Mk2 Astra Rallycar - from bare shell upwards

[RallyMarshal]

Re: Mk2 Astra Rallycar - from bare shell upwards

Discs arrived.

Have been to machineshop and waiting for a price on the pcd redrilling and the machining.

The rear pad face is 57mm from the outside edge to the inner edge so wont need to remove much at all.

Paul..

[RallyMarshal]

Re: Mk2 Astra Rallycar - from bare shell upwards

Im sure they can and I will be enquiring as I have the master brackets to make from..

Also have a contact doing various car bits anyway so will speak to them.

Paul..

[DarrenH]

Re: Mk2 Astra Rallycar - from bare shell upwards

yeah, just wondered if the 4 pots had a bit of extra something pokey-outy, casting or bolt or something

can the machine shop also make kidney shape caliper relocating brackets, RM-spec big brake kit

[RallyMarshal]

Re: Mk2 Astra Rallycar - from bare shell upwards

Unless yours were machined all the way down to the bottom of the vanes by Hispec whereas Harveys were only done 1/2 way?

Perhaps a difference in the original disks supplied to Hispec before machining?

Ive just bought a pair of Cossie Mintex disks from Ebay (MDC638) for £40 delivered. Im going to take them plus Harveys disk to a machine shop to see how much it will be for redrilling the PCD, machining the rear and adding a few grooves. I bet it wont be anywhere near £150 for the pair. If theyre fine then will get them to do a batch.

Paul..

[DarrenH]

Re: Mk2 Astra Rallycar - from bare shell upwards

heres what i mean, your disks have slimmer rotor face on the rear and a kick-out down to the depth of the veins

[Harvey]

Re: Mk2 Astra Rallycar - from bare shell upwards

i was just going to ask what the clearance was actually for but then noticed mine aren't shaved down to the veins, they are full face. checked the old picture from 2003 of my first gte and its is the same. think it might be a nuance with the 4 pot kit ?

The rear machining is to clear the hubs cast caliper mounts as the disk is deeper and without the machining it will touch. It has nothing to do with the 4 pot kit.

[DarrenH]

Re: Mk2 Astra Rallycar - from bare shell upwards

i was just going to ask what the clearance was actually for but then noticed mine aren't shaved down to the veins, they are full face. checked the old picture from 2003 of my first gte and its is the same. think it might be a nuance with the 4 pot kit ?

[RallyMarshal]

Re: Mk2 Astra Rallycar - from bare shell upwards

The Grooved ones are £75 each + vat and delivery so around £190/pr delivered.

I can source normal grooved ones at £65/pr delivered for Sierra cosworth 2wd and then need redrilling and machining.. I run studs so Im not actually too concerned about the spigot ring.

They might not be EBC quality but I dont think machining will be that expensive so might try that first.

Paul..

[DarrenH]

Re: Mk2 Astra Rallycar - from bare shell upwards

aside from changing the hydraulic ratio V6/turbo callipers are hooffing great things too, probably a drastic increase in unsprung weight.

hispec charged me 50 for new rotors, i'm a bit on the fence whether that's good value for money, but they are EBC disks and do have the bit of clearance work and re-drilling and spiggots?

[RallyMarshal]

Re: Mk2 Astra Rallycar - from bare shell upwards

So on the last event, I had a few issues with the brakes. They werent *that* bad but the rear seemed to wiggle a lot under hard braking and towards the end of the event the pedal was going soft at times. It just wasnt feeling right so wanted to investigate front and rear.

When I bought the new car Proflex, it came with some Hispec 280mm adaptors to allow the use of 256mm calipers but 280mm disks. I dont have any disks but Harvey does so he came up yesterday and we trial fitted them. I was unsure whether I could get std Meriva disks to fit but the caliper is spaced quite a bit inboard so the std Meriva etc disks wont work.

The disks are 283mm Hispec supplied Cossie 2wd disks with the rear machined out and converted to 4 x 100pcd. We fitted the caliper bracket first..



Then fitted the disk and caliper back..



The 256mm disk reverse fitted on the studs shows the difference in size.



The caliper bracket makes the whole caliper sit further inboard



Another shot of the size difference



and a shot of the machining done on the rear of the disk to give clearance.



Currently unsure whether to move to the caliper brackets and buy a new set of Hispec disks and keep the 256mm calipers or to move to Vectra V6 calipers and buy new pads and disks and change the pedal feel as well - which may mean a larger bias box cylinder needed. Big benefit of 256mm is that I can easily swap back to 14" wheels if needed by removing the caliper brackets and fitting 256mm disks without needing to bleed the system fully again.

I also looked at the rear brakes. I had kind of neglected these in all honesty, not believing they did much braking with a light back end on the car. I hadnt bled them for quite a while as the bleed nipple had snapped off on one side and I cant have checked the pads before the event. Maybe I should have done something on them earlier..

Took the calipers off - these were the pads... eek. Ive got these so hot that the metal pad backing is completely bent out of shape, theres no pad material left and theres a piston mark nearly all the way through the pad backing..





Had some new pads there so fitted those.. Just a little bit of difference.



I then drained the whole rear brakes system and changed the fluid as it was very much boiled and darkened. I think the heat soak from the rear brakes was causing the issue as the rear cylinder was going completely soft meaning a very soft pedal.

Paul..

[RallyMarshal]

Re: Mk2 Astra Rallycar - from bare shell upwards

Its an old world war 2 base at a place called Grafton Underwood, near Corby.

Until 3 years ago, only the "outer perimeter" roads were in use, but the Estate landowners have found concrete roads that were buried under 2 feet of mud that are still in good condition due to it.

My current intercom doesnt have a speaker out function, although my Gopro does have an input. Sometime in the future it will be done like that.

The dust was an issue on the first stage particularly (on my Youtube channel).. knew the bales were there but couldnt see them.

Paul..

[DarrenH]

Re: Mk2 Astra Rallycar - from bare shell upwards

neat cicruit. is it all old concrete lanes with half a forest and crap over it ? would be nice to patch the comms into the camera so we get all the swearing and pace notes whatever

the bit with the giant hay bales and logs is weird, everything is the same dusty colour apart from shadows

[astra216]

Re: Mk2 Astra Rallycar - from bare shell upwards

Its got std pistons, std crank, std block but the bottom end has been balanced I think and has ARP rodbolts but vthe block has been decked a fair bit.

The head is a 1300 big valve head with solid lifters, Kent AST17 cam, twin 40s and Ashley Exhaust. Skimmed a fair bit as well.

And yes it does love a good ragging.

nice

[RallyMarshal]

Re: Mk2 Astra Rallycar - from bare shell upwards

SS8 - Final stage, merged with a corsa who kindly let us get past without any time loss. Swapped to better tyres and went 9 seconds quicker despite backing off a bit.

Paul..

[RallyMarshal]

Re: Mk2 Astra Rallycar - from bare shell upwards

SS7. Caught and passed by Nigel Barber in his redtop powered Astra Mk3 being well driven - see 6:00..

Paul..