Brakes.

[Steve Webb]

As I seem to be messing around with brakes a lot at the moment, I thought I'd get other peoples opinions on the various types of brakes out there.

Ignoring vented vs solid discs, what are peoples views on grooved discs, drilled discs and grooved and drilled discs.

Personally I've only ever used grooved discs, as I have heard bad things about drilled discs in the past.

Also, just for completeness what people think about std vs braided brake hoses?

:thumb:

[Varypodaros]

I have the std brake hoses on mine and a friend has the same car with braided ones. had a ride with his and I am looking to buy a kit for mine.
in 155 with 267mm brake discs, it is a very good upgrade. it has much better feel.

[Brul(tm)]

Braided brake hoses are a good upgrade that you could notice.
The pedal is "harder". Keep in mind to do all the hoses ;)

About the drilled and grooved disc's. I have used both.
The grooved disc wheren't up for the job and had cracks across the disc's.
Now I have drilled disc's and the last longer than the grooved disc's I had before. Both with EBC red stuff pads. At the rear I still have the grooved disc's with standard pads. No problems at all.

[abarth 22]

a have braided all hoses, and standard discs 310mm with 159 4 piston calipers and standard ATE pads on my Q4, I didn't try it yet becouse I'm waiting for brackets. I heard drilled disc cracks...

[Steve Webb]

I've heard about problems with drilled discs and cracks before, not with grooved though.

I need replacement discs all round for the GTV, and the only 'performance' ones I've seen are both drilled and grooved. Its a pretty light car so I guess the brakes won't be under that much stress.

I'll be fitting a full set of braided hoses as well.

[Brul(tm)]

Posted it before, here is a picture of the front disc
http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n288/BrulTM/Alfa%20155%20Q4%20repair/Overheated%20brake%20discs/IMG_5735.jpg

[Steve Webb]

Is that a tarox g88 disc?

[wrinx]

Afraid I wouldn't touch grooved or drilled discs again for two reasons; firstly they both have a reputation for cracking and secondly, they're bloody noisy!

...and thirdly, they're usually much more expensive :)

wrinx

[abarth 22]

...and eat your pads much more I belive

[wrinx]

Yes, not sure about the drilled discs but grooved discs certainly do.

wrinx

[Brul(tm)]

Is that a tarox g88 disc?

Yes it is Steve.


Afraid I wouldn't touch grooved or drilled discs again for two reasons; firstly they both have a reputation for cracking and secondly, they're bloody noisy!

...and thirdly, they're usually much more expensive :)

wrinx

The noise wasn't that bad, though people on the street sometimes looked strange when braking very hard :lol-030:

And yes those grooved disc's eat pads.

I was very happy with the grooved disc's until they cracked.
In the future I am going to try them again, but this time with air ducting to cool the brakes.

[Steve Webb]

I'll probably end up going for the drilled/grooved set for the GTV as they aren't that much more expensive than the standard ones. And the standard ones are non-vented and pretty thin.

Still time to change my mind as these are still a little way down the shopping list.

[Tamael]

One should keep in mid to mout the grooved disks the right way around. have seen plenty guys that had them mounted the wrong way around wich in turn caused heat buildup en exesive noise.

And drilled disks crack easyer. specially when suffering from cold shock. (driving trough water with hot disks.

I keep stock disks since i dont do circuit driving and they sufice for road conditions.

Tamael

[Alfa Patch]

I have run grooved discs on lots of cars mainly without issue. The only problem I have ever had was when I put some on backwards on a Fiat Cinquecento. That resulted in complete brake fade very suddenly. It didn't crack the discs but the pads were toast.

I'm surprised that the tarox cracked, I have always highly rated them and they're too expensive to justify failing under normal operating conditions.

From my experience I would go grooved

[Speedy]

I`ve found the grooved discs on the Q4 are noisy

[Steve Webb]

Been a while on this one, I've gone for standard solid rear disks for now, I figure the car is light enough that they won't be doing that much work anyway.
I'm being messed around on the front disks and pads, they were ordered ages ago now and still haven't been dispatched.
Luckily the money for them hasn't left my account either.

[corriedw]

Before I lived on a farm, doing a short distance dirt road every day. I found even the standard discs had surface cracks due to heat on one side. The dust clogg the bit where the caliper float on the mounting, resulting in too much pressure on one side.

I do not have experience with drilled discs on Alfas, but on bikes had no problem. They displace water well in rain.

With grooved discs on the Alfa(3 grooves per side), they were noisy initially, then I stopped noticing, maybe I just got used to it. But they made a big difference when using hard pads, which were scealing a lot when you brake softly. Suddenly the scealing stopped, I assume the grooves scraped the glaced surface of the hard pad. I believe the pad will then not last as long, but did keep record.

I fitted braided hoses which worked well on the Alfa, but on the bike they caused the brakes to be very sharp, it lost the modulation, which easily caused lock up when riding slowly or in the wet.