Hi all, Looking on eBay there’s an new aftermarket kit which includes 280mm G60 calipers, carriers, discs and pads all for £300. Not a bad price. But putting them on my ‘91 16v Mk2 would I have to upgrade the servo and master cylinder to get the real benefit out of such an upgrade? Also, would I need to do anything with the rears to balance things out? Just wondering if anyone who’s done it has any advice? Cheers!
G60 280mm discs are good, work with 15's. Use proper pads. Likely the pads included will be 'ditch finders' LOL I was sceptical, but did a mid winter tarmac rally and they worked fine, unexpectedly... Belching smoke on arrival at stage finish, but all ok for next stage Jon
Master cylinder should be fine, but look at sourcing parts separately, I did, and philryder has just done similar.
I did it, 256 is good, 280 is definitely better. Works OK with the small cylinder, but the 16v one gives a slightly shorter and firmer pedal. I wouldn't say the servo upgrade is essential. I upgraded a friends 1.3 to 16v brakes front and rear, and the pedal feel was quite good. With the stock servo and original 1.3 spec cylinder.
will already have a 9" servo and if its got 256mm it'll have the 22mm master as well. if you do have 256mm you can just get a pair of carriers job done, then use part worn pads or sometimes new 16v pads fit ok. alternative is grind down the slider pins slightly to get that extra couple mm. 16v guys have been doing this since the 80s
Thanks guys. That’s brilliant. So am I right in thinking that the 256mm and 280mm calipers are basically the same?
yes, just the 280 ones are slightly wider to suit 22mm thick disc vs 20mm 16v disc, plus g60 pads are thicker too. this is why 256 calipers can struggle to fit even if you use 16v pads as the discs are also thicker
54mm or 60mm 'throat' isnt it? Hence 2 different pad thicknesses, 3mm difference to accommodate on different models, had to skim my pads to slide in easily.
I did this on several MK2 cars over the years, thinking I was improving the vehicle. The only time I really saw the benefit to braking and driver input, was pushing on on a track. On a track using high friction, non road legal pads. What was even more fascinating, several times, on trackdays I arranged for this group, race drivers attended, driving MK2 Golf cars from the championship. They ran 1.8 8v cars with 8v braking systems. They were much faster than me in a 2.0 ABF 16v car with super dot 4 brake fluid, 280 mm brake calipers and discs, with pads DS3000 Ferodo. They could late brake me and out drive me. Out brake me on 239 mm brakes. The key to the stopping power was simply the pads. The rest was just their experience. I am sure their brakes pads would wear much faster than mine, but it did not matter on a race car. If you attend trackdays, then yes run 280 mm disks in place of your 256 mm, use the caliper bracket and calipers from a pre 95 Golf Mk3, Corrado VR6 or pre 93 Passat. With high friction pads. Be mindful of wheel offset when running 280 mm disks pads and calipers. If the car is a road car, it does not matter. It can stay as is.
Fantastic help all appreciated. That is all really interesting stuff guys. Plenty of food for thought there. I’ll mull it over whilst I watch eBay for the bits required. Of course the thing I’d really, really like ultimately is ABS on my Mk2 but coming across a full setup to retro fit don’t exactly happen every day. Cheers volks.
As the Dodgy man says you have to grind down the pads a little. My calipers are the 256 and the few mm difference makes a big difference. I found the thinnest pads I could which were 15.8mm and I had to grind just over 1/2mm off each for them to fit. I've dry fit them and the other thing I've noticed is that the carrier is incredibly close to the disc on the inside.
Everything span freely when fitted mine, same calipers as you got, but after a little bit of braking the expansion caused slight metallic rubbing, careful small bit of relieving it got it sorted.
Think it would make the pedal travel too short personally, but depends on your preference. my mate tried the 23mm master on his G60 when he deleted the abs but didnt like it and swapped back to the 22mm
I have it on my 350bhp mk2 pd tdi, it just works fine with 280mm brakes although I am struggling to stop the car at times...I have 312mm brakes to fit on it if I decide t o upgrade to 16" alloy wheels ! On the other golf2 I have 256mm front brakes and rear drums, brakes are really sharp but the power of the engine is half what the other is mustering !
It is pretty irrelevant what the power of the engine is, it's the mass you are stopping. Stopping a 1.3 at 70mph is the same as stopping a 3.2 at 70mph. The 3.2 will have more mass so better brakes are a good idea. Just because brakes are bigger doesn't mean they are better they have to be set up properly to work well. Let's face it a mk2 GTi has the same diameter discs as a 1.3 but they cool better because they are thicker and are therefore more efficient.
I wouldn't say it's irrelevant the power of the engine, the more power you have you are quicker to accelerate and you'll reach higher speeds which in turn means more effort is required to stop decelerating ! However clamping force has a lot to do with good fluid, good pad compound and leverage trough larger discs...and the ability of the caliper to dissipate heat but not to boil the fluid...
Let's face it a mk2 GTi has the same diameter discs as a 1.3 but they cool better because they are thicker and are therefore more efficient.[/QUOTE] Yep but they are vented for better cooling as well as an increase in mass /surface area you are heating up and the gti has rear discs compared to drums (obviously only do a smaller percentage of the braking) but not the same as a gti.
I've been through 239, 256 and 280 on the same car. And each step is a noticeable improvement. All on standard road pads.
