Thank you Airportable, my heads now too big to go through the doorway! Maths and Physics (inherited from my mother) were my best subjects at school and I enjoy solving problems. I am always surprised to see five year old higher performance cars from the likes of BMW, Audi and Mercedes fitted with cheap Chinese tyres. If only they read how badly some of these tyres perform in the tyre tests conducted by Auto Express and ADAC they would spend a bit more on quality. The same with brake pads, ADAC tested ATE, VW, Brembo, Zimmerman and a cheap unbranded pad. The test include pad, wear, disc wear and repeated braking and a simulated mountain descent. What is surprising is that the two high performance brand’s failed to match the VW own brand pads or the ATE ones but the test equally revealed just how bad these particular unbranded ones were.
One option for the rear on a TF would be MX5 NC calipers, same piston bore, the brake cable fits into the caliper bracket and only a small modification needs to be done to the actuation lever. They are designed for 276mm discs and have the bonus of being lighter weight.
I know that this “upgrade “ isn’t needed but the challenge is there. I have an engine-less TF, I may yet experiment. 1.png
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I urge caution on any brake modifications, your life and others are at risk if you get it wrong. Only do it if you understand the engineering aspects of the job, don’t get sucked in by “competition” pads, they often need warming up before they start to bite. Quality standard pads will be more than enough for everywhere except track days. We are very lucky in this country to be able to modify our cars, most owners in the EU and OZ are heavily restricted or need an engineer’s report.
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You could have yours rebuilt at a Lucas/Bosch service centre. It may not be cheaper but you know it will fit
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1.pngI made the brackets myself from ENB3 steel bar with stainless steel spacers from eBay which is why my setup cost so little. When I did this a couple of years ago I took some measurements and I was certain that 15” wheels would clear. I think the biggest clearance problem with the AP’s is with the spokes. I have gone with ATE ceramic pads which were the best performing pads in an ADAC test, far better than Brembo. Our TF is solely for road use, we drive over Exmoor quite a lot and you can test the handling and brakes up there now the tourists have gone home for the winter.
I-also re drilled the hubs 4x100 so that both the mini and MX5 brake discs went straight on then chose to go with MX5 wheels due to the weight reduction. There are many ways to skin this cat
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If you do the maths you will understand, but briefly due to the combined surface area of the AP's pistons being smaller than the standard 48mm pistons they do not exert as much pressure on the pads. In fact the AP's need a 280mm disc to have the same performance as the standard 240mm discs. The upgraded 280mm discs give about 6% more braking effort than the AP's without the cost and effort of refurbishing corroded AP's. I actually went one stage further and fitted 294mm discs on the front. With that increased performance at the front you really do need the 280mm conversion on the rear whereas with the AP's you don't. What is surprising is that MG fitted such small discs for a car designed in the 1990's, the rear calipers were designed to work with 260mm discs and cope with 280mm's with no problems, however the 280mm's with the standard calipers do lead to a small amount of pad overhang. I overcame that by using Mini R56 calipers that were actually used the 294mm discs by BMW themselves.
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I actually re drilled my hubs to 4 x 100 and run MX5 five spokes so I have an endless choice of wheels. Currently I am running a set I bought with almost new Falkens for £130, the bonus is that they are 3kgs lighter than the eleven spokes. I also have a set of five “square” spoke wheels £85 came with a mix of 1/4 worn tyres. I fitted them while the others were being powder coated and the handling wasn’t as bad as I expected. Many ways to skin this cat.
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I assume that you have tried the various MG breakers, if so look on eBay, they do crop up from time to time. It is also worth looking for MK1 Lotus Elise wheels which fit and not only bare better looking but much lighter than any MGTF wheel except the Ultralight’s. Search ProbRace 1.2.
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When you had the tracking done did you take the correct figures with you or did you say “please do a four wheel alignment”. I did the latter with ATS in Taunton and our TF behaved exactly as you describe. Having looked at the print out it was totally wrong, I took it back and insisted they did it again using the correct figures. There is absolutely no comparison between the before and after, straight line stability is perfect, turn in on corners is truly excellent, no bump steer. ATS told me that they just use the pre programmed settings, no one checks to see if they are the correct ones.
A local performance workshop who had more than a three week waiting list for tracking told me that it happens all the time. In the good old days a mechanic would look up the data and adjust to that, most of those working in tyre retailers don’t know their a**e from their elbow.
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I have been out and about today collecting MGB gearboxes and was waiting at some traffic lights in Reading when a “Remap Master” van came alongside. I have had a few cars remapped over the years so this van caught my attention and I got the phone out to take a photo which I will attach. Amongst the many services is “mileage correction”
Their phone number is 07935553666, I have no connection to them I was just reading the sign writing.
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I met someone a couple of years ago who bought a very cheap TF due to the same miss description. Lots of potential buyers turned up expecting a 160 TF and walked away when they found out it was a 135 model, the result was the seller took a very low offer.
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If you can’t find the original springs the there are a few suppliers of “coil over” springs. From memory Faulkner are the big manufacturer and supplies them in 1.9, 2.0, 2.25 and 2.5 inch ID. If you can find out the correct spring rates and length then they are available from the likes of Demon Tweeks and Larkspeed. I have a pair for the back of my MGB from eBay, they were about £38 including postage.
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