Upgrades On S350 Discs ?

[MKE40]

Hi Guys,

Has anybody upgraded the discs on a Sport 350 (rear discs are shot) .

Advice on upgrade pads also req. (I will not track the car but will fully use the performance on the road)

Thanks in advance....

Mike

[Bibs]

This may be the only way forward Mike!!!

[MKE40]

You cheeky Young B'stard Bibs..........

I was expecting a bollocking as the reply was from you, stating that this subject had been already covered so why dont you lazy sods check beforehand before posting............

........And what do I find ?

some Smart Arse ..............going for a Cheap Shot ! Is that a 'W' Anchor that you are implying ,.......as it looks like a Bay Palm or large Fishermans , certainly not a Plough or Danforth .........Or would YOU know the difference??

Shame on you Bibs.

You should have respect for your elders .........or at least a constructive reply.

" Your name has been noted, There WILL be a Reckoning "

Mike

[Jonathan]

Cheapest I found for standard replacement was PUK / Ramspott & Brandt I think.

I was going to get some for the rears on the GT2 but they don't sell un-drilled versions which I wanted, they aint cheap though - which is odd becuase the fronts are pretty reasonable, I think it has something to do with their odd size.

IMO the Esprit on the road doesn't need those insanely expensive disks - the earlier / heavier V8's cope with it perfectly well. Infact you already have the bonus in that the leverage on the rear disk is greater due to the extended caliper bracket, the drilled part does give it some edge but you're only going to appreciate that on the track.

If it were mine I'd cock around with the rear caliper and try to fit an off the shelf rotor to fit the existing bell and give that a go - you might only be paying

[Rob C]

Hi Guys,

Has anybody upgraded the discs on a Sport 350 (rear discs are shot) .

Advice on upgrade pads also req. (I will not track the car but will fully use the performance on the road)

Thanks in advance....

Mike

Hi Mike...Quest Mead company..Allan Brown do pads..Mintex etc... EBC red stuff seem ok Chris No27 on the front..lots of people do them.

Disc's geniune Lotus lots of

[cweeden]

Hi Mike,

I haven't played with the 350's brakes yet apart from Pagid Blue pads at the front.

I expect the rear discs are more than capable of the job with the fronts doing the lion share of the work. As such I would look to replace the discs with close to original.

As far as I know AP have some discs off the shelf which match the 350's dimensions in every way apart from the mounting holes. Lotus it would seem requested an unusual number of mounting holes or a strange PCD (I can't remember which). The cynic in me might suggest this was to develop a captive market for its spare parts but what do I know???

An idea I am toying with but have no idea if it has legs is to try and get some discs from AP racing without the mounting holes drilled. This should be much cheaper than the Lotus items even after the mounting holes drilled by an engineering shop to match the mounting bells.

If AP are able to supply discs in that state then the next option to investigate would be the fronts as I am sure 330mm discs would fit and maybe even 343mm but the caliper brackets would also need modifying.

cheers

-Chris

[williamives]

PNM made a complete set up for me. I will dig our the price but as usual with PNM very resonable and great service!

The only catch is that the rears are thicker and you have to remove some the thickness of the new pads to fit them, but not a major problem. Also PNM supply new mounting plates for the rear caliper's to change the offset to suit the thicker discs.

Will

[Jonathan]

The rears are uncommon becuase of their thickness, the rear caliper nominally allows the disk to be 26mm thick, which at 320mm diameter is not a common off the shelf part - most will be 30-32mm to cover the heat build up on a larger disk.

The PCD is fairly common (12 bolt : 215.9mm rear / 195.0mm front).

Mike - if you're binning the old disks could I pinch it / buy it from you ?

Reason is I am drawing all the disks I can up on 3D CAD to make a program for custom disk sizes. There is a slight possibility I might turn it into a wall clock as well

[superdavelotus]

THe PNM discs are 323mm fronts and 321mm rears. I have them fitted to mine with alloy bells similar to the S350 but I still have Brembo calipers. The rears you have to shave some meat off the pad or buy Elise pads as they are the same but thinner a standard.

They are also doing a 355mm upgrade but I don't think they fit under a 17" wheel. Saying that they haven't checked. They could machine down this disc to suit a 17" wheel maximum diameter but they just haven't got round to trying this yet.

They are also selling Pagid pads now along with Hawk and standard. YOu could try Hawk blue or Black? These are for track use. I have Hawk Fast Road on mine. Initial bite when cold isn't a quick as a standard pad but fast road, they never lose grip or overheat.

I think a set of two replacement discs will cost about

[MGFCrasher]

I used the PNM drilled ones on the back of my 350.I have done 3000 miles and they are fine.My pads were slightly worn anyway so I had no trouble fitting them.

