UPGRADING BRAKES ON V8 - OPtions for upgrading my brakes

G

gully

New Member
Hi there,

As part of the ongoing modification to my 1976 3500 P6 I would like to consider upgrading the brakes so that they will better handle my engine upgrade that will add a significant amount of additional power to my car.

I would appreciate advice on what others have done to significantly upgrade their brakes on the V8 model.

Thanks


GULLY (In Sydney)
 
Mintex pads or greenstuff perhapse?

Do they make them for the P6?
Anyway... I found the brakes on my V8 to be outstanding. One piece of advice I will give you is to take everything back to factory fresh standard. Renew EVERYTHING you can do this quite cheaply.
Comparing old worn out original items to brand new alegedly uprated stock is neither fair nor realistic.
9 times out of 10 new factory standard is enough.
 
Technically you don't need bigger brakes just for an increase in power, unless you have significantly increased to weight of the car.
What you will need is additional brake cooling as you may be braking from higher speeds, or more often if the vehicle accelerates quicker (i.e. shorter cooling time between each brake application).
As JC says, get everything spot on first, see how it goes, then you could start with cooling ducts and hose piping air from the front of the car to the brakes. Next would be higher temp pads like greenstuff etc, then you would want to consider a vented disc upgrade, not sure if you can get these for the P6, I believe Chris York has been working on some serious brakes, hopefully he'll chip in soon.
 
Rossini supply drilled and grooved discs that fit (via Classic Car Parts) but they will not improve normal braking performance and are noisy!
Beechgrove Engineering can do a big brake upgrade for front and rear - contact ALan on 07774 808261). :p
 
What is all this nonsense about brakes? The brakes on a Rover P6 are more than adequate if correctly maintained. How fast do you want to go? the NZ open road limit is 100kmh. Penalties for exceeding this vary. the minimum penalty is at least $160 and it goes up at a rapid rate according to your speed. this includes having your car (and your licence) lost for 28 days and you have to pay hefty storage charges to get it back. If what I see on TV, i am surprised that you are able to achieve 100kmh. UK roads seem to be perpetually clogged (when you can see them) through the rain and fog.
Comments are welcome.
 
From what I've seen on TV your road traffic laws are better implemented than over here. Not just reliant on speed cameras etc

It's not always wet and foggy over here, the days of London being permanently shrouded in fog are long gone.

One of my neighbours from NZ says the weather over there is a bit depressing!

But let's not start any controversy in the season of goodwill ,
 
Hi Has anybody Looked into jensen Interceptor Discs Vented & Calipers. Calipers Same As P6 But Wider For Vented Disc I Know The Stud Pattern Is The Same.I Have A Chap Up My Workshop Who Restores Jensens Who Has Commented How Similar The Front Brakes Are On My P6.
 
Thanks for the comments guys............I do not want to drive my car any faster....I just want to have the ability to stop a little bit better.
 
Thinking slightly latterally, I think the best upgrade would be better/bigger tyres. A modern car of similar weight and performance to a P6 would have at least 195 section tyres. I've always found the P6 locks wheels quite easily, a tyre upgrade would help.
 
I can relate to this...

I just put the winter wheels on my MG. Gone from 5.5J to 6.5J I havent locked up once yet.
 
Winter tyres would have a narrower section for more pressure to bite into the snow/ice
Look at rally cars - fat tyres with no tread for when it's dry , narrow tyres with tread and studs for ice
I think JC might have spent summer on his winter tyres !
 
My comments about the English weather have made a fool of me. Xmas in NZ this year will be marred by rain and cold, with snow in the high country in the North Island and down to a "low level" in the South Island. remember, this is the middle of summer and we usually have temperatures between 25 and 30 for days. There will not be very much cold ale consumed and the P6 will probably remain in the garage, used only by the two cats who insist in sleeping in it.
 
Hi chaps - Happy New Year!

Been at home in Thailand with a duff internet connection over Xmas / New Year - the new ADSL arrived on the day I came back (yep - thats right, ADSL Broadband in a small rural village in Thailand!).

This topic has been reasonably well covered before - try the search facility for previous offerings.

Comment 1 is spot on - overhaul everything (inc servo and master cyl) to new condition! When overhauling the calipers, first check for wear in the pad aperture (allowing the pad to rattle about). If bad keep buying calipers off scrappers until you get an acceptable one. You are also likely to want to have the bores of the pistons treated - either by chroming, nicasil etc and to use a higher quality piston - stainless steel or chrome. Opinion seems pretty divided over the best combination - but standard definitely isn't it!

If still not satisfied then a pad upgrade to Green Stuff pads for the front discs is sensible (not available for the rears). They are Kevlar based which gives great fade resistance with a reasonably soft (= responsive) pad. However they do gas under brake load more than asbestos based pads and therefore tend to "float" on a standard disc. It's therefore a good idea to fit grooved discs at the same time - the grooves allow the gases to vent out from under the pad. My instinct would be to get a set of new standard discs grooved - I prefer multi groove (say 20 ish) over 6 or 8 groove. The Rossini discs referred to are also drilled which is completely pointless with a solid disc (with a vented disc the drillings allow the gasses to escape to the centre vent) and also introduces fracture sites.

If really keen then there is an established conversion for the fronts to space out the existing calipers to accept a bespoke vented disc - same comments re pads and grooves as above.

The real issue is the back brakes, which in my view fail primarily on grounds of chronic (by modern standards) unreliability. There is a conversion to use Sierra Cosworth calipers and vented discs. I may well be going to be the victim to debug this for a road car - Its currently only been used on racers. Potential pitfalls are a much larger pad area than the standard brakes plus marginally greater piston area. We propose to tackle this by using Red Stuff pads (very hard - so lower brake effect for the same pedal pressure - plus very good heat resisitance to cope with the poor cooling of inboard brakes) and an adjustable brake pressure limiter for the rear circuit.

By the time all that's in place you'll definitely need bigger tyres to cope with putting the extra braking power down to the road! The P6 V8 will wear 205/65 X 15's but only if you get the wheel offset right - see my previous threads about modifiying SD1 Vitesse wheels to suit.

Chris
 
I struggled to get the correct front pads in South Africa and eventually ended up fitting 3 liter Cortina pick-up pads. The hole that the retaining pin goes through needs to be opened up a tad, but the pads themselves were identical but harder compound and they have been great so far.
 
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