Re all those responses,
well,at least I seem to ask questions of some interest on this list!
Firstly,I should point out that I was not/am not condoning use of excessive
speed by my fellow listers! but hey,we've all done it if we're really honest!
To Dudley,I might point out that whilst I cannot speak for the brakes on cars
I have been a passenger in at speed,I can reassure him that my own cars have
somewhat modified braking systems. My Herald 1200,now standard 1296cc with
single stromberg,'awesome' 61bhp,but ex-Shorrock Supercharged & about
95bhp,ex 8-port 1147cc & twin 40DCOE Webers & 107bhp. This car has at the
front:9.7" Ventilated Discs,(modified F&rd Crapi 2.8i german
discs/rotors),with 'spaced' GT6-3 16PB Calipers and Ferodo DS11 Competition
pads,Aeroquip SS braided brake hoses all round,Vitesse,8"(I think),Drums to
the rear,The Master Cylinder is large capacity & there is Lockheed Vacuum
Servo assistance.That lot seems to be sufficient!
(The Herald 1200 bonnet acts as a pretty efficient air brake as well!)
Handling/control & stopping ability is also aided by Koni telescopic Shock
absorbers all round,shorter front springs,aluminium steering rack mountings,a
larger front anti-roll bar,the Spitfire 1500 rear transverse swing-spring,the
Cosmic Alloy Wheels (11lb each) and the Goodyear Eagle 185x60 tyres,oh,and
the quaif Limited Slip Diff helps!
I quote from Dave Lillywhite of Practical Classics article dated Sept 1994
pgs.32-35:
"What is also immediately obvious is the tautness of this car",It"feels more
Lotus Elan than Triumph Herald,The uprated suspension causes the occupants to
be joggled around on bumpy roads,but it increases cornering ability
immeasurably compared to the standard car","The swing-spring conversion seems
to do away with the infamous Herald rear-wheel tuck-in".
(Not for nothing was my Signal-Red Herald known as the 100mph flying brick!)
And if I may paraphrase the immortal Ettore Bugatti: "I build my cars to
go,not to stop!" (I do build mine to stop too,but it's a nice
quote,nonetheless!),My long-term Vitesse project has benefitted from all I
have learnt by continuously modifying & testing,to destruction my Herald over
the last 16 years.
I won't go into detail here as it there are just too many of them,but
eventually I'll write it all up in the TSSC monthly magazine,and no doubt,by
then,you'll all be TSSC members!
So I trust you can now see that it isn't just about going faster!
The admittedly small amount of circuit testing that I've done has certainly
helped me improve the breed.For a little light reading,may I recommend the
american book:"Brake Handbook by Fred Puhn,in HP books of LA
series,ISBN:0-89586-232-8"
And I can say that I wrung 100mph+ out of my Herald on the Jabbeke Highway in
Belgium,on the same stretch as Ken Richardson did in the TR2,some years
earlier,although I don't think they've resurfaced the concrete inbetween!
One of my Belgian TSSC friends test-drove my Herald,mit kompressor,on that
particular visit,the speedo read 90mph+ but his friend following in a
twin-spark Alfa Romeo told me it was only doing 70mph+ not 90mph+, I
considered that was more than a little odd,as I had made it from London to
Dover (90miles),in one hour on the way over? It subsequently transpired that
the,new,Alfa's Speedo was incorrectly calibrated!!!
Regards to all,Leon...(wannabe fastest Herald driver in the west!)
(wow,no mention of J.Storm,Beer,Cider,Guns or suicide jockies!)
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