Lotus Europa Community

Please post photos of the car.

Quote from: 4129R on Friday,April 26, 2024, 06:32:35 AM

P.S. Lottery tickets bought ...............

Did you win......

Sadly my investment enriched others.

But the car started easily and ran well today. The "to do" list has no major items on it.

Very timely that this discussion should come up (again) now. I wave waffled all over the map wrt the deleted booster/MC debate. I had settled on a pedal geometry change solution that I was going to get to, one of these days (detailed in another thread somewhere) but, predictably, never got around to it. I actually am pretty used to having to “brake with authority” with the stock .875” MC. (The poor guy who is required by law to drive the car into the inspection bay has a “no brakes” panic attack every year, however.)

However, for the first time in eight years I am treating the car to a “professional” spring tune-up and re-commissioning and the mechanic found corrosion in the MC bore that simple honing won’t clean-up.

So:

-Simply sleeve-the-original MC ($245 quote from Apple Hydraulics), with or wo the pedal geometry change?

-Replace the original MC with a smaller bore MC from another vehicle, with all the inherent pipe-routing, mismatched fittings and funky reservoir mounting problems?

-Or, my dream solution: Sleeve the original MC down to a smaller dia, turn the pistons and seal-ring grooves down to match, source replacement seals, and keep the original MC look and plumbing with a lighter touch on the brakes?

Stepping the original .875” MC down to .750” would give a nice 27% increase in brake pressure (and corresponding increase in panel stroke), while reducing to .705” (stock S2 bore dia, if I’m not mistaken) would be 35%. The .705” solution might also allow swapping S2 MC innards into the reduced-bore TCS MC body. I’m digging into the possibilities with the shop next week and will let everyone know where the chips land.

Tom

I'd like to know what you find out; I have a standard TC MC here, as well as an S2 (albeit rusty, but with the proper innards) that's been sitting for a while.  If they COULD sleeve down properly, use the TC as the base with the S2 innards...that would be the hot ticket, I think.

Going to have to make a decision soon; filled the reservoir a couple weeks ago, but when I checked last night, it was down again, above the 'MIN' line, but still down...

P.S. Lottery tickets bought ...............

Did you win......

Very timely that this discussion should come up (again) now. I wave waffled all over the map wrt the deleted booster/MC debate. I had settled on a pedal geometry change solution that I was going to get to, one of these days (detailed in another thread somewhere) but, predictably, never got around to it. I actually am pretty used to having to “brake with authority” with the stock .875” MC. (The poor guy who is required by law to drive the car into the inspection bay has a “no brakes” panic attack every year, however.)

However, for the first time in eight years I am treating the car to a “professional” spring tune-up and re-commissioning and the mechanic found corrosion in the MC bore that simple honing won’t clean-up.

So:

-Simply sleeve-the-original MC ($245 quote from Apple Hydraulics), with or wo the pedal geometry change?

-Replace the original MC with a smaller bore MC from another vehicle, with all the inherent pipe-routing, mismatched fittings and funky reservoir mounting problems?

-Or, my dream solution: Sleeve the original MC down to a smaller dia, turn the pistons and seal-ring grooves down to match, source replacement seals, and keep the original MC look and plumbing with a lighter touch on the brakes?

Stepping the original .875” MC down to .750” would give a nice 27% increase in brake pressure (and corresponding increase in panel stroke), while reducing to .705” (stock S2 bore dia, if I’m not mistaken) would be 35%. The .705” solution might also allow swapping S2 MC innards into the reduced-bore TCS MC body. I’m digging into the possibilities with the shop next week and will let everyone know where the chips land.

Tom