Cortina/Capri brake upgrade (homebrew content)

[scaryoldcortina]

Bit of a "how to" thread - I'm actually answering a PM question, but thought it might suit a wider audience.

OK, lets assume you have a mk1/2/3 capri or mk3/4/5 cortina (or something else similar) and want better front brakes. Something with vented disks and bigger pad area would be nice There are kits available all the way from mega money to budget conversion using ford parts - it's the latter type "Capri Power" conversion that I've ripped off adapted.


First, take a hub, and lathe the face so it fits inside an XR4i front disk. Remove the disk mounts from the back of the hub at the same time (I did these ones ages ago...) Knock the wheelstuds out and throw them away.


Also made earlier, lazer cut bracket (10mm steel plate) to "Capri Power" pattern (or I could trace it...) Outer holes have been drilled to 12mm (suit mondeo calipers) but drill to 10mm if using Sierra/granada calipers. Inner holes undrilled in the pic, they need to be 12mm for the hub


Calipers... mondeo on the left, sierra/granada on the right. XR4i disk in the background.


Fits together like this ;D


Bolt adapter to hub carrier - I had to grind the edge of the back of the adapter so it fitted the cortina hub properly - it's important that it sits square! Also, note new longer studs fitted (mondeo ones... steal them from the car that donated the calipers or buy them from ford for about £2 each)


Caliper attached. You need 2x13mm spacers for between the caliper and the adapter, and about 25mm spacer for above the top bolt

because it's very close th the edge of the hub carrier. *note* these spacers are so far just hacked up tube for mocking up! I will be turning some thicker ones before this lot goes on a car....

Fitted in a wheel - you cant use 13" any more. 14 minimum. Also, the disk means that the wheel isn't hubcentric anymore (held on studs only) and the front track is increased by around 20mm due to the thickness of the disk. You could make a custom centre for the hub, fitting in the dust cap groove to make the wheel centre again, and add 10mm spacers to the back wheels to keep track the same all round.

So there you go - bigger brakes for little money. Oh, and I know I've put a LH caliper on a RH hub assembly.. it doesn't make any difference at the moment

[dave364634]

i used fiesta studs on mine (capri/cossie disc/mondeo calipeer).

[dave364634]

apparantly the 'newer' plates use fiat turbo calipeers and pads.

[qwerty]

I need to talk to you about brakes at some point....... ;D

[Adam]

Alternatively you could fit princess calipers and capri vented discs... which I just so happen to have for sale at the moment! ;D

[popuptoaster]

i seem to remember the biggest discs you can get under a 13" wheel on a mk2 escort is a 280mm one with an AP lockheed (princess 4 pot) caliper, you can machine and drill a BMW 3 series disc (or buy them from rally design) to get it on the escort, I'm not sure if the hub to disc spacing is the same on the Cortina but if it is it would allow you to still use 13's, they stopped my ol' mk2 pretty damn well.

[Anglia68]

Nice conversion mate,I did virtually the same conversion on my Anglia last year using RS Turbo Series 2 discs which are the same size as the XR4i's,260 x 24,but with deeper bells I believe.This places the calipers slightly further away from the hubs so give you that little bit more clearance so you can fit them inside some 13" wheels.



Inside a 7 x 13" Compomotive.



Full details in my build thread.1968 Ford Anglia 105E saloon

[scaryoldcortina]

Dave.. I think fiesta studs will be the same as mondeo studs.. M12x1.75, 80mm long. Interesting about the fiat calipers.. worth bearing in mind when I run out of mondeos!
Qwerty.. yes, you probably do ;D
Adam.. yeah, done that before. Prob is, princess 4 pots are rare and now seem to be worth their weight in gold, and capri vented disks are twice the price of 4i (or RST) disks.
Popup.. Doesn't matter anyway cos I don't use 13" wheels any more (wide tyres are cheaper in 14 and 15.. go figure)
Anglia.. nice job. I don't think I can do anything about the bell depth. any deeper and I won't have room for the adapter to hub carrier bolts, any shallower and the caliper hits the wheel face. It's the mondeo caliper stopping it fitting 13", it would maybe squeeze into *some* 13" rims with a sierra caliper on instead. Also, it's possible that I have the same disks you do (they've been in the back of the garage over 2 years) I'll measure up and check tomorrow.

[v8ian]

Ive got 285s inside 13s with princess callipers after a wee kiss with a angle geinder to the calliper,
And I have these 312s on my Cortina inside 15s, they have been cleaned up before refitting,

[Anglia68]

Mar 15, 2010 21:53:25 GMT scaryoldcortina said:

Anglia.. nice job. I don't think I can do anything about the bell depth. any deeper and I won't have room for the adapter to hub carrier bolts.

I cheated by bolting mine in the other way round by drilling out the hub carrier to plain holes and tapping the adaptor holes instead.

