ABS anyone have a system yet?
 

Just received a PM from Charley and he is recommending ABS for the ZR-1 setup. He said the carbon rotors get real grabby after hard driving. He also said it gets to a point where they start to lock up!!!! It comes down to how hard I'm going to drive the car , I don't want to be limited to what I can and can't do with this car. I know Mark has ABS on his car but that's his system. Does anyone know of any ABS available to the public yet????

Mario, Matt from AME did one based on a C5 I believe. I've also heard of people retro fitting BMW stuff and then there's this:

http://www.bosch-motorsport.de/conte.../html/3720.htm

Good luck!

Out of curiosity, I was wondering if a manual setup would help. I believe all of Mark's recent cars, Jackass included have had power brakes, and I imagine a manual setup might be easier to modulate pressure since they require more force and aren't as grabby. I'm guessing only Charlie or Mark would have insight but, thoughts? Anyone?

Thanx Ron!
I did e-mail Mark on that very question Matt. I'm going to give Tobin a call at Kore3 for his take on this. He originally suggested the manual setup but Ill make him aware of the issue Charley was having. But again Charley has a power brake setup.:hairpullout:

We do all our cars with Manual brake systems. and suggest our customers do as well.
they work great when everyhting is sized correctly. and you have the correct pads. it simplifies the system and looks much cleaner.
not to many race cars have power brakes that I know of.

Very long, very complicated answer shortened, no, power vs manual has no effect. Getting an ABS system installed, and working is VERY hard. Im certain I could do it, but it would be extremely expensive. You'd be way better off just investing in good quality brake system and ditching that monoblock garbage everyone runs. Ive got a guy that will take your car and build a set of custom pads, rotors, and calipers tuned exactly to your car, and would only be a fraction of the price of ABS at about $10,000 or so.

I disagree, the point of manual brakes is to give the driver more feedback while requiring more input fromt he driver. I think it could make enough difference to side step ABS.

My biggest concern for you Mario, I see you as a 99% street guy. I'd put power brakes on any car that is a more dedicated street warrior vs. race car. I never liked manual brakes all that much around town. They are great at higher speeds or once you have some heat in the pads. They just require to much leg around town.

Personally, I'd try them out without ABS unless you plan on road racing or switch to a steel rotor. Unless you just want to :G-Dub:

Blake thanx for your input it does look like that's the way were going to go.
Todd you do have a valid point. I really intend to drive this thing hard. But we don't have as many places or events as you guys do over on the west coast. So your 99% would be accurate. We do have the AUTOBAHN race club very near my house that I'm looking into. But its not open to the public its a Country Club for racers big money to become a member.

You've got the front sensors, just a matter of rears and the rest of the system! :sieg: :lostmarbles:

Take a look at this

I believe there are a number of solutions out there now for the rear (a la GMR) that would allow you to also use the C6 type rear hubs / bearing pack. Otherwise the rear axles would need some sort of modification for ring and sensor installation.

This will limit the tire diameters to something near in ratio to the donor system. But, at least this gives a baseline system that could work. You can see in the article that it does interfere a bit on the track - kicking in at about 0.9g. Anyway, point is there are some systems out there that shouldn't be wildly complicated to install - nor wildly expensive in relation to the cost of some of these builds. Whether there is a huge benefit? Who knows.....

So I've been researching this like a mofo. Thx Mario...:lol:

From limited knowledge, ABS retrofit on a track car may not be the best idea. It can go into ice mode or do funny things at speed heading into a corner. Different OEM systems each have their own challenges on the track, even in the cars they were designed for.

Overcoming this (for a track car) requires adjustability and tuning. The Bosch system gives you this capability, but like James said costs in the ballpark of :whoa: ...

Many track guys remove them all together and claim they're faster.

Moral of the story is be careful what you read on the internet and proceed with caution.

Abs would be much simpler if you had steel rotors but you don't. The easiest route would be to swap out steel rotors and matching pads for track days. The rest of the time the carbon will work great. I went off track at Gingerman when they locked up at the end of a straight and slid thru the grass on one of my qualifying laps for motorsports challenge but nobody saw me so I didn't get black flagged and just kept going. The problem with the carbon brakes is when you really heat them up they get grippier to the point that the grip can double during one hard stop. So your foot is in the same place on the pedal but suddenly it like like you really stomped on the pedal. To counter that you start trying to gently lift your foot. As most know you need to be concentrating on lots of stuff when you are trying to go fast and adding that to the equation makes for slower times. Stielow has done ABS on Red Devil but I don't think he wants the liability of giving that info out to copy. What if it fails at the wrong time ?

Thanx for your input again Charley. I do like your rotor idea! It just would be great to utilize the ZR-1 setup. But if its not safe its not going to happen! So were going with the manual setup to see what happens ????