While researching my brake issues, I gave Chris at Centre Gravity a call.
I had spoken to Chris before the CAT driver training, and was waiting on the results of the training to see whether the suspension needed further work.
Based on the handling pan tests, the suspension setup seems to be ok, but the brakes remain an issue.
I have Chris a call to update him, to ask a few questions about brakes and tyres, and to mention the handling tests of the car (Colin from CAT and Chris have worked together in the past).
We discussed tyres first. Of the list of tyres I have found which fit the car (see part-way down this page), and based on my criteria of mainly road driving with a bit of track, he rated the T1-Rs and the Continentals. The continentals are good tyres. The T1-Rs have slightly softer rubber (more grip, more wear) and softer sidewalls – perhaps less grip, more progressive breakaway. The light TVR might be well suited to softer side-wall tyres.
Since the Continentals can be quite a bit more expensive than the Toyos, the T1-Rs might be what I buy, but we will see what the prices are when I start shopping.
Regarding brakes – imbalance of pads seems like the most likely option, followed by caliper issues. The tyres are all equally old, but it makes sense to change them at the same time to reduce the potential culprits.
If that doesn’t work, we could look at suspension. The Gaz Gold Pros do not have separately adjustable bump and rebound damping, but one knob which controls both.
One approach could be to back all shocks off to fully soft, and then bring them up a couple of clicks at a time testing the handling.
An initial thought is that the rear could be set too soft, reducing traction under braking. The harder the rear is set, the more likely the car will become tail happy.
It seems like a bit of a dark art to me at the moment, and lots of testing could shred the tyres, so hopefully pads will fix it.