Alfa Romeo/Alfa Romeo Digest Archive

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

GTV6 brakes



Yes indeed, in stock format, the rear GTV6  brakes run much hotter than the front,
and the exhaust side can run 30 or 40F warmer than the other.  Some years ago,
after being frustrated with trackside brake issues,  I attached thermocouples to
the caliper surfaces of one front and both rear calipers. I ran an onboard data
recorder and  generated piles of test and track data.  Didn't take long to realize
that the rears were my real problem.   Once I properly dealt with the rears that
was pretty much the end of my trackside  brake issues.  This plot of some test
data I made during some hard street driving gives some idea of the relationship.
The upper curve is the exhaust side rear,  below that is the other rear and the
bottom curve is the front.

http://home.san.rr.com/glehmann/GTV6BT1.jpg

Apologies for the poorly formatted data, (it was only intended for myself) but I
think the point is obvious,  I have reams (megabytes) that all say the same thing.
There are some track curves I have from Laguna Seca and the old Las Vegas road
circuit where the rears are running at more than twice the temperature of the
front. The scary part is that at the track when I plotted repeated laps,  the
front temps would rise and fall with the on and off action of the brakes and
retrace themselves nicely on top of the previous lap BUT...... the rears would
retrace their curve on each lap with the same shape but positioned 10 or 15
degrees higher each time around until the rears eventually boiled and the pedal
went down.  Case solved.........As they say, your mileage may vary.....

Gerry Lehmann
'86 GTV6
--
to be removed from alfa, see /bin/digest-subs.cgi
or email "unsubscribe alfa" to majordomo@domain.elided


Home | Archive | Main Index | Thread Index