j9fd3s

paul had a "kit" to put fc front calipers on the rear. theres a guy in south america running it. we also had a dual master cylinder kit with balance bar, and the willwood front kit.



the front kit requires a custom rotor hat, so its not available.

the dual master kit, is a bracket which he's got but you need to come up with the rest of the stuff yourself. and i dunno about the rear kit

jefraney

j9, how did he overcome the e-brake?



You could always convert your car to a hydrolic e-brake, but then its not much of an emergency brake.



I have pondered doing just that, so you could make the e-brake electric, and then have a trigger, lets say on your shifter, so while drifting, you would never have to let go of the shifter.

Cheers!

Because there is nothing to debate about between autozone crap dot 3 vs dot 4 race fluid like ATE super blue, Motul RBF600, Wilwood Hi Temp, etc etc... People who argue that dot 3 is fine blah blah blah obviously haven't tried the higher rated stuff.



I have considered making my own duct adapter plate to teh back of the heat sheild and run aluminum hose to teh front of the nose. It's hard to route the hose since the suspension moves up and down, and you have to turn the front wheels left and right without the wheel catching on the hose and ripping it off.



I have bled my brakes at teh track before. Inbetween runs I have bled the valvoline dot 3, the wheel is so hot you need gloves to undo the lug nuts, the plastic clear hose melts on the bleeding nipple. then I switched to bleeding in the evenings in the parking lot of the motel to get ready for the next day's racing when i used the ford heavy duty stuff. Now I just use ATE super blue and it's good for the whole solo1 time trial season with daily driving teh car 75% of the sunny days during the summer. ATE Super blue is about 16 bucks a litre. 1 Litre will completely bleed you system. Ford Dot 3 from ford dealership is 4.50 for 1/2 quart or 1/2 litre. brake fluid is nasty crap and you ned to find ways to dispose of it properly. Hence the switch to ATE. bleeding yuor brakes while everything is almost glowing red is no fun at all.



Yuo want the smallest brakes as possible since you want them to come up to temp as quick as possible on the street and on your warm up lap. You want to reduce unsprung weight, as well as decrease your rotational inertial. Bigger disc = rotational kinetic engergy which you too have to overcome. It is no different then light weight flywheels. Light weight flywheels = less energy from engine used to spin it up and downt he revs. With smaller discs you are too decreasing the rotational inertia. Remember there are two forces on the brakes you need to consider.



1.) weight (force due to mass). You want to maximize your suspensions reaction to changes (aka maximize acclerations).



2.) a heavy spining disc takes more to slow it down, and it also has a gyroscopic effect. Similar to a motorcycle, if you go fast and you want to turn it doesn't want to lean, you gotta force it to lean and it will aways want to pull itself uprigth again. Imagine that on yuor steering system, your wheels, your tires... it all adds up.



mazda designed a very nice braking system for FCs with 4 pots and FDs from the factory. It's better than almost any production car in the late 80s and all through the 90s.

fc3sboy1

very interesting on the idea of a ebrake franey. but for my needs mechanical is just fine. i do not wish to drift unless its by mistake. maybe a drum type ebrake but then an aluminum hat rotor is out the the question and on the drive wheels i prefur to stay as light as posible. the frount is ok as they are not the drive wheel.



maybe for all of you drifters out there can work on a electornic e-brake solinod brake system,,,,,,,, wonder if anyone else ever thought about that? anyways thanks for the tips on where to go to find bbk or even info on them but i have desided on wich frount caliper and rotor i will be needing and wich pad well thats a whole new story there.



thanks , randy

fc3sboy1

again cheers good points, and yes for the average car the brakes on the mazda are top notch for there time, this is now year 2005 , damn near 06 and technolagy has come a long way. so what i am saying why not update and improove for the modern times.



mazda is good but good also means there is better.

jefraney

I cant think of any cars off the top of my head that have a drum e-brake and rotor. I can think of trucks that have that system. The Ford Explorer has that setup.

fc3sboy1

mazda milenia has that type of brake , and the 240sx has it as well atleast the early ones did.

Cheers!

Braking design hasn't changed much. How much better can you do over a 4 piston, aluminum fixed caliper that mazda designed? The only changes in technology has been ABS and pad formulation.



FWIW, lightweight 4 piston fixed aluminum calipers with discs came from the aircraft industry back in the late 60s and early 70s. Lockheed was a major supplier of brake components for race teams. AP racing = lockheed. (lockheed before it is now known as lockheed martin).

Cheers!

those apexi drift cars use the same method WRC cars use. They mount a single piston master cylinder inside the car activated by a long lever, and the ebrake is then powered via a seperate master cylinder, with seperate braking fluid. Completely seperate system. You could put a valve where the hydrualic pressure is not released for parking use I guess...

jefraney

So when they hit the brake, its only the front that is getting any braking since the "e-brake" is now hydraulic since it was the front caliper?



Here is a pic of the RE kit for the FC. Man this thing is awesome looking.