Hi list,
It was early this morning when I got to bed so don't have time to really give
this subject justice so this will have to do for now.
1. The 1500 is heavier than all the other Spridgets and the brakes are
different uniquely in having different rear cylinder sizes.
2. In my earlier points about the effect of the different cylinder sizes I
might be wrong because I neither checked whether there were bigger or smaller
let alone whether that made the back brakes work harder or not.
3. Because the 1500 weighs more the brakes have more work to do period. I
don't hold much value in a comparasion with a racing Spridget and have in the
past made the point about racing cars never stopping during a race unless they
hit something so there is a huge debate around whether a road car or racing
car works the brakes the hardest. There is no comparable data on this point so
we can agree to differ. A reference weight for the 1500 might be somewhat
shocking (don't see to many on the race track).
4. I realised a long time ago that I must drive harder and brake later than
most people that race Sprites at speeds just as fast (I run a 5 speed box on
a 3.9 diff) and brake to lower speeds and even sometimes to a stop. HOWEVER,
this is just me and my arguments make allowances for that.
5. There is debate around the whole wording of adequate and braking. I have
a view on this (see item 4) but don't rely it but rather simple physics that
the front brakes do most of the braking and that a 1500 Midget front brakes
have to work harder than other Spridgets because they weigh more and under
braking weight transfer is foward. I don't buy into the the harder front
springs
argument though it was an interesting point - the weight transfer is a matter
of physics - all stiffer springs might do is reduce the nose dipping as much
and in any case the ride height is bigger.
6. All that stuff on rear cylinder sizes I don't think this is boyles law,
points well made though you have to come back to the all up weight of the car
and forward weight transfer.
7. Brake fade whether fluide fade or friction fade is not a complaint
Anthony originally made so I think it can be discarded on the basis that from
the
word go the car took a lot of stopping not that at first it braked ok and then
the pedal did this or that of felt like this or that.
8. I still think that if Anthony is used to Servoed/power boost brakes he
might just not be used to really standing on the pedal. At Sprite Spree it
took
me nearly all the time I was there to realise that the brakes on Franks A40,
even with all my family in it (oh and that one time with Mike Weeks, Alan and
a third person I forget (this is a lot of guys !!!) braked just fine and that
it had simply been a decade since I last drove a car with no power/servo
assist (I have a Servo on my Sprite).
9. No further comment on discs at the rear!!
10. A point about pedal pressure is that swapping slaves and masters doesn't
give you everthing but you can have a harder or softer pedal and you can have
longer or shorter travel but I don't think you get a softer shorter pedal -
too late for me to check this stuff but you get my drift. Also the
crank/leverage of the 1500 (and some 1275s) is different from the earlier cars.
11. I don't think I said that upgrading was a must or that the problem was
poor maintenance (also see item 8) what I do say is that whatever else the
brakes on the 1500 have to work harder simply because the car weighs more than
any
of the other cars by a significant amount.
That's it for now, got stuff to do!
Daniel1312 - I brake harder.
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