quicker as the grip is superior, look at a Range Rover 5.0 Supercharged - same 0-60 as a Focus ST, HALF the 60-0.... That's down to weight and therefore grip...
Get some DECENT tyres on there, you won't do anything if you've got pizza cutters with budget tyres on... Even with Dunlop SP Sports I've never made my brakes fade on road on just 266 Lucas'....
ABS is simply a computer which continually monitors wheel speeds, if the brake pedal is pressed, it'll monitor the deceleration rate, if it starts decelerating "impossibly" fast as far as the computer is programmed, it'll simply release the brakes and re apply them to try and regain traction, usually ending in it simply locking again... Simple as - if you're cadence braking and you KNOW the limit of grip, there's NO way ABS will stop you faster... Try it - go out and at 50mph smash the brakes on, especially in the grease, you'll feel the car suddenly decelerate and then you'll feel the ABS kick in, it'll make loads of noise and you feel the braking force decrease... All 306 systems as far as I'm concerned are simply dangerous in the majority of instances - sub 50mph on the roads I generally drive on, I'd prefer to have it turned off... It simply releases the brakes too soon, it's tuned only to the OEM tyres and braking system - of course, ABS works best when it reacts as SOON as the wheel starts "locking" decelerating impossibly fast - there's been NUMEROUS advances in tyre technology from 1998 to 2012.... That's 14 years of development in tyre technology, todays tyres don't reach their limit of grip anywhere near as quickly as P6000s did - P6000s were out in the early ninties... The only thing ABS does for you is give you steering, but in the VAST majority of cases where I've needed to stop fast, I just need to stop... There's nowhere you can go, I'd rather have those few extra feet.... It works well in a Motorway environment if people start stopping very quickly, you can swerve into the next lane whilst as hard on the brakes as is possible, but 99% of the time, there's someone else there, you've not got time to swerve whilst on the brakes...
That's my opinion on it all...
(02-09-2012, 04:08 PM)Ruan Wrote: [ -> ]Heavy cars tend to stop quicker as the grip is superior, look at a Range Rover 5.0 Supercharged - same 0-60 as a Focus ST, HALF the 60-0.... That's down to weight and therefore grip...
I agree with pretty much your entire post...but I am confused about this ^^.
I understand that more weight pushes the tyre onto the tarmac and gives more friction.......BUT surely that extra weight creates a lot more momentum than the lighter Focus so takes a lot more to stop it as well??
With the extra weight and momentum of a trailer full of what was essentially rubble on the 106, the braking distance was terrible, it wasnt great as standard, but with all that extra weight it was very noticeably worse. I realise the weight wasnt over the braked wheels, but it still added a lot of momentum to the car.
You can increase the momentum, but if you increase the tyre contact patch to over what you need to overcome that increase in momentum, you have more grip, so therefore, if you put on bigger brakes, apply more torque without locking up = you stop faster...
Basically - more contact patch + more load on the tyres (note: not total weight) = better grip from the tyres = you're able to apply more torque without locking up = bigger brakes are better = shorter stopping distance.
The reason you found the 106 shit was because it had more momentum with no more load over the tyres, the difference would have been negligible, the nose weight of the trailer I can assume would have been nigh on f*ck all - in comparison to a 3 tonne Range Rover.... More Momentum with the same grip levels = greater stopping distance.
Ahh, Ok that makes sense!
right . . . . .
1. . . .the gti6 M/C won't stop the brakes feeling spongy, bleed them up with new fluid,
2. . . . yes change the rear pads.
3 . . . . 23mm is the M/C size . .
4 . . . .get your car up and get a crowbar or similar in to see if your wishbone P bushes have any play in them, could be what's making it feel "wallowy"
5 . . . . .stop fcuking about and get a Dtub . . .