©Alex Robinson and the saxo sports club
All information given in this article is opinion and nothing is stated fact, the author of this takes no responsibility for results misuse or interpretation of the information given in this article, therefore you use this information at your own risk.
Anyway, changed slightly since before...
The saxo stock brakes are adequate but for anyone who drives hard or does track days an upgrade is necessary to improve the braking performance. Please note that brakes are the most important part of the car safety-wise and any major brake work should be carried out by a trained person or professional, only attempt to do what you have already done and make sure you check all of your work over.
First thing to do with the brakes is to replace the fluid, this is the most ignored part of servicing and again should be carried out by pros, here is a guide for the more able who haven't yet ventured in to bleeding brakes yet:
Brake bleeding
Next on the list is full conversion,
First stage upgrade is grooved/drilled discs and uprated pads, this costs around £150-250 for the fronts together usually and gives better resistance to fade and better braking power however it is not amazing by any means just a nice improvement, just uprated pads makes a good difference on its own.
Secondly is the bigger grooved/drilled disk(big brake kit), uprated pads and std caliper with extension plates costing around £200+, this is better than just uprated disks and pads due to the increased surface area and the caliper is further from the central point of the hub than std so it can apply the same braking force with less effort. The disks are usually 283mm diameter and will only fit under 15" wheels or larger. these kits usually require some grinding to fit.
Thirdly you can use larger calipers and larger discs this is the ultimate conversion consisting of either single piston calipers from a larger model in the PSA range or multiple piston caliper with larger grooved/drilled discs, these offer excellent performance. the GTi6 conversion using 283/285mm discs which is popular costs around £150 second hand for all the bits needed on the front and will fit under 15" wheels and over. for those retaining 14" alloys or steel wheels the 206 GTi/HDi brakes from certain models will fit and offer 266mm discs and bigger calipers, they go for around £150 second hand for the lot. And for those of you wanting the real deal 4,6 & 8 pot calipers are available with disks from 283-355+mm costing between £500 and over £1000 depending on the make no of pistons and disc size. the most popular choice of the club being hi-spec 4-pots with 283mm discs which at around £600 new are very good value, i have had no problems with mine and done quite a few violent emergency stops and track days. anyway upwards of that i recommend tar ox do several kits with several disc & caliper sizes(hi spec do too) and AP and brembo are the highest strung makes and of course most expensive. only 305mm and smaller setups will fit 15" on std vts rims 5mm spacer shims are needed with most 4-pots, check with the manufacturer before purchasing as every make of caliper is different.
Next we consider the rear brakes, these are adequate on models with rear discs, the only way to convert to disks from drums is with the whole rear beam or both trailing arms etc.
uprated pad material on std disks is a good move however most people cope fine without.
GTi-6 rear calipers are the same so there are no easy to obtain uprated calipers.
A major part to consider when doing a high level conversion and also if you are lowered is to adjust the brake bias valve or replace it with an aftermarket one. not bothering to maintain/adjust this can cause the rear brakes to lock up before the fronts, this is very unsafe and has cause problems with quite a few members of ssc.
I recommend you leave the adjusting of this valve to professionals, not many garages will know where it is or how to adjust it though, so that leaves you with a problem.
If you are never going to be carrying loads in teh back of the car you can just simply loosen the spring loads or remove it as it isn't needed in this case, if you have rear seats still and intend upon carrying passengers and load in the boot then you will need to adjust the valve accurately, the spring shouldn't put tension on the paddle at all, when you press the brakes the bias paddle will move slightly, when there is load in the back the spring ill put more pressure on the paddle as it trys to move, this will create more braking force at the rear which will make it easier to control the car under breaking while carrying loads. 8-10mm of space between the spring and paddle with the car at ride height is a rough guide.
you can see the main(big) spring had a bit on the end going through the paddle, the spring is actually 2 parts, the spring then the bit of metal that goes through the paddle, which has a 10mm bit on the end, this is how you adjust it, the 2 parts can be twisted relative to each other, looking at the adjuster nut face on if you do it up clockwise it will shorten the spring, if you undo it anti clockwise then it will loosen the spring, simple really.
The smaller spring is actually much more infuential on the braking force applied overall, however i highly recommend that you leave this alone!
For optimum setup use a set of brake rollers to set up the braking balance of the car perfectly
Now if you don't know where it is, go have a look on the passenger side rear, take the wheel off, look at the rear beam where it mounts to the shell, it is on top of the beam slightly further forward than the point where the trailing arm meets the beam. voila!
A nice site with plenty of info on braking systems is stop tech, they sell their own brake setups, none of which fit our cars, but they do have some awesome technical documents.
