pedal box - master cilinder

[Kenno]

Hi ,

I have an escort mk1 with in front AP brakes ( CP4567 ) and on the rear wilwood powerlite .
I am currently using 0.750 in front and 0.625 on the rear .
The hydraulic handbrake i am using uses 0.700 master cilinder .
The brakes work fine but i have almost no pedal travel ( 1" ) . Even the handbrake has almost no travel.
Is this setup not ok for these calipers ? what can i do to have a little more pedal travel ?
Also the brake pedal sits very high which is not handy for driving . I bought the pedal box by rally design .
Anyone ideas ?

Kenny

[Graham]

i find this a bit frustrating, people fit a competition pedal box then complain about a firm pedal with little travel, which is what most want in a competition car!

if you use a .6 on the front circuit pedal travel will go up, almost everyone fits .6 on the handbrake. if you want to lower the pedal, the master cylinder pushrods need shortening. idealy you dont want them bottomed out in the pedal so you can adjust the angle of the bias bar.

in theory a bias box is a bolt in mod, in practice setting one up takes a lot of effort and a fair bit of trial and error

[Kenno]

Hi ,

I am not complaining , i was just wondering if this setup was ok as it has not much pedal travel .
If this is normail , than it's ok !
The brakes work well .
So the only thing to change would be the handbrake master cilinder ? Now it is almost inpossible to block the wheel with the hand brake .
The hanbrake is from gartrac and came with the 0.7 cilinder .

[TJM]

Maybe consider swapping the the fronts to 0.625" and rear to 0.750" as your larger caliper pistons are on the front (CP4567 total piston area is 46.23cm2 while the powerlites are 40.13cm2). Will give you more travel but also increase pressure on front brakes. However you may find the original setup works better for you and you can always revert back.

With the larger master cylinder on the handbrake you are moving more fluid but with less pressure so as Graham said consider changing to 0.625" which again will give you more pressure with longer travel and you may find the handbrake locks up.

There is a bit of trial and error to get it spot on as there are so many variables involved, but best of luck.

[katana]

Surprising that you find the braking 'good' with the current cylinder arrangement? I don't know the AP calipers but unless they have huge piston area, a 0.75 master would usually be too large - promoting 'wooden feeling' and minimal pedal travel! This cylinder will pump a lot of fluid but at lower pressure. Likewise the rear is what is usually used on the front as the rears do less overall braking effort. As an experiment try swapping front and rear line connections over and see if it makes a difference - the h/brake may make more sense then?

[Kenno]

sorry , my mistake i have the 0.625 on the front and the 0,750 on the rear .
I have just shortened the puschrods a half inch . testing will be for next week