The brake bias saga rolls on.
I have spoken to TrackVRoad and Dom and TVR Power about this.
Dom’s thoughts were that it could possibly be a master cylinder fault and that it would be worth getting the car onto a rolling road brake tester at an MOT station. If these exist to do both axles simultaneously it would give an indication of the brake balance without transfer, and could give a baseline before any adjustments are made. If they only work on one axle at a time (i.e to check balance across the car) then that is not good to me since calibrated pedal pressure would be needed to make comparisons.
I have tried to found out exactly what spec. pads were fitted to the rear. They are TVR Power’s “Rear Pad Kit Tuscan” at £68.99 + VAT and the pads looks like this:
This might be AP Racing’s DS25HP pads, as mentioned when I was discussing the problem with AP. See picture below – That pad is for a Lotus.
If I don’t get a reply to my e-mail soon then I will call again. I may ask about the cost of a quick rolling road session as well so I can find out how the engine is doing and try to ID the slightly strange noise at high revs and full throttle. Sounds like an irregular ticking from the exhaust manifold.
I had a number of chats with Ian and TrackVRoad. He thought the spring rates on the Gaz Gold Pro kit fitted to the Tamora were 425 front and 325 rear. I think that is lbs / inch. There is a single tandem master cylinder for both front and back brake circuits so initially (before the limit valve) the same pressure is applied to both. The limit valve is a Ford part.
We discussed a front brake pad change, and apparently this is quite easy. They use a syringe and some tube to take brake fluid out of the resevoir when doing a pad change.
After a reminder, I got the part number for the valve from TrackVRoad (thanks Craig), and have started to try to track down the specification of the standard valve.
It is TVR Part Number J0744 or Ford Part Number 7 117 274 (also 96 FB 2L 410 AA).
I gave my local Ford Dealer, Hills Ford, a call while our Mondeo was in for an MOT. Carl is the chap to speak to and has always been helpful and knowledgeable over the years.
He could find the valve on the system and it retails at £49.56 + VAT (£59.47). This is a saving over buying from a TVR specialist, £72 at Racing Green.
Despite looking, Carl couldn’t find any technical details and suggested I tried contacting Ford directly.
I used their website to send a technical query at the start of the week, and then recieved a call today saying that the question had been passed to the technical team, they had some information for me and would be writing to me soon. That would be good 🙂
I have also had a chat with Jo at CAT Driver Training. I explained that the ongoing problems and the arrival of a new baby meant I would like to delay the course further and she was very good about it. I feel bad about messing them around but she has always been very helpful and cheery.
Some day I will get to finish the training, hopefully before I bankrupt myself on this car…