Rear disc conversions
Discussion
Hi mini fans, I have a couple of MG midgets which im turbo charging, im wondering if any of you guys have fitted rear discs to your minis and what type of calipers you used, afraid on the MG side there is very little info as to what we could use and the two companys ive found that will do a conversion kit charge close to £500 inc vat which is a little steep in my eyes
Thanks for the help
Thanks for the help
Never worth fitting discs to the rear of a Mini as the fronts do the vast majority of the braking. On some of the racing Minis the rears were blanked off and not used at all, whilst on the rally cars the only use for the rears is for left-foot braking to set the car up sideways on gravel, or for handbrake turning.
I don't know anyone who has fitted discs to the rear. I suspect if you did it could make for a loss of braking stability as if too much pressure was fed to the back the car it would tend to lock-up the rears, whilst if an acceptable pressure were selected, the discs would not get warm enough, especially in the wet, and could 'grab' somewhat. I'm only guessing there though.
With a Midget or Sprite, the rears do much more work. Why not give Brown & Gammons a call in Baldock to see if they can help.
Alternatively, the earlier suggestion that you look at some current small cars to see what they use. For example, what does the MG ZR 1.4 use?
I don't know anyone who has fitted discs to the rear. I suspect if you did it could make for a loss of braking stability as if too much pressure was fed to the back the car it would tend to lock-up the rears, whilst if an acceptable pressure were selected, the discs would not get warm enough, especially in the wet, and could 'grab' somewhat. I'm only guessing there though.
With a Midget or Sprite, the rears do much more work. Why not give Brown & Gammons a call in Baldock to see if they can help.
Alternatively, the earlier suggestion that you look at some current small cars to see what they use. For example, what does the MG ZR 1.4 use?
Well, I didn't know anything about the KAD kit.
I can't se you would gain much as it's the front brakes that give the problems with fade that I sometimes get.
Now that I've discovered carbon-metallic pads I don't have fade or high wear-rate problems. However, I don't think there are any carbon-metallic pads available for cars with the 8.4" discs rather than the 7.5" Cooper 'S' ones, unless anyone knows better?
I can't se you would gain much as it's the front brakes that give the problems with fade that I sometimes get.
Now that I've discovered carbon-metallic pads I don't have fade or high wear-rate problems. However, I don't think there are any carbon-metallic pads available for cars with the 8.4" discs rather than the 7.5" Cooper 'S' ones, unless anyone knows better?
it is very unstable 2 fit rear discs to a car that was made without and the pressures are all wrong a mate of mine had um fitted 2 a 106 and was crusing along the motorway some1 cut him up he applied the brakes and the back instantly skipped out as a result he nearly died after the car ended up in a crah barrier
jeffriesmullet said:
it is very unstable 2 fit rear discs to a car that was made without and the pressures are all wrong a mate of mine had um fitted 2 a 106 and was crusing along the motorway some1 cut him up he applied the brakes and the back instantly skipped out as a result he nearly died after the car ended up in a crah barrier
TBH mate, sounds like he had his brake balance set up wrong - after he switch to rear disks he should have set the bias to be more towards the front to account for the greater efficiency of disks over the original drums, i.e. the rear disks were applying too much pressure, hence they locked up - a simple brake bias adjustment would have prevented this.
Nevertheless, your mate's is a very serious example of why you should be very careful when messing about with the brakes...
plotloss said:
You can get carbon metallic for the 4 pot iron metro fitment.
You can also get Kevlar EBC pads for the Mini 8.4"
There is also something about Mintex making carbon metallic for 8.4" Mini but I cant find much...
Maybe I'll call Mintex Tech Support Dept for some advice.
I don't think EBC would be up to the job as I can fade Mintex 1155's, which are up-spec from EBC, quite easily on tarmac tests/stages and their 'bite' when cold is not good either - so they give the worst of both worlds! Some people reckon they're great, but they don't work for me. The regs only allow standard calipers and discs, but pad material and fluid (AP600 is what I use) are free.
Thanks for that.
Peter
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