Mar 15, 2010 21:53:25 GMT scaryoldcortina said:

It's the mondeo caliper stopping it fitting 13", .

I used the Mondeo calipers too and they just fit inside my 7 x 13" Compomotives,I don't know about other makes or sizes though.
Ignore the wooden spacers in this pic,they were only patterns.

[scaryoldcortina]

Mar 15, 2010 22:43:31 GMT Anglia68 said:

Mar 15, 2010 21:53:25 GMT scaryoldcortina said:

Anglia.. nice job. I don't think I can do anything about the bell depth. any deeper and I won't have room for the adapter to hub carrier bolts.

I cheated by bolting mine in the other way round by drilling out the hub carrier to plain holes and tapping the adaptor holes instead.

I thought about that, but decided not to so I can revert the hub carrier to standard brakes if I want to (I'm getting a bit short of cortina uprights.. )

Mar 15, 2010 21:53:25 GMT scaryoldcortina said:

It's the mondeo caliper stopping it fitting 13", .

I used the Mondeo calipers too and they just fit inside my 7 x 13" Compomotives,I don't know about other makes or sizes though.

In that case, it's down to wheel type. My exhaustive testing consisted of a 5.5x13 rostyle that happened to be in the garage. Didn't even get it half on.. must have a really deep well. I'll try a few more tomorrow.

[Team Blitz]

None of you fellers are saying anything about m/c or servo mods needed to accommodate the addition of bigger rotors and higher force calipers. Could you comment on what you changed with regards to m/c's and servos for your upgrades? Or did you decide to keep your originals in place, and how has that worked for you?

Edit: And great thread, Scary.

[scaryoldcortina]

Mm, good question Norm. I'll think about that this afternoon and get back to you later.

I do know my mk3 won't end up with a standard servo and master, cos it gets in the way of the inlet manifold, but without doing some measurement of bore sizes/stroke length and a bit of maths I won't know if the standard MC is up to the job.

[bortaf]

Here you go, XLS spread sheet dor working out the changes in caliper size

rapidshare.com/files/364127668/mastercyl.xls

already loaded with a few master cylinders to choose from, you change the perameters of the calipers to what yours are and it tells you the percentage differance then you select or change the master cylinder one to work out what's closest.
I found that the 2.8 Mk2 granny master is better than the LR one with the caprisport kit

If you decide on the granny master I can highly recomend the granny servo as well, standard the Mk3/4/5 servos are well under powerd and the granny one really brings the pedal up and makes the car slightly over servod like 99% of modern cars (saves jumping back in and crapping yourself cos the brakes feel like they don't work) or like in my case jumping a customers modern and kissing the windscreen on the first stab of the middle pedal
Unfortunatly it's harder on a capri cos the servo wont fit in the space available but the master fits one of the servos used in the capi, can't remember which one but it fits one of em and I think it's not the one the LR master fits so easyer to find but again not 100% capri aint my area really ;D

[v8ian]

Remember, sevos do not improve braking, only lessen pedal pressure and feel, start with bad brakes, and you will still have bad brakes after you fit a servo.
As a point of reference, Granada vents callipers [M18] will bolt onto a ford M16 fitment and give you more pad area, they have the same piston CSA, so the M/C will not need upsizing, This goes for the Princess callipers, with the same CSA as the M16

[Anglia68]

My Anglia will have a reversed bias pedal box,0.75 fronts,0.65 rears,and a remote servo the same as my last one which worked superbly well.Tried and tested.

[dave364634]

i used a 2.0 capri servo and a landrover m/c, and have got rear discs.

[Team Blitz]

Dave, in what way is a 2.0L Mk3 servo any different whatsoever from a V6 Mk3 servo? (Other than the clocking of the vacuum fitting, naturally.)

[bortaf]

Mar 16, 2010 14:23:22 GMT v8ian said:

Remember, sevos do not improve braking, only lessen pedal pressure and feel, start with bad brakes, and you will still have bad brakes after you fit a servo.
As a point of reference, Granada vents callipers [M18] will bolt onto a ford M16 fitment and give you more pad area, they have the same piston CSA, so the M/C will not need upsizing, This goes for the Princess callipers, with the same CSA as the M16

That's what i run on 2 of me cortinas with capri vented discs and non vented (P100 calipers) on tother 1, better but could deffo do with larger diameter discs IMHO

[scaryoldcortina]

Ta for the .xls Rob.. thats useful I'll put it with the gearbox/axle/wheel calc sheet ;D Know what you mean about nutting the windscreen! Happens to me every time (my daily doesn't even have a servo...).

I've heard the "use a landrover one" craic before, but my local landrover specialist said "which one..." so I never got any further than that. Didn't get any measuring done today (far, far too busy...) but it did occur to me that the M16 is twin piston, where the sierra/granada/mondeo calipers are single piston side types, so it might not make much difference after all.