Front brake cooling

[john.p.clegg]

Me again
Just have a little time on my hands and was wondering about extra cooling for the front brakes on the plus2...any experience.....any comments....any ideas...anyone done it....any photos.

Will it be the calipers or the discs that need the "extra air-flow" or both???

John

[rgh0]

Take off the brake back plate and mount the duct tp feed air into the general area of the brake and calliper. It does not matter much were you put the air versus just the right and best place to run the duct I think.

The S4 Seven my friend runs has much cooler brakes its lighter weight will help but having the wheels and brakes in the open I am sure helps a large amount so just getting a better air flow into the area will help

cheers
Rohan

[alan.barker]

Me again
Just have a little time on my hands and was wondering about extra cooling for the front brakes on the plus2...any experience.....any comments....any ideas...anyone done it....any photos.

Will it be the calipers or the discs that need the "extra air-flow" or both???

John

why extra cooling are you only doing trackdays

[john.p.clegg]

no,just too much time on my hands..

John

[Spyder fan]

Cross drilled and grooved discs help with fade / cooling issues, Kelvedon show them on their website http://www.kelsport.net/parts/products. ... ectionID=2

Updated calipers are available as well, all this stuff is okay for a road car doing occasional track days, probably not acceptable for race cars as most formulas have strict rules on brakes.

[elansprint71]

Cleggy,
Don't forget that if you do remove the back-plate and drive in the rain (normal round our way, innit?) that your front brakes will not work for the first few yards, so make allowances! Don't ask me how I know.

I imagine that this situation will never arise in a race, unless you are at Le Mans or maybe Bathurst, because you'll be braking frequently.

[Andy8421]

If you do remove the backplate and track the car, you will cook the rubber on the end of the steering arm balljoint with heat radiated from the disc. I believe the 26R had steering rod ends with metal covers rather that the usual rubber to avoid this problem.

[oldchieft]

Morgans never had back plates and i never heard of any wet weather or heat problems.

Jon the Chief

[rgh0]

I melted / burnt the rubber seals on the tie rod ends on my Elan on the track a few years ago. But the brakes are getting much much hotter than they ever would on the road. The last set I put on seem to have seals of a different material and they have not melted or shown any problems from heat from the disks

cheers
Rohan

[TroonSprint]

Don't forget that if you do remove the back-plate and drive in the rain (normal round our way, innit?) that your front brakes will not work for the first few yards, so make allowances!

My MGB V8 with uprated brakes has no back plates on the discs. I have driven it over 20,000 miles in rain, ice and snow (I live in Scotland!) and have never had a problem with the brakes not working properly because of water on the disc. I'm not saying it can't happen, but It has never happened to me.

Mike

[nmauduit]

here is what I did for the occasional track day run :

air duct welded to dust shield

fresh air from below the radiator

steering locked to the left

steering locked to the right

[john.p.clegg]

COOL , as they say these days...

John

[Bigbaldybloke]

On a similar vein, has anyone fitted ventilated front discs on their road going plus 2 and if so what and how have they done it. I?ve seen kits to widen the Girling type 16 calipers to accommodate the wider ventilated discs and I?ve also found kits intended for Triumph GT6/Vitesse/TR to fit complete replacement alloy calipers and ventilated discs but not sure if they are compatible with Lotus knock on wheels?

[Foxie]

On a similar vein, has anyone fitted ventilated front discs on their road going plus 2 and if so what and how have they done it.

I converted to full set of Sierra hubs with vented front discs from Spyder Zetec. Expensive, as I had to order modded drive shafts and change the wheels to suit, but absolutely no problem brakes now on circuit racing

(I kept the Lotus h/brake system, just modded the tree to match the Sierra h/brake height)

[Bigbaldybloke]

I wanted to keep knock on wheels rather than change hubs uprights etc. Ventilated discs fitted to existing uprights with modified type 16 calipers seems the simplest way to get brakes with better cooling, just need to work out the right combination of parts and what if any machining is required to get it all working.