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Potenza S03 Tires on BBS RK Wheels
Dunlop Sport Maxx Tires
Sport Maxx Redux
Michelin Pilot Super Sport Tires
Brake System Upgrades
2011 Brake Refresh
& Cooling Duct Upgrade
2012 ABS/HCU Replacement
PSS Tire Replacements
2025 ABS Module Replacement
Potenza S03
Tires on BBS RK Wheels
When it comes to selecting aftermarket wheels, I have always made my
choices based on three primary considerations. First and
most
importantly, the wheels must be very lightweight. This requirement arises from
my "form follows function" philosophy. Lighter wheels reduce both unsprung
weight and rotational inertia, both of which should be kept to a minimum for
best vehicle performance. All other factors being equal, upgrading to lighter
wheels will improve any vehicle's acceleration, braking, and handling
capabilities. This is directly related to the simple physics of
F = MA,
or more precisely
t
= I * a, where
t
represents total torque,
I
is the moment of inertia, and
a
is angular acceleration. As you can see, the torque required to achieve any
specific acceleration is directly proportional to the moment of inertia, so if
you increase
I by a factor of
x, you must increase the applied torque by the same factor.
This is why reducing rotational inertia is so important from a performance
standpoint.
Second, and important to me entirely from a
maintenance standpoint, I prefer wheels that are easy to clean. This implies
wheels of very simple design. Wheels
with busy, intricate spoke patterns and/or wheels with exposed fasteners are much harder to
maintain than simple, single-piece designs. Also, unless they are
clear-coated, polished wheels require considerably
more elbow grease to keep looking good than painted or chrome rims. That's why
I'd never personally consider a set of bare, polished wheels.
Third, a set of wheels must be visually appealing to me. I'm not inclined
to mount a set of wheels that I think are hideous on my car.
Editorial Comment:
While I realize that wheel selection is a very personal thing, some choices
strike me as just plain ridiculous, personal preferences notwithstanding. In particular, I will
never understand the fascination with rivets or other fastener doodads around
the rims of road wheels. I must confide that I, for one, consider fasteners not only unsightly
but also counter-productive from a performance standpoint.
Rivets/fasteners look bad, add weight, and make wheels difficult to clean. Most
absurd are the faux rivets added to single-piece wheels for purely cosmetic reasons,
apparently to make them "look" like more expensive multi-piece designs. How
ridiculous is THAT?
Okay,
what about genuine multi-piece wheels? In my mind, multi-piece arrangements
really belong on racecars, not on road cars. Why? Multi-piece wheels were
developed to enable racing teams to adjust wheel offsets and replace damaged
rims at the track. In return for those capabilities, racers accept a modest weight penalty over
what the same wheels would weigh as single-piece designs. Furthermore, race
teams don't mind that the fasteners are unattractive. For them, the flexibility
of a multi-piece wheel is the paramount consideration. On a road car, that
flexibility is moot. No one is about to change a bent rim at the side of the
road, and every road car will accept only a very narrow range of wheel offsets -
too far one way or the other and rubbing issues arise.
Multi-piece road wheels do make sense to the
manufacturer by reducing inventory overhead, since the offset of any multi-piece wheel can
be adjusted to fit a wide range of applications. That's the only advantage of a multi-piece
road wheel design, and it's the vendor's advantage, not the consumer's. Nonetheless, fasteners
sell wheels to fools with more dollars than sense. In most cases, a multi-piece wheel could be
constructed such that the fasteners are installed from the back side and aren't visible when
the wheel is mounted on the car, but most aren't. Instead, the fasteners are installed from the
front. Why? Boy-racer poseurs are everywhere, that's why. I laugh every time some nimrod boasts
about his 2-piece or 3-piece wheels, because I know he grossly overspent for a set of wheels
with compromised performance that look like they're better suited for use on farm equipment,
simply because he wants to LOOK like a serious gearhead.
