308 gt4 brakes and more on shifter

Must be something wrong with the brakes. Mine always braked well, also with panic stops. Can't advice you now but you really have to check them.

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A little more description on the brakes may be necessary. Did the pedal go all the way down or was it hard? The solution may be as simple as a good brake bleeding. Put the car and 4 jackstands and have someone press the brakes while you check the wheels. Maybe there is a stuck caliper. Braking on a 308 is decent but it is also 30 year old technology. With that said the car should still stop very well. Another thing to check is the flex lines that go to the calipers. Look for signs of collapse or bubbles.

 

Why would you consider locking the wheels up as desirable?

 

A GT4 should be able to lock it's front wheels under heavy braking...mine certainly does.

Fair enough it's not that desirable compared to a modern car, but it's better than the rears locking before the fronts when cornering!

 

Ferrari brakes are normally very, very good - especially in comparison to most other things on the road! What happened to the brake pedal - did it go to the floor? If so then you either have a leak somewhere or maybe a massive air lock. Did the car pull up straight? If not then you maybe have a sticky caliper.

Other options would be:

a) Your Brake fluid is just old & needs to be replaced - maximum life of brake fluid is only 2 years at most. Could also be your fluid has been boiled at some stage & that wrecks it.

b) Your pads are glazed. There are a variety of procedures to "re-bed" them involving warming the brakes up & then braking hard several times from 60/70mph - do a Google search for "Bedding in". You can also take the pads out & knock the glazed surface off them with sandpaper although you have to be careful when doing this - if you create highspots on the pads things can get a bit "heated" in small areas which doesn't do your pads or disks any good at all.

c) Could be your tyres are just old & hard - this can have a fairly significant impact on braking distance.

d) One or more of your flexible brake lines is about to fail & is bulging when you hit the pedal hard thereby reducing the pressure on the piston/pad.

Option a) or b) would be the most likely/common cause

HTH

I.

 

Nope, just DOT 3. I use Ford's High Performance DOT 3 as it has a higher boiling point than typical type 3 fluids.

 

-308 like alot of other ferraris have a stiff pedal
-good in one way to get a better brake feel
-main reason for bigger wheels and low profile rubber was to get bigger brakes on cars
-brakes in general were nothing in the 70s when the 308 was engineered compared to todays massive brakes
-308 were engineered with 205/70/14 tires (only later was 225 50 16 an option) alot of 308 have bigger than stock and newer tires which are much gripper than originals i.e. more friction therefore even harder to lock brakes
-i put 225/60/14 +246/60/14 on my personal 308 gt4 as well as new brakes all round and i have to push very hard to get the fronts to lock
-sometimes on fresh asphalt they won't lock!
-try a grippier pad
-not race pads .....they r not grippy until hot and very poor grip when cold
-don't take any chances with brakes....have everything checked like nuvolari suggested just to be sure

 

Depends what's in it !

I'm having this debate at the moment because I need to change the fluid in my 328 & it looks like the last time it was changed it had Castrol SRF put in it which is not supposed to be mixed with anything else. SRF is great stuff in as much as it has a ridiculously high boiling point - but is also (unfortunately!) fearsomely expensive! Frankly its overkill for road use.

Have a look at the service records you have & see if you can get in touch with whoever did the last bleed/fluid change & ask what they would have used.

A good quality Dot 4 will do the job - there is one particular brand around (can't remember which!) that comes in two different colours which is quite a handy thing since you can tell easily when you have got the new fluid through to each caliper. You could do a lot worse than use the Agip fluid recommended in the oweners manual.

DON'T use DOT 5 (silicone based) fluid unless that's what's already in it. Swapping to & from DOT 5 normally requires a complete system disassembly & flush since DOT4 & 5 do not mix well at all & if you try it bad things can happen!

rgds

Iain

 

More grip on the tyres is only going to bring you to a halt even faster - the more grip you can have there the better. Whatever tyre you have the brakes should still be able to lock the wheels & so if you can't you need to look at the braking system rather than worry too much about tyres. No such thing as tyres that are too effective & no such thing as tyres that can't be locked up.

Some stats I saw a while ago do suggest that some tyres definitly have shorter braking distances than others. If your tyres are old & hard they should be locking up much earlier & so since that isn't what's happening I'd be worrying about sorting out your brakes.

Add to the earlier lists that you should check the thickness of your pads & discs - if they are worn then braking will be adversly affected. The other thing to be aware of is that if you have very hard (track orientated) pads these can be fairly ineffective untill you get them well warmed up. Great on a track, not so effective on the street where they never get a chance to reach optimum temperature most of the time.

Get your brakes sorted, add new tyres & the thing should pull up so fast it'll practically have you through the windscreen - seatbelt or not! To put it in context, even 20 year old Ferrari brakes should outperform practically anything else on the road with the possible exception of modern supercars, BMWs & maybe the odd Audi.

I.

 

Is your booster a problem?

 

I had Eugenio's Ferrari Service "rebuild" my entire braking system; rebuild calipers, replace hard and soft lines, turn rotors, replace pads (Front and Rear).

Just to prevent braking issues.

Very inexpensive "insurance" - considering the possible alternatives.

 

I" m assuming that the uneven wear you're referring to is the light colored portions on the upper edge of the pads & coming down along the right side of the right pad.

That looks to me as if the pad surfaces weren't quite parallel with the rotor, the flat area has worn down parallel while the lighter areas haven't been worn yet. There are a couple of possibilities:
- The pad's surfaces weren't machined parallel with the back of the pads
- The caliper isn't quite parallel with the rotor.

In either case, it doesn't look like it would be causing major problems.

The only adjustment for the front calipers is the shims between the caliper & the hub. The shims are used to ensure the calipers are centered on & parallel to the rotor.

With new pads, the pad surface can be very slightly out of parallel with the rotor & you'll get a faint noise when rotating the rotor. Unless you can feel noticeable drag, I wouldn't worry about it, it'll wear in during the bedding in period.

BTW, you don'r really need a feeler gauge to adjust the rear calipers. Just tighten the adjustment until the rotor is dragging strongly, then slowly back it off about 1/4 turn at a time until you can't detect any drag on the rotor.
Work the brake pedal a couple of times, & double check the adjustment.

And 2nd & 3rd Gen RX7s with the 4-piston front calipers & massive pads...