hydaulic brake configuration.

i have searched and i can not find a straight answer. i plan to run a hydraulic e brake setup. i am converting the rears to disks, i switched the master to a mk3 style. i have one rear port on the master pluged. iam planing to run one line to the handbrake, a tee fitting to flex hose to hardline to calipers. i dont plan to use the factory prop valve as it is garbage. this has led to a debate between myself and a buddy. will the rears lock on slight peddle pressure? sending me sideways through intersections? help me end this. thanks.

I wouldnt say that the rears would lock with slight pedal pressure, but they would definitely lock before the fronts limiting your overall effective braking power.

So just put in an adjustable limiting valve before the handbrake. Adjust as needed.

thanks, looks like jegs has them for $42.

That seems expensive.
Make sure you get this part right. "Put it before the handbrake!"

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Grant Hughes

I still don't understand this fascination and need to do a hydraulic handbrake. Golfs rotate like crazy when set-up right ,,, can anyone explain why everyone here focuses on some thing that you should never ever need on 99% of the stages in north america?

The drawback of a Hydo handbrake is that if you blow your lines going to the rear calipers ... you loose your handbrake all together.

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Quote
john vanlandingham
Blame is for idiots. losers.

when you need it, you absolutely need it....it is a great tool.

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-Tom
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Keith,

There is a minimum speed below wich the Golf will not rotate well. This is determined by the amount of rear brake bias. The problem is that if you give the car enough bias to rotate at low speed it gets really unstable under high speed braking. Remeber also that the wheel base is a bit short. Adding caster helps all this. In the end it is best to run less rear bias and just use the handbrake in the slow hairpins. This way the car is optimised for the conditions that you see the most and the handbrake is just a fix it for the occasional hair pin.

Not having a redundant rear brake system is the price you pay.

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Robert.

"You are way too normal to be on Rally Anarchy." Eddie Fiorelli.

Thanks Robert, or should I call you RallyMeh :-)

I suppose that if you are plumbing a new brake system anyway (to allow for adjustable brake bias) that adding a Hydro handbrake is not a massive job ... but knowing that most of the faster cars in the region (no, not fast on a global scale) run perfectly well at the front of the pack with the stock handbrake makes me think that the effort to fab and install one has more to do with pack mentality than need.

I'm just sayin ... I was able to do a slow, tight haripin in a 2.5RS w/ a 20KG centre diff (a much harder car to rotate) using weight transfer to get the job done.

---

First Rally: 2001
Driver (7), Co-Driver (44)
Drivers (16)
Clerk (10), Official (7), Volunteer (4)
Cars Built (1), Engines Built (0) Cages Built (0)
Last Updated, January 4, 2015

Quote
john vanlandingham
Blame is for idiots. losers.

Morison Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I'm just sayin ... I was able to do a slow, tight
> haripin in a 2.5RS w/ a 20KG centre diff (a much
> harder car to rotate) using weight transfer to get
> the job done.

Okay, now let a real driver try it and see how they do. Haha. Burn! I'm the burn master. Just kidding by the way.

We've had problems in a Impreza turbo rally car with the stock handbrake sticking a little bit. Cable actuation doesn't need much done to the cable to make it sticky.

Hydraulic handbrake should cost less than $200 said and done. Even less if you fab something yourself. Not very costly in the grand scheme. It's even less useful in a RWD rally car. I don't think I've used mine on stage yet. Of course, hydraulic was my only option with the Wilwood 4 pots.

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Grant Hughes

Morison Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> I'm just sayin ... I was able to do a slow, tight
> haripin in a 2.5RS w/ a 20KG centre diff (a much
> harder car to rotate) using weight transfer to get
> the job done.

Yeah, but could you have carried more speed into the corner, late braked a bit more, then done a quick flick of the hand brake and saved a tenth or two?

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-Tom
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BJosephD Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
i dont plan to use the factory prop
> valve as it is garbage.

This is simply untrue--the stock prop valve has a far larger range of adjustment than any of the aftermarket things do. It is easy to rig up an adjustment system for it too. We left ours under the car and use a zip-tie to set it to the right amount that way there is no urge to constantly tweak knobs in the cockpit...

We found that once set properly it works well for a huge variety of conditions--fast, slow, gravel, tarmac etc etc...

You can leave the stock handbrake operational and add a hydro unit if you want to. If you use the aluminum rear calipers from an mk4, you will have plenty of hand-brake force without a hydro setup.

That all said, we are adding a hydro handbrake to the car for the once-every other rally usage...I drove the car into the rock wall at NY this year because I fumbled for the stock lever and looked down to find it...Probably could just redisgn the stock lever with an extension of some sort to solve that problem too.

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____________________________________________________________-

One. Class -- 2WD

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I fully understand the need if the rear brake set-up doesn't provide a system for a cable hand brake.
I've just seen a lot of people get side-tracked chasing solutions for a hydro handbrake when the returns of having one are marginal at best.

Golfs, Volvos, Subarus ... if the suspension is working right you shouldn't need a hydro handbrake (and by that I mean ANY handbrake) ... in my opinion if course.

"Yeah, but could you have carried more speed into the corner, late braked a bit more, then done a quick flick of the hand brake and saved a tenth or two?"

nope ... with a 20Kg centre diff the handbrake locks the fronts up enough to make the car plow instead of snap... but on a theoretical basis I am not convinced that hand braking anything but the absolute tightest of acute corners is quicker.

---

First Rally: 2001
Driver (7), Co-Driver (44)
Drivers (16)
Clerk (10), Official (7), Volunteer (4)
Cars Built (1), Engines Built (0) Cages Built (0)
Last Updated, January 4, 2015

Quote
john vanlandingham
Blame is for idiots. losers.

"Golfs, Volvos, Subarus ... if the suspension is working right you shouldn't need a hydro handbrake (and by that I mean ANY handbrake) ... in my opinion if course."

I disagree with your statement. I think that you are fundamentally misunderstanding the dynamic situation of when and why a hand brake is used. No passive suspension system will work well in two diametrically opposed performance regimes.

I can't speak toward the AWD configuration as I haven't driven them much. RWD would least need a handbrake, although that is dependent on a minimum power to weight ratio. FWD needs a way to lock the rear wheels independently. The only real difference between hydraulic and cable actuation is that the latter has better modulation and you don't have to deal with the locking mechanism.

"nope ... with a 20Kg centre diff the handbrake locks the fronts up enough to make the car plow instead of snap..."

Subarus have the handbrake on the front wheels? Savages.

"but on a theoretical basis I am not convinced that hand braking anything but the absolute tightest of acute corners is quicker."

So there you go.......that is what I am saying. Very tight, slow speed (low energy state) corners need the hand brake.

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Robert.

"You are way too normal to be on Rally Anarchy." Eddie Fiorelli.

it's not that they have a handbrake on the front wheels, it's that a 20kg center diff has enough lock-up that once you stop the rear wheels from moving, the fronts stop too and only really start to slip again under serious load (aka hard on your center diff if you do it enough)

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/09/2009 12:21PM by cblakely.

there is error correction with it, if the car needs to rotate now, the hand brake is there

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-Tom
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