Lotus wanted

[MKE40]

I used the PNM drilled ones on the back of my 350.I have done 3000 miles and they are fine.My pads were slightly worn anyway so I had no trouble fitting them.

Lotus wanted

Edited April 11, 2007 by MKE40

[Jonathan]

Hi-spec - wouldn't touch them with a barge pole !

Everytime I hear the same story over and over again about their woeful customer service - my cousin had their illegal rear hand brake calipers fitted and the car rolled away and into someone elses.

I'd like to see the PNM disks. I'm not overly impressed with the ones I have here (hence they're for sale at a beat down price) for road use I would be happy with cheaper disks (I run EBC for gawd sakes!) as you're only really going to use them periodically and moderatly in comparison to track use.

If you are inclined to do so however I wouldn't overlook AP themselves, their rotors are not only the highest quality but also pretty reasonable (esp if you compare them to cheaper companies like Hi-spec....at least you get them !!). As long as the bells are not damaged (shouldn't be on road use) then they can be re-used with new rotors.

The biggest prob with the 350 imo is the odd sizes, however with slight home modifications you could adapt them to suit off the shelf stuff.

Example being the front :

Original = 320x32

AP part = 330x32 + add 5mm spacer the the brake caliper bracket, 5mm longer bolts,

[joeyoesprit]

Someone told me that the following rotors would fit the Esprit with the AP Racing Brakes. But I have not tried them so I really do not know and there might be an issue with the number of mounting holes or PCD. They are 320MM X 28MM so going from 32MM to 28MM (4MM differnce) should not be a big deal for non-track cars.

The web site also lists all the std rotors that AP racing sells here in the states

http://www.apracing.com/car/brakedisc/data...mp;code=1138/39

JoeyO

2001 V8

Edited April 12, 2007 by joeyoesprit

[superdavelotus]

Hi Jonathon,

You need to be a bit careful what you post on forums, I wouldn't like you to get into trouble about talking about companies like that. I couldn't give a stuff about these companies personally, it's us indivuals I care about and any liable stuff.

If you read the blurb on Hi-Spec, their brake kit are for competition use, track use only. It clearly states that their handbrake caliper should not be relied on as a parking brake and you should always leave your car in gear.

With regards to the AP stuff you talking about, AP aftermarket stuff won't fit the AP Lotus bell. It has the wrong PCD and internal diameter. Lotus cleverly had these made so owners couldn't just go to AP direct.

PNM do replacements for these that bolt to the existing rotors.

Also their disc and bells are almost the same as the Lotus S350 but offset to suit the thicker disc incorporated into the bell offset. I know this because I produced the CAD drawings for them.

Hi-Spec don't make rotors or bells for the Esprit apart from the very basic billet 4 kit for the early cars 285mm one piece disc. They don't do a disc and bell so no worries about not being happy with Hi-Spec as they won't be supplying this part of the kit.

Another option would be to buy the disc and bells from PNM and buy your won AP 6 pot calipers. Iam sure PNM could machine a bracket if they knew the offset or even better, had the caliper to work with.

My advise is that 323mm disc is plenty good enough for most owners (me included). Just try out different pad compounds. I once found out whilst testing pads for PNM that their cheapest pad for the billet 4 caliper was the best at braking around town and tooling about. It had the best initial bite. I think it was a Lucas pad. Put it on the track and it's a completely different story!!!

Also, I know of at least 4 V8 owners with AP calipers who have fitted the 32mm discs without any problems.

Hope this clears things.

Joey, Just had a quick look on AP site,

The PCD is definately different to Lotus as I've just checked on my drawings.

Also the number of holes isn't even close. AP have 8 whilst the Lotus AP discs have 12.

This is why Lotus can charge

Edited April 12, 2007 by superdavelotus

[snuffy]

PNM replaced my Sport 350 front discs and I had no complaints about them, either on quality/performance or the price. Lotus charge

Edited April 12, 2007 by snuffy

[superdavelotus]

Snuffy,

Change your avatar, you keep confusing me!!!!

[Jonathan]

You need to be a bit careful what you post on forums

What, my comment about Hi-Spec ?

Sorry to digress but what could I be liable for ? I have not told anything which is untrue.

I know it's hard to believe nowadays but we do still live in a free country with freedoms of speech to talk about these things

I respect that this is 'off topic' but I feel I need to hold my position here. This 'only suitable for track use' was absolutly 100% NOT the case with what happened to my cousins car which is the basis of why legal action nearly got taken over it. The engineer who fitted them was the obvious 1st to be blamed for the accident but after he had a look at them he found out they were hydraulic in operation and not mechanical. The dealings with Hi-Spec afterwards (which I was privy to) were shocking to say the least, it didn't come to it but Trading Standards was the next step - hence the barge pole comment.

My comments were triggered by :

I also sent a disc and bell to High Spec a year ago as they said they could make one.I am still waiting but I expect they are very busy!!!!!!!!!!!!

