Re: [alfa] Racing With Alfetta Brakes

[Richard Welty <rwelty@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sun, 17 Oct 2004 21:11:40 EDT Alfajgt1@domain.elided wrote:
> A few years ago, Montreal brakes were legal on 1974  GTVs competing in SCCA's 
> Improved Touring class.

hmm. i'm very doubtful about this. i've been fairly familiar with IT rules
since about 1992 and i'm not aware of any alternate calipers or rotors
being permitted for any car, it's not in keeping with the spirit of IT
rules.
 
> Just curious, but aren't carbon kevlar brake pads with proper ducting  
> adequate? 

ducting is a bit more work in IT because of constraints on bodywork
modifications. additionally, correctly ducting a solid rotor takes a bit
more fabrication work than ducting to a vented rotor where you can
just point the hose at the center of the rotor and be done with it.

> A quick visit to Porterfield's website _http://www.porterfield-brakes.com_ 
> (http://www.porterfield-brakes.com)  gave  me this quote:
>  
> "The Porterfield R-4 Carbon Kevlar pads have a unique, integrally molded  
> ceramic heat shield designed specifically to minimize heat transfer in high  
> temperature applications keeping caliper temperature at proper levels." 

i'm interested in switching to these, and probably will when the car returns to
the track. i just put a set of Porterfield R4S pads in my 74 GTV courtesy of
Performatek (a digest advertiser) and after two days of operation, i'm fairly
positive about them. the R4S is the dual purpose street/track version of
the R4 race pad. my capsule review: once bedded in (i went out and did
a whole bunch of stops from 40mph), i found that while the onset wasn't
as crisp and sharp as the onset with the ereminas semi-metallics i'm used
to, once they engaged, they sure stopped the car nicely.

the pad material is also thinner than with the ereminas pads, so if a stainless
shim were needed, it could be a bit thicker than the standard anti-squeal
shim.

> If all else fails, I remember years ago, reading of a then-famous driver at  
> Sebring being told to save his brakes during the race. He did, and his lap 
> times  improved by several seconds per lap; so maybe a combination of fixes would 
> get  the desired effect.

my observation from my many years of doing 10 bmw style driving schools a year
in my milano was this:

it's easy to tell the difference between an intermediate and an advanced driver.
an intermediate driver has learned how to destroy his brakes. an advanced driver
has learned how to not destroy his brakes, and to go faster while not destroying
them.

unfortunately, the alfetta put the lie to this, at least with respect to me. i never
had much brake trouble with the milano at watkins glen, but halfway through
a 12 lap sprint in the ITB alfetta, my fluid would reliably boil. it never did that
at new hamster, which is interesting, since many tell me that NHIS is tough
on brakes. i never had that experience.

richard
-- 
Richard Welty                                         rwelty@domain.elided
Averill Park Networking                                         518-573-7592
    Java, PHP, PostgreSQL, Unix, Linux, IP Network Engineering, Security
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