Reply to: RE>Re: I'm Desperate!
On: 5/16/96 brian.evans@quest.ca
>> Dave_Lapham-RMFV10Q@email.sps.mot.com at _internet
>> Date: 5/15/96 9:18 PM
>>
>> Uh, no I'm not racing a VDP Princess, but these are the brakes I have
put
>> on my big Healey.
>>
>> _______________________________________________________________
>> Dave Lapham HEALEY@OAKHILL.sps.mot.com Austin, TX
>> Sometimes I think I'm having fun with my cars ...
>> ... and sometimes I think they're having fun with me !
> Just curious, Dave: why are you running these brakes on a Healy? I
> though the point of vintage racing was running the cars as they came,
> with the original brakes? I'm going to try to get a thread running on
> should we run our production type cars as they were produced, or as they
> were raced, maybe you could comment?
> --
> Brian Evans
> Major Account Manager
> Shaw FiberLink
> (brian.evans@fiberlink.ca)
Austin-Healey 100/6 models were listed in the GCR at the time of
manufacture with disk brakes optional. It was legal, even when the car
was new, to run with disk brakes. My car is a base model without
even wire wheels. Actually, I rather like the bolt on wheels, and
don't want to convert to wires for racing. If I was willing to change
over to wires, I could find disk brake parts easily. There just weren't
many late big Healeys (the ones that had disk brakes) with solid wheels.
Finding an original disk brake setup (Girling) proved difficult. The
one or two that I found were apparently made of solid gold, based on the
asking prices. I ran across the setup from a Vanden Plas Princess (which
is an Austin of England car in reality) which would fit without modification.
The suspension pieces are mostly interchangeable and the steering geometry
is identical to the Healey. The caliper piston sizes are the same, and the
pad area is likewise the same. In short, it seemed like a swap which would
produce the same results as using original pieces.
I don't really support major performance enhancers but, referencing the
SCCA Vintage GCR, this was a legal GCR option when the car was new.
That's my nickels worth . . .
|