Fast Marina Magazine

I don't know if this topic has been touched on before?

But has anyone fitted performance crossed drilled or slotted brake discs and performance pads to their Marina or Ital,from makers such as of Tar-ox or Brembo?

I have tried all the standard competition motor factors pads in the past,and not been too impressed with any of them (and i still prefer traditional asbestos over the new brake friction compounds) but have never had dealings with the REAL after market competition stuff and i was wondering if any forum member had done a version of a drilled or slotted brake disc or fitted Tar-ox discs and pads or any similar products?

I seem to think i have a pattern to do a "home made" cross drilled version brake disc,a sheet of paper of sorts that was stuck on to the disc to be used and you simply follow the marks and drill accordingly with a predetermined drill bit and a pillar drill.

I would be interested to hear your experiences.

Russ

Beckett Bros "breaking up is hard to do" :roll:

Hi Russ,

I have stayed away from special pads and disks with grooves or holes in, based on experience of various friends and from the reports on http://www.pistonheads.co.uk/gassing/ .

A mate had grooved and holely disks on an Audi, the brakes worked well but he went through a set of pads every 6 weeks and had permanently black wheels from the dust, evidently the grooves and holes act as cutting edges and skim a fine layer of pad material with each application. That's why when I upgraded to the vented disks I have on now, I bought plain ones rather than the grooved jobbies.

The only consistently positive comments I have heard about pads are for Mintex 1144 pads and Ferodo 2500 (I think). Pagid, Hawk, EBC etc. seem to have a negative report for every positive report.

Mintex 1144 pads are available for the Girling Type 14 LF, I don't know about Ferodo.

As a first move to better braking, I personally would fit braided stainless steel flexi hoses, you really need these before you will get the best out of pads and disks and I found when I fitted some they make quite a contribution on their own, the resulting firmer pedal is very confidence inspiring. marinamadbaz was advertising braided hoses for the Marina/Ital some time back, I don't know whether he has any left.

I bought some Greenstuff pads some years ago for the standard brakes, which you (or anyone reading) can have for £20 plus postage () cost £34.00) - still in their box unopened and never used - PM me.

Ay up Chris,

Thanks for your reply,and it's enough to put me off going down the road of crossed drilled or slotted discs and any form of competition brake pads,be they the bought variety or the home made type with two dozen badly drilled out of sequence holes in varying size (a consequence of drill breakage and lack of sharpness diminishes your drill collection) and not being a fan of brake dust,i have fitted backing discs to try and eliminate this problem on aftermarket alloy wheels but although it dose cut down the amount of dust it doesn't stop it all together,so this problem will be at least many times worse.

To be honest "Nell" the pick-up is pretty good in standard form on the breaking side,with her being a MK3 she has a dual circuit system and the larger rear drums that do make a large difference over standard drums,so at this stage i'll stick with what i've got.

Well thanks again always wondered about them,and now i know.

Russ

Beckett Bros "i wanna break free" :roll:

I also found this on a web forum - home made holely disks definitely a no-no.

"Although I can't speak to these specific rotors, a common complaint with drilled rotors is squealing. Also, rotors that were cast as solid rotors, then drilled after the fact are prone to cracking around the holes. Factory drilled rotor like the Brembos that Porsche uses are actually cast with the holes in them, then drilled to just clean up the holes. By casting with the holes in place, the grain of the metal goes around the hole avoiding the stress concentration caused by drilling through the continuous metal grain."

I have 'home-made' cross-drilled discs on the GT and EBC Greenstuff pads. I used brand new discs but once fitted, bedded them in gently over 500 miles, then fitted the EBC, another 500 miles then caned the ar53 out of it round Snetterton on a track day. Three years on, the same pads were still in and the discs were still OK, despite some 'emergency stop' type driving experiences. They also ran cleaner, with less crap on the wheels.
Any brake pad will virtually disintegrate if not bedded in properly (I killed a set on my Special in 150 miles once....) but people aren't taught this nowadays and of course, every time the pad wear out they have to buy new ones.... not that I'm cynical, of course!

Hi chris
im running standard marina brakes on all of my cars appart from as you mentioned stainless steel braided hoses.
my everyday marina has braided hoses just on the front making a vast improvement on braking and pedal feel(spongy brake feel dissappeared)
my other marina has has braided hoses all the way round front and back.the brake pedal is very keen with hardly any free play good but the brakes are working before the brake light switch is working you only have to touch the pedal they are that keen.
Both these cars have had the calipers rebuilt,no pistons and seals and the back brakes are adjusted up properly,wheel cylinders free to slide up and down,shoes correctly adjusted etc etc this makes a big difference again to pedal feel and i would recommend making sure that the brakes are overhauled to their best before fitting braided hoses so you get the best brakes you can.
i was thinking about trying greenstuff pads but im told you have to get the brakes hot before these work to thier best and im not sure that these are suitable,i dont want any of my cars running into the back of anybody.
I do still have some new braided hoses here if anybody intrested.
Best regards
Barry

I used 2 different brake setups on my old Maestro with DS2500 & M1144 pads on MG Monty Turbo discs. Loved the M1144's as they wore well and did'nt destroy discs. The DS2500's probably had better ultimate stopping power but were harder on discs. Both were a world away from the standard brakes which were fade-tastic in almost all conditions.. :roll:

On the Alfas, I used DS2500's for a while but was going through discs at a rate of a front pair every 6,00 miles so I bit the bullet and went to larger diameter / thicker discs with Willwood 4 pot calipers and willwood polymatrix road rally pads. These took all sorts of abuse including quite a few laps of the Nurburgring..

On my current daily driver, a 155 V6, I swapped the front brakes from 284/22mm discs to 305/28mm discs and used Brembo 4 pots off a 156GTA with M1144 pads and grooved discs. The bite with this setup along with a tweeked rear bias valve and braided hoses all round has to be felt to be believed. One thing to note is that I normally use DOT5 fluid and ran out while replacing some rear brake pipes just before going on a driving weekend to the lake district. I used DOT4 to get me going which was fine but on one quite spirited downhill run towards Conniston water, the brake fluid boiled even with this setup.. :shock: I currently have a set of drilled and grooved replacements waiting for these as after 8K miles, they're a bit shagged.

My summary is there's always a good reason to upgrade brakes as most standard setup, especially in the 70's, were based on cost over performance.

Wee piccy of the current setup on the V6.