MOTOR Hot Tuner Challenge

[Highlander]

LOL, I'm surprised that someone hasn't put up a scan of the article. I don't have a newsagent within walking distance.....

Might have something to do with copyright. Not all that legal to copy and post (I don't think).

You might just have to wait till you can save up $8.95.

Hope your VW dealer is in walking distance or you may have trouble picking up your Polo next Monday.

[Highlander]

Sorry Murphy,

I completely disagree

Our cars stopped 100-0 (in class) second & third.

The cars that finished behind us (three VAG cars) had brakes costing:

$11,500
$4820
$4600 (so all three cost more than our setup).

Then the car that flogged us all was a BMW 135i with $800 worth of brake mods.

So vehicle dynamics have a lot to do with it - remember last months bang for your buck where the GTI & R finished 2nd & 3rd last in the braking - compared to EVERYTHING!

It's simply the cars dynamics & I am very happy to take on any VAG derivitive of this chassis in a brake competition & win!

I don't really think there are genuine classes in this comparison. Are Japanese, European and Australian really classes or rather just journalistic groupings? What about the cultural heritage of the drivers? Will that affect performance of the vehicles too.

The braking figures for your cars look pretty good to me. The GTI was beaten by 6 of the 18 cars on test . Better than all the Japanese cars and only beaten by the 135 (brilliant for an $800 upgrade)and 5 of the locals with brake upgrades costing from $6500-$7000 and no cost provided for the Walkinshaw SS Wagon. The R (probably due to heavier weight over the GTI) fell behind 3 of the Japanese, the GTI, the 135 and 5 of the locals. Interestingly, there is no negative comment about the GTI or the R brakes made by the test pilots.

As a point of interest did you ever check the 100-0 of the standard R before your modifications?

Would you care to elaborate on "It's simply the car's dynamics" for the unwashed amongst us? Is it suspension geometry, weight distribution, overall design or what?

With no knowledge at all, I would expect a 1360/1475kg car with pretty similar size brakes to outbrake vehicles of over 1800kg but that wasn't the case in these tests.

Maybe all the V8 Supercar racing has helped the development of braking systems for the local heavyweights.

I may also suggest that 100-0 test may not be the best test of overall braking efficiency but it is the measure used in this comparison test.

The efficacy of the brakes and the way they operate, not just raw stopping power, must have had some small part to play in the R's great EC lap times and I am sue that there was not even one 100-0 stop during that test. As I said earlier, there is no negative comment about the GTI or the R brakes made by the test pilots.

[MACCAA]

The braking test is performed on dead cold brakes.
Given the fact that the bulk of the field are running high performance/race pads,which perform at their optimum with heat in them,the varying results are to be expected.
Quite often modified brakes don't stop all that much better,but will do it lap after lap.
The reason some of the bigger cars stopped so well is generally they have much bigger tyres than you can put under a golf.
There certainly ain't much wrong with the stoppers on the two APR Golfs when I drove 'em.

[Highlander]

The braking test is performed on dead cold brakes.
Given the fact that the bulk of the field are running high performance/race pads,which perform at their optimum with heat in them,the varying results are to be expected.
Quite often modified brakes don't stop all that much better,but will do it lap after lap.
The reason some of the bigger cars stopped so well is generally they have much bigger tyres than you can put under a golf.
There certainly ain't much wrong with the stoppers on the two APR Golfs when I drove 'em.

Thanks Len. Pretty simple explanation and definitely takes some of the legitimacy away from the real value of a 100-0 test/comparison done under these conditions and certainly no reason for us to beat ourselves up about VW braking performance. Again the lap times only support what you say about the APR Golf brakes.

An average of ten stops may be a more valid or relevant test. Those of us with little or snowy white hair can recall when the motoring journos used to use Macquarie Pass as the barometer of brake testing and performance.

Do you know if the Bang for Buck tests were done under similar conditions?

[Guy_H]

Actually I reckon a better test for brakes would be 10 stops from 200kmph. That would soon sort "the men from the boys", and in hindsight, unless the brakes were woeful to start with, you may not improve much on standard brakes in the magazine's test.

The three different compounds of "street" pads we use honestly have no real bearing on the single stop issue, the difference is we can (at QR) get 4 laps, 8 laps or 10+ laps out of each respectfully with 215kmph stops.

[Guy_H]

Note from an accountant friend of mine (they are good with numbers) from the scores - the Golf R is the only car that won outright two categories. And the lap time & apex speeds were the best recorded at the entire event (That means when the next two issues come out with the big $$ cars - GT2's GT3' black series etc) nothing beat it!

Sill doesn't make up for the "poor performance", but another interesting point.

puts down rose coloured glasses

[Corey_R]

I'm still yet to figure out the allocations of scores in categories.
The dyno tests seem to be purely based on number, not power to weight etc, giving huge advantage to the relatively dinasour Australian entries compared to the high-tech Euro/Japanese entries.
HUGE differences in lap time equal small (i.e. less than 1 point out of 20) difference in track score.

Even great acceleration times (of the DSG S3) mean little if not matched by huge Dyno numbers etc.

So that's my beef. What is the point of this test?
The fatest cars in the "Traffic lights GP" tests didn't win. So it's clearly not aimed at "road usage". Yet little emphasis was given to track times either.

[Glennb]

Haven't read the article, but how much of a part does the brake pistons actually play in a 1 off emergency stop? Once you stomp the pedal, it's basically a balance of the ABS tuning and the tyres fitted at the time isn't it??
Piston/caliper/pad quality would be a much bigger issue in repeated high temp, high speed stops (eg track work), so I reckon it's a bit of a funny test for a so called Hot Tuner challenge.

[Corey_R]

The Scirocco with $11,500 8 piston 365mm brakes stopped in 38.5m
The Audi S3 with $4,820 6 piston 365mm brakes stopped in 39.1m.
The Golf R with $4,500 4 piston 370mm brakes stopped in 38.5, and the Golf GTI with the same brakes stopped in 37.2m.

In the Japanese cars, a similar thing happened. They were mostly 4 piston except for 1 WRX STI running 6 piston (39.1m, 2nd last) and 1 Liberty GT with 2 piston (38.3m, middle spot)

So I think what is more important is the overall package than just how many pistons are on the calipers.

[Guy_H]

From what we worked out with the scoring, its across all 31 cars in attendance, this issue only covers the first 18 cars (so there are ~ 13 scores missing out of the results)

The other cars will be featured in the upcoming issues.

Yes, the dyno is a killer. Its just a straight @ wheels figure, does not matter if FWD / RWD / AWD 4 cylinder, supercharged, turboed or nitrous. 4 cylinder is at an immediate disadvantage - Even MRT's super STI finished back because of that (and it made awesome power for a 4 pot).

Anyway, hopefully next year we can get a few more "Hot Hatches" & have enough for it's own class - judged against each other.

On the brakes - 4 pot, 6 pot, 8 pot, piston numbers don't matter that much. Its a question of:

Clamping force over pad area, caliper stiffness & heat dissipation.

Of course pad choice for hot or cold stops has a lot to do with it to.