Nothing to do with PNM, I know they sell Hi-Spec stuff along with loads of companies - my comment was about hi-spec themselves and one specific product which I have had 1st hand experience with.

I know when my cousin bought his stuff, he went direct to the company and after they were happy to take his hard earned, they weren't entirly happy to give him the products - I can't remember the exact time frame but it was in excess of 3 months and quite litterally 100's of phone calls - again I hear this comment echoed again and again.

The benefit of buying from a 3rd party supplier is at least you have some comeback on them, as opposed to the manufacturer (ie Hi-spec) who treated my cousin/uncle very badly.

I can't see the Hi-spec page atm but when I also looked at them there was no information marking them as track use only as I nearly bought a set and so have a few other people I know for fitment to road cars. If you look around the web you can find these for sale without any warning etc. My opinion of Hi-Spec is my own based on personal expereience and extensivly reading other people's comments on the web, which is what I would recomend to anyone looking into buying 3rd party products.

---

Incidently would Pete be interested in a px on my disks lol ?

It's partly my own fault - I didn't inspect them propperly when I first got them and perhaps left it too late now, the bolt holes are not exactly correct and the all the braking load would be taken on 1 of the wheel bolts instad of split between them all.

Also what info do you have on the the PCD / bolts for the Lotus bell ?

I have different info for them that uses 12 bolts, not 8. I was told you could buy an off the shelf part for it, if thats wrong I'd like to know myself before splahing out on the wrong size rotors !

The part number AP sent to me as a suitable replacement for the S350 rear disk was CP3580-1072/3P which is PCD of 215.9 x 12 bolts, is this not the case then ?

[MKE40]

Snuffy,

Change your avatar, you keep confusing me!!!!

Yeah Adrian ,

That avatar looks pretty damn camp to me..........

Wotcha doin on here, anyway ?

Those Nobbler boys got nothin to say ?????????

Dontcha just wanna 350 again ......And all yer mates?

Regards ,

Mike

[Bibs]

Hey Mike...

Any good for ya?

Erm, I'm not helping much am I...

[MKE40]

Hey Mike...

Any good for ya?

Erm, I'm not helping much am I...

AN Anglo Saxon riposte to your facetious remarks.......

Would get me slung off the forum !!

Mike

[superdavelotus]

Hey jonathon,

I wasn't trying to stop you expressing your opinion but it was mentioned on another thread by one of the moderators to be careful what people say.

With regards to your current PNM rotors and the holes being too big, they are equal therefore equal load on each bolt. Ford Mondeo discs (to name as an example) have huge holes and you can rotate the disc from side to side. It's when the car is in motion and the brakes are applied for the same time does the disc rotate once to meet the bolts. Then it stays in this position unless you reverse and brake again. Also this is lose until you put your wheel on of course!! The disc isn't going anywhere after you tighen those bolts.

This is quite common on mass production cars.

Back to proper braking stuff. The PCD AP quoted you is completely wrong. It's less than 200mm and that's the big problem. AP no longer make such a big rotor with a small PCD.

So it's back to the drawing board to make some bespoke bells to suit your new rotors.

I've already done this homework about 18 months ago so I unless AP have brought anything out since then I know it's a deadend

[snuffy]

Snuffy,

Change your avatar, you keep confusing me!!!!

Confused ? What about, your own sexulality ?

Yeah Adrian ,

That avatar looks pretty damn camp to me..........

Wotcha doin on here, anyway ?

Those Nobbler boys got nothin to say ?????????

Dontcha just wanna 350 again ......And all yer mates?

Regards ,

Mike

Camp ? That's no way to speak about Mr Sekinger, is it now ?

It's true that the members of the Nobility are not as talkative as members of this forum, but that's simply because we are a more exclusive breed !!!

[Jonathan]

Dave, I didn't say the holes are too big, they're not evenly aligned, the holes have been wangled out by wiggling a drill in them becuase they are egg shaped ! The bolts don't like fitting to the hub when the disk is in place as some holes have plenty of clearance and some have none.

I'd need to take a picture to show but both the cars have EBC rotors on now, could use the front hub I suppose but then I'd only get people saying "you do know thats a front hub dont you ?".

[MKE40]

Confused ? What about, your own sexulality ?

Camp ? That's no way to speak about Mr Sekinger, is it now ?

It's true that the members of the Nobility are not as talkative as members of this forum, but that's simply because we are a more exclusive breed !!!

My apologies to the redoubtable Mr S.....I thought the avatar was that of the novelty music chappie and part - time steeplejack .

Would the real 'Fred' , please stand up ?

?????????????

Mike

[kyliesmith.com]

Just raising this thread again to the surface as it

Edited January 18, 2008 by kyliesmith.com