AX brakes vs. Racing brakes..., what setup or both???? Options

[BKLA]

The narrow body AX/race car I purchased last October has Boxster brakes up front and "m" front calipers mounted at the rear. I just ordered Rich Johnson's rear boxster kit for the 914 and will install it before the first AX this season up here... seems like a good idea to have a matched set of brakes that are engineered to work with each other. (I believe that the car is in E mod for the PCA AX, but honestly, I have no idea.) This is all well and good for AX, but places me in all kinds of weird and uncompetative classes in PCA, SCCA and is not legal for histerical classes.

I am not planning to race the car this season, but would like to go thru a few DE days and an SCCA drivers school in order to re-activate a 15 year lapsed license... Next year though, I would like to do a few historicals as well as an SCCA race or two.

Anyway, now I have a good set of "M" fronts, a set of "M" rear (smaller piston size) calipers (rebuilt) and I was thinking...Hmmmm

I could put together a complete set of front struts and rear trailing arms with these brakes and have a legal historical, SCCA and PCA system that I could just bolt on. Of course, I need shocks to match, but I have a set of front struts as well as trailing arms with elephant racing bearings installed - so this seems like a no brainer.

Am I over thinking this? - I'm not out to win, been there done that...I'm out to have a really good time - so running in the other classes in an uncompetative car shouldn't really matter.

Any advise from the peanut gallery?

[914forme]

Boxsters are over kill in auto-x and with a narrow car, can be hard to modulate on and off on a track. Lockups happen more than not, and tire choices will have to be well perfect. Narrow cars don't have a huge foot print to use, got to keep tire friction working for you, and a locked wheel does little more for you that flat spot a tire. Don't get me wrong locking a wheel has its advantages, or at least dragging a wheel or two can. But it is not usually associated with auto-x or DE. But there are still ways I use it to my advantage.

I run Carrera brakes on my front and rear, I like matched items also, have an adjustable prop valve out back, fronts will just barely lock before rears in most instances. I run stock OEM pads or a DS11 pad in these. Point being over kill over kill over kill. I can lock all 4 up at will. On an auto-x Only time I use them to their full potential is coming off the course. Even though they like to toss a gate or two before the finish line, in a 914 it is a minor diversion and you can usually cook it at 60-90, then I need the brakes to get down to safe speeds for the paddock. But note, a single time the -4 brakes would pull this off with out issue. They would cool before my next run and not be an issue.

My original setup was a set of M fronts, on stock 914-4 rotors, and 914-6 rears with a 19mm master. I had to remove the spacers out of the M, for my none vented rotors. But with pad technologies the way they are and experience on the track, with PCA J class race cars, you can do really well, with stock -4 parts, better than you think. Biggest problem is heat soaking and some ample use of coatings can really reduce this issue to almost nil. For auto-x you don't need to add cooling, but on a track, we ran them on the front rotors, built a set of ducts, over the rotor, that on the outside looked like a beer can, inside had a few baffles to help direct the air over the rotors, trying to reduce, lopsided cooling issues. I should have gotten a set of Bud stickers and slapped on the cans. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/beer.gif)

Auto-x and racing are controlled environments. But I am a believer in huge brakes, on the street, you can never have enough brakes, or acceleration, both are needed for accident avoidance.