21 replies to this topic

[mini-mad-dan]

according to a university freind of mine (vehicle adavanced engineering thingy) he says that 4-pots on a mini are too much, and i will just lock the wheels up all the time with standard brake contoller thingys( not a brake expart i am)

is this true?

[Steamo]

is this true?

In a word no!

I had four pots on my last one and they were fine - definately didn't just lock the wheels up. If anything they were more progresive than the standard ones.

[minimadjonesy]

No! I have them fitted with no servo and a yellow band type of split master cylinder and it has not locked up on me! (apart from the emergency brake I had to do once!!)

[Jammy]

Nope, many many people have 4 pots. 4 pots designed for a mini or metro are fine because they are designed for a small car thats comparatively light.

[Guess-Works.com]

according to a university freind of mine (vehicle adavanced engineering thingy) he says that 4-pots on a mini are too much, and i will just lock the wheels up all the time with standard brake contoller thingys( not a brake expart i am)

is this true?

Male Chicken

[The Matt]

this 'vehicle advanced engineering' course may need to review its sublect matter!

4-pots are used all the time to a good degree of success. If you were fitting massive 4-pots off something like (for example) a Jaguar or something (which wouldn't even fit under the wheels, but anyway) then to a certain extent he is correct. You basically have to ensure that your master cylinder will push enough fluid to activate the 4 brake pistons correctly (laymans terms).

An example of this is some people putting 306 GTi-6 calipers onto Pug 205's, they have to change the master cylinder too.

In reality, the Metro is a similar car to the mini, so the conversion works well. The braking force is all about the equation F= PxA force (or Force = Pressure x Area) in my opinion. So if you are putting the same amount of pressure over more area (which having the 4 pots does, I think) you will have more force on the back of the brake pad, pushing it harder onto the disk. There are other advantages too, one of them being that you can use vented discs with the 4 pots, which will allow the discs to cool better under harder braking.


Disclaimer: All of that may be rubbish lol

[pikey7]

ask him to explain to you why. (by the way, he's wrong)

[Grayedout]

You have the most advanced brake control thing - your right leg !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Lomcevac]

according to a university freind of mine (vehicle adavanced engineering thingy) he says that 4-pots on a mini are too much, and i will just lock the wheels up all the time with standard brake contoller thingys( not a brake expart i am)

is this true?

Male Chicken

Rooster?

[Wil_h]

If you work out the surface area of the metro 4-pots compared to the standard mini 2-pots you will find that it is pretty much the same.

So from that respect they will fit fine and the pedal pressure to pad pressure ratio will remain the same.

I have done this conversion myself in the past, thinking it was a good idea, but it's a waste of time to be honest.

You will not see better braking performance (I cabn gaurentee it), all you end up with is a heavier calliper and extended pad life owing to their larger size.

Wil

[Turbo Nick]

agree with wil, plus they're a pain in the arse to bleed through due to 3 bleed nipples on each calliper. i'm taking the ones off my moms car soon because 4 of the 6 nipples have snapped off and changing them to normal 2 pots.

[Clubby1275GT]

male chicken = c0ck??? as in cockerel??

[mini-mad-dan]

i knew it! ha ha ha ha (gonna make him read this) i was right £10 to me!

[The Matt]

If you work out the surface area of the metro 4-pots compared to the standard mini 2-pots you will find that it is pretty much the same.

That's the thing I wasn't sure about to be honest. I didn;t have one to hand to measure. Sooo, I guess the real advantage to fitting the 4-pot setup is the fact that you can use vented 'rotors'.

I do have a set of 4-pots somewhere in the garage (admittedly they are rather past it and need a good sorting out) but I am considering either leaving the standard 2-pot mini calipers on, or fitting uprated 4-pots (minispares ones etc).

[blacktulip]

i had a metro turbo once (yes we all make mistakes)lol but the brakes on that were tremendous. so i would disagree too.