Hello all, finally the car is back on the road after many months of dragging my heals doing the brake upgrade.
Having previously thought that the standard brakes were 'ok' for lightly spirited driving I became aware that really they are only ok for driving your gran to the shops and back.
So new and better brakes were required. I bought the car with 18's on it and they suit it, at least I think so, so I decided to max out on the size.
I was aiming for the RS4 8 pots with 365 discs, I found a chap in Germany doing brackets too but the cost of these is high and the cost of new discs etc is just crazy. So whilst trawling ebay I found a set of Volkswagen racing 4 pots form a MK5 Gti kit. The specs are a 4 pot calliper with a pad per piston and a set of 356mm two piece discs which were 5x112.
Although dirty the kit looked ok so It was mine, here is where the fun begins. The parts were in very bad condition, much worse than described. Seized pistons, very patchy paint, duff bleed nipples, missing bits and a pair of discs that looked more like they belonged on a record player. First step was a bath in the dishwasher.
The kit was made by a company in Japan called Project Mu for Volkwagen racing and it was short lived as an option for the Mk5. Volkwagen racing basically didn't know what it was and UK based references to Project Mu are not around every corner so information on the callipers and part numbers for seals etc all very thin on the ground.
Luckily I found a chap called Simon at Hendy Ford in Southampton and a PDF of the parts for the callipers after much work on Google. As it turns out the Project Mu stuff is big in Japan and Simon is importing stuff in a big way for the ricer crowd who by the sounds of it see this stuff as rare and hence desirable. A quick phone call and all the bits were on order from japan via his contact in Australia.
Discs are £180 each new and pads £130 a set so not too expensive replace.
Next up was stripping the callipers for repair and repainting.
For the rears I went with a standard proven option with 996 rear callipers and 330mm S4 discs with mechanical rear callipers.
Callipers from ebay and brackets from VRS. All very easy on the rear.
So with all the bits for the front I needed custom brake lines and some bespoke brackets.
The brackets take a bit of tweaking and work but a friendly machine shop got them all sorted.
For the custom lines I ended up with Vire engineering in Devon who did beyond a brilliant job. 48hrs from order to receipt and cracking quality. Also a good price.
I'm now 110 miles into bedding them in and they are strong. Pedal feel is better than expected, I was expecting a bit more travel. The bite is superb and i'm very impressed with the Project Mu stuff.
I think that on the road i'll be hard pushed to get anywhere near the limit but I am very pleased with them.
Having previously thought that the standard brakes were 'ok' for lightly spirited driving I became aware that really they are only ok for driving your gran to the shops and back.
So new and better brakes were required. I bought the car with 18's on it and they suit it, at least I think so, so I decided to max out on the size.
I was aiming for the RS4 8 pots with 365 discs, I found a chap in Germany doing brackets too but the cost of these is high and the cost of new discs etc is just crazy. So whilst trawling ebay I found a set of Volkswagen racing 4 pots form a MK5 Gti kit. The specs are a 4 pot calliper with a pad per piston and a set of 356mm two piece discs which were 5x112.
Although dirty the kit looked ok so It was mine, here is where the fun begins. The parts were in very bad condition, much worse than described. Seized pistons, very patchy paint, duff bleed nipples, missing bits and a pair of discs that looked more like they belonged on a record player. First step was a bath in the dishwasher.
The kit was made by a company in Japan called Project Mu for Volkwagen racing and it was short lived as an option for the Mk5. Volkwagen racing basically didn't know what it was and UK based references to Project Mu are not around every corner so information on the callipers and part numbers for seals etc all very thin on the ground.
Luckily I found a chap called Simon at Hendy Ford in Southampton and a PDF of the parts for the callipers after much work on Google. As it turns out the Project Mu stuff is big in Japan and Simon is importing stuff in a big way for the ricer crowd who by the sounds of it see this stuff as rare and hence desirable. A quick phone call and all the bits were on order from japan via his contact in Australia.
Discs are £180 each new and pads £130 a set so not too expensive replace.
Next up was stripping the callipers for repair and repainting.
For the rears I went with a standard proven option with 996 rear callipers and 330mm S4 discs with mechanical rear callipers.
Callipers from ebay and brackets from VRS. All very easy on the rear.
So with all the bits for the front I needed custom brake lines and some bespoke brackets.
The brackets take a bit of tweaking and work but a friendly machine shop got them all sorted.
For the custom lines I ended up with Vire engineering in Devon who did beyond a brilliant job. 48hrs from order to receipt and cracking quality. Also a good price.
I'm now 110 miles into bedding them in and they are strong. Pedal feel is better than expected, I was expecting a bit more travel. The bite is superb and i'm very impressed with the Project Mu stuff.
I think that on the road i'll be hard pushed to get anywhere near the limit but I am very pleased with them.
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