Technical GT vs UT brakes

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Technical GT vs UT brakes

chaos

Ah. Not good...
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Had a quick search, couldn't find much about this. Anyway - what's better? GT or UT brakes? Assume 14s are already fitted :)

Cheers
 
UT brakes were always know for being less than good if we are to be diplomatic, one on the criticisms of the car when it was new by road testers were compared to R5GTT's and 205GTi's and such other cars that were direct comparison. This also reflects what I remember of UT brakes when I drove them many years ago, and I know Jamie86 was less than impressed by the brakes on his UT.

I have not been in a UT shod Cinq, but as Cinq has a small weight advantage should work better and being vented will get rid of heat quicker, but the disc is no bigger than diameter than Cinq 240mm allowing them to be used with 13" wheels.

The GT brakes are considerably bigger on a car that did not produce much more power or carry that much more weight than a UT, and Fiat saw fit to change these again during its life time to a larger calliper design that takes a bigger pad, so therefore has larger clamping area.

The GT brakes are outstanding either calliper, but in my experience the latter design is best going on my old Cinq V's Emma's with older calliper, giving the car modern car feel and power. These as has been said need to be used in 14" wheels as have bigger 257mm disc.
 
Hmm...the reason why I asked was that I remember something that RallyCinq wrote about the pad contact area being the same for both GT and UT which (unless I've missed something :eek:) means that if the discs and pads were as similar as you could get them then the performance would be similar :confused:

I do have 14s on the way :) and I have plenty of time to source a set of calipers :)
 
you're maybe thinking about rears?

GT's defo bigger but UT's fit under the wheels, GT's will have the greatest braking force but the UT's do me fine though i havnt had them on track yet but my old cinq brakes would get fade easily whereas the UT's can stand to abuse :eek: :)
 
J333EVO said:
The GT brakes are outstanding either calliper, but in my experience the latter design is best going on my old Cinq V's Emma's with older calliper, giving the car modern car feel and power.

Do you know what year the change over of the calipers were anyone, would be a usful bit of info. Also theres other cars that can donate calipers that are the same as the GT's.
These are some i'm told:
Marea 1.6 auto saloon (not manual)
Marea 1.6 estate
Marea 1.8, 1.9TD 100 & TD110 (not 2.4)
Tempra 2.0 petrol & TD
Bravo/a 1.8, 1.9TD 100
Tipo 2.0 8 valve
Punto GT
Alfa 155 1.8 8v or 1.8 16v (not 2L)

Anyone know if these cars calipers were changed as well??
 
you're maybe thinking about rears?

GT's defo bigger but UT's fit under the wheels, GT's will have the greatest braking force but the UT's do me fine though i havnt had them on track yet but my old cinq brakes would get fade easily whereas the UT's can stand to abuse :eek: :)

I might well be Alex.
 
The later ones have as Fingers said a spring on the outside and a much bigger pad with hocks on the end, the earlier ones are like what Emma has, sure she put up picks of hers.

Early type
DSC_0019.JPG


Late type, please note they are not the correct pads fitted, but pads from earlier type shows how much smaller they are as the correct pads go right up to the edge and hock over the calliper
6870IMGP0076.JPG
 
Cheers lads :)

Aaron, you wouldn't happen to know when Fiat moved over to the later design? Or does anyone else know? :)
 
The stopping power of my breaks is immense. I have the tarox 40 grove with the pads. High on dust but extremely good breaks. I see no need to uprate mine any further. There is only so far you can go I recon, its not just only down to breaks but tyre size and also the rest of the system. I periodically clean out the groves on the disc surface

I will add its ok having good breaks but you ll know about it if you get them too hot and experience break fade. Iv had my breaks glowing red in the past and the fluid boiling. If you reach this stage there are no breaks
 
Last edited:
Custard

The consensus seems to be that the late ones offer more feel, the early ones can be a bit wooden.

Lots of people -- from past posts -- had problems bleeding them which might account for soft pedal.

I've said it elsewhere, Blue's brakes are the best car brakes in respect of performance and feel I've ever experienced. :yum:

gt3man says
I will add its ok having good breaks but you ll know about it if you get them too hot and experience break fade. Iv had my breaks glowing red in the past and the fluid boiling. If you reach this stage there are no breaks

The reason your brakes are boiling (too early) is because you're using small size non-ventilated disks: it's a simple matter of surface area. While the Tarox design is great for preventing pad glaze, it relies on less surface area (grooves = less contact area between pad and disk) and pad and disk material to improve the braking.

If you can get them to boil on the road then you're a maniac, if you can get them to boil on the track then they're obviously not up to purpose (or the fluid is cream crackered), and you should look at bigger, ventilated disks.

If there are 25 corners and your brakes last for 24, then it'll be a case of no brakes = big breaks!
 
On my car with both drums at first and then UT disc/callipers on the rear the peddle feel was excellent, firm much less movement than before, but easy to mudulate the pressure.

On Emma's they felt a bit wooden at first, then when we changed them over to other car they were very soft, so changed master cyclinder and bleed the brakes a fair few times until feel was right, now they are very good.
 
Do you know what year the change over of the calipers were anyone, would be a usful bit of info. Also theres other cars that can donate calipers that are the same as the GT's.
These are some i'm told:
Marea 1.6 auto saloon (not manual)
Marea 1.6 estate
Marea 1.8, 1.9TD 100 & TD110 (not 2.4) Note - the TD 75 DOES NOT have the same part number
Tempra 2.0 petrol & TD
Bravo/a 1.8, 1.9TD 100
Tipo 2.0 8 valve
Punto GT
Alfa 155 1.8 8v or 1.8 16v (not 2L)

Anyone know if these cars calipers were changed as well??


I'm slowly trying to work my way through the list :)

The ones highlighted in red have the same part number for late GT pads.
 
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