Stop tech
All information given in this article is opinion and nothing is stated fact, the author of this takes no responsibility for results misuse or interpretation of the information given in this article, therefore you use this information at your own risk.
Anyway, changed slightly since before...
The saxo stock brakes are adequate but for anyone who drives hard or does track days an upgrade is necessary to improve the braking performance. Please note that brakes are the most important part of the car safety-wise and any major brake work should be carried out by a trained person or professional, only attempt to do what you have already done and make sure you check all of your work over.
First thing to do with the brakes is to replace the fluid, this is the most ignored part of servicing and again should be carried out by pros, here is a guide for the more able who haven't yet ventured in to bleeding brakes yet:
Brake bleeding
Next on the list is full conversion,
First stage upgrade is grooved/drilled discs and uprated pads, this costs around £150-250 for the fronts together usually and gives better resistance to fade and better braking power however it is not amazing by any means just a nice improvement, just uprated pads makes a good difference on its own.
Secondly is the bigger grooved/drilled disk(big brake kit), uprated pads and std caliper with extension plates costing around £200+, this is better than just uprated disks and pads due to the increased surface area and the caliper is further from the central point of the hub than std so it can apply the same braking force with less effort. The disks are usually 283mm diameter and will only fit under 15" wheels or larger. these kits usually require some grinding to fit.
Thirdly you can use larger calipers and larger discs this is the ultimate conversion consisting of either single piston calipers from a larger model in the PSA range or multiple piston caliper with larger grooved/drilled discs, these offer excellent performance. the GTi6 conversion using 283/285mm discs which is popular costs around £150 second hand for all the bits needed on the front and will fit under 15" wheels and over. for those retaining 14" alloys or steel wheels the 206 GTi/HDi brakes from certain models will fit and offer 266mm discs and bigger calipers, they go for around £150 second hand for the lot. And for those of you wanting the real deal 4,6 & 8 pot calipers are available with disks from 283-355+mm costing between £500 and over £1000 depending on the make no of pistons and disc size. the most popular choice of the club being hi-spec 4-pots with 283mm discs which at around £600 new are very good value, i have had no problems with mine and done quite a few violent emergency stops and track days. anyway upwards of that i recommend tar ox do several kits with several disc & caliper sizes(hi spec do too) and AP and brembo are the highest strung makes and of course most expensive. only 305mm and smaller setups will fit 15" on std vts rims 5mm spacer shims are needed with most 4-pots, check with the manufacturer before purchasing as every make of caliper is different.
Next we consider the rear brakes, these are adequate on models with rear discs, the only way to convert to disks from drums is with the whole rear beam or both trailing arms etc.
uprated pad material on std disks is a good move however most people cope fine without.
GTi-6 rear calipers are the same so there are no easy to obtain uprated calipers.
A major part to consider when doing a high level conversion and also if you are lowered is to adjust the brake bias valve or replace it with an aftermarket one. not bothering to maintain/adjust this can cause the rear brakes to lock up before the fronts, this is very unsafe and has cause problems with quite a few members of ssc.
I recommend you leave the adjusting of this valve to professionals, not many garages will know where it is or how to adjust it though, so that leaves you with a problem.
If you are never going to be carrying loads in teh back of the car you can just simply loosen the spring loads or remove it as it isn't needed in this case, if you have rear seats still and intend upon carrying passengers and load in the boot then you will need to adjust the valve accurately, the spring shouldn't put tension on the paddle at all, when you press the brakes the bias paddle will move slightly, when there is load in the back the spring ill put more pressure on the paddle as it trys to move, this will create more braking force at the rear which will make it easier to control the car under breaking while carrying loads. 8-10mm of space between the spring and paddle with the car at ride height is a rough guide.
you can see the main(big) spring had a bit on the end going through the paddle, the spring is actually 2 parts, the spring then the bit of metal that goes through the paddle, which has a 10mm bit on the end, this is how you adjust it, the 2 parts can be twisted relative to each other, looking at the adjuster nut face on if you do it up clockwise it will shorten the spring, if you undo it anti clockwise then it will loosen the spring, simple really.
The smaller spring is actually much more infuential on the braking force applied overall, however i highly recommend that you leave this alone!
For optimum setup use a set of brake rollers to set up the braking balance of the car perfectly
Now if you don't know where it is, go have a look on the passenger side rear, take the wheel off, look at the rear beam where it mounts to the shell, it is on top of the beam slightly further forward than the point where the trailing arm meets the beam. voila!
A nice site with plenty of info on braking systems is stop tech, they sell their own brake setups, none of which fit our cars, but they do have some awesome technical documents.
Stop tech