I have the big brake kit from the Winners Circle on my street Sprite. For
me if did require either bending the steering arm (scary thing) or slightly
turning down the rotors and rebalancing them (this is what I did).
Obviously a much beefier setup than stock and should be able to easily
handle Sprites for most any circumstances.
If I had to do it over again, I would not go through the effort. If I
really felt that I needed some additional cooling, I would go with the
vented disc brake setup which uses stock calipers. The brake fade that some
people have been experiencing is probably due to old fluid, not to bad
brakes. Keep in mind that most fluids (like Castrol LMA) have relatively
low boiling points and when they boil, brakes get scary very quick. If your
fluid is more than a year old, from the performance standpoint it should be
changed, period no discussion.
I will also heartily agree with Walt's plug for ATE Super Blue. It is THE
inexpensive high temp DOT 4 brake fluid (usually less than $13/liter). It
has extremely good dry boiling point performance (410F+) and pretty decent
wet boiling point performance as well. Only the most extreme tracks will
require anything more than this fluid. To get a fluid with higher dry
boiling points usually costs about $30+/liter and a significant loss in wet
boiling performance. I seldom see anything else other than ATE Super Blue
used at BMW driving schools and it really gets quite a workout from that
crowd...
Also, properly adjusted rear brakes will help overall braking performance
quite a bit on the street. YMMV
Jackson Zimmermann
jzimmerm@albemarle.org
'64 A-H Sprite (1275, 5-speed, big brakes, panhard rod, quaife, very fun
autox car)
'85 BMW 535i (mostly track car, very quick for a 4 boxy door sedan)
Various other cars
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