We noticed you've been away Roy, kind of quiet here without you you know...
Have you ever seen a brake conversion done on the Murena by the way?
Quiet - it's always so busy here, I wonder you guys have time to work! :-)
Brake conversion on a Murena? How do you mean - any conversion? The only one I know of was Graham Pryme's car, which he was using for sprinting a year or two back. But IMHO it was not good, certainly not for the average owner and a road car. He had changed the front calipers for some from a Volvo I think and the rears came from a Cossy Sierra IIRC and since the balance was not right he had removed the front/rear limiter valve and substituted a manual one he could adjust by trial and error! The calipers needed more fluid than the master cylinder could deliver with a normal pedal movement, so the result was a very long pedal for normal braking giving little reserve for problems! As I said - not good...
Especially when you consider that if you have a good standard system with uprated pads like the EBC Kevlar ones, plus Aeroquip hoses and DOT 5 or 5.1 fluid, you have a superb set of brakes that are well balanced front to rear, and can lock all four wheels on standard tyres. To get any better braking you need more grip, not better brakes. I wouldn't want to play around with modifying mine from standard as it would be very difficult to get as good a system as the one provided by Matra. You may not like the rear calipers because they have been badly overhauled, or never overhauled at all, and are therefore sticking due to the corrosion and/or poor workmanship; but if they are overhauled properly to bring them back to standard there is little wrong with them.
The same designs slightly updated have been used on many newer cars and they still deteriorate, corrode and seize up, so nothing has changed! Many new small cars have changed to rear discs when they would have been better off left with drums. These modern small cars are all front wheel drive and light at the back, so they don't need rear discs. They don't need much rear braking, and discs get under-used and deteriorate even more. Drums are fine for the amount they need. But marketing says you must have rear discs to be 'in'! It's all bullshit!
The Murena being mid-engined, and much heavier at the rear can use more rear braking, and the rear discs are better in this application as they get heavier use. But those provided can more than do the job.
Roy
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