In a message dated 5/3/99 5:03:46 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
dterrick@pangea.ca writes:
> still on the stopping power tangent - tires are the absolute first thing to
> consider - so long as all the brakes work.
Dave,
Right on!
Some one on this list wrote awhile back: "Brakes don't stop the car. Brakes
stop the tires; tires stop the car." I don't recall who wrote it, but it is
so true! We can improve the brakes till your little old granny can lock up
the wheels wearing high heeled sneakers, but then all that extra braking
power is down the tube as she slides off the road or into whatever it was she
was trying to avoid in the first place. Braking power of a tire that is
sliding is only a fraction of the braking power of a tire that is still
turning but is on the very edge of breaking loose.
In the HP book on performance brakes, Fred Puhn says that a good street brake
setup will have at least 200 square inches of brake swept area per ton of
vehicle weight. A TR6 has over 256 square inches per ton!
Better tires will give you much more bang for the buck when it comes to
stopping. Tires are the limiting factor on a Triumph, for sure the original
red-lines.
How does 235 - 55 - 16 sound? Still not big enough, eh?
Dan Masters,
Alcoa, TN
'71 TR6---------3000mile/year driver, fully restored
'71 TR6---------undergoing full restoration and Ford 5.0 V8 insertion - see:
http://members.aol.com/danmas/
'74 MGBGT---3000mile/year driver, original condition - slated for a V8 soon
'68 MGBGT---organ donor for the '74
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