Even though the stock '01 Cobra wheels were fairly light at 26 pounds each,
I began considering aftermarket replacements as a means of reducing unsprung weight not long
after purchasing Taz. Until I first saw the plasma finish
BBS
RK's, I had been
planning on a set of SSR Competition wheels, even though I'm not especially partial
to 6-spoke designs. The Competitions were very light and would have been easy to
maintain. However, the PVD (physical vapor deposition) "Plasma Cut" finish of the
RK's
was particularly striking, and its "black chrome" appearance wasn't accompanied by the same
weight penalty as conventional chrome. Although the
RK's weren't
quite
as light as the Competitions, they were still considerably lighter than the stock
wheels even though they were wider and an inch larger in diameter, weighing in at 19 lbs
each for the 18"x8.5" fronts and 20.1 lbs apiece for the 18"x10" rears. Additionally, the
SSR's weren't available in staggered widths. Finally, although less significantly,
the open 5-spoke design of the RK's was arguably better looking. The
BBS
wheels got the nod.
Editorial Comment:
Some might suffer something akin to severe allergic
reactions at the thought that I seriously considered JAPANESE wheels for the Cobra. I
can imagine the critical remarks like, "Those belong on a Honda, not a Mustang," and
epithets such as "Ricer!" I am amused by this, considering the same critics typically
think nothing of mounting heavy replica wheels manufactured in CHINA from recycled beer
cans on their own Mustangs. But that's okay because those cheap replica wheels "look"
like American muscle.
Get a clue, fellas. If you simply dislike the
specific style of the SSR Competitions, that's one thing. You're certainly entitled to your
personal preferences. As I've already said, I'm not a big fan of 6-spoke designs, either.
However, if the mere mention of names such as SSR, Enkei, Volk, or Rays causes you to break
out in a cold sweat, then it's time to get over yourself and get real. The Japanese
manufacture some of the highest quality wheels on the market today - considerably higher
than the knockoffs many muscle cars are sporting simply because they're cheap and LOOK
like classic American products. Japanese wheels are always strong contenders for those of
us who are primarily concerned with performance, so don't get your panties in a wad every
time you see a set of Rays or Enkei wheels on a Mustang. They're undoubtedly superior to
most wannabe wheels.
Since I was migrating from 17" to 18" wheels, I also needed new
tires, even though the factory rubber had seen only about 3K miles. (Oh, well.) After
installing the car's H&R Sport Springs, I had been encountering periodic
scraping of the cats and mufflers over broken pavement because of the car's low ride height,
and I was forced to avoid most parking lot speed bumps altogether. Having to be constantly
vigilant against scraping had considerably reduced the car's fun factor, so I decided to
switch to a tire of larger overall diameter in order to raise Taz's belly up off the tarmac
a bit. After all, I hadn't bought a performance car to granny it around.
Since Taz was never driven in the rain or on wet roads, excellent dry braking,
handling, and steering performance were my primary tire requirements. I also wanted a tire with
a "Y" speed rating, because I planned on instilling the Cobra with the ability to attain speeds
in excess of what W-rated rubber could safely handle. Based on owner reviews and comparison tests,
I settled on a set of Bridgestone
Potenza S03 Pole Position tires, which were available in the taller sizes I wanted.
Hillie bought the wheels and tires for me as my 2002 Christmas /
2003 birthday gifts, and we ordered them as wheel/tire combos from
Tire Rack
- a pair of 245/45 S03's
mounted
on 18x8.5 RK's for the front
and 18x10 RK's
shod with 275/40 S03's
for the back. This combination
provided four tires of exactly the same overall diameter, but with more section width
in the rear for a little better traction under hard acceleration. When they arrived,
I was astounded by the finish quality of the wheels. They looked even better in
reality than they had in the photos, which is almost
never the case
with wheels (or anything else, for that matter). I was very pleased with my choice
- and Hillie's gift.
TECH TIP:
When
running different width tires F/R on an ABS-equipped vehicle, be sure to keep their overall
diameters reasonably close to one another. The Cobra's ABS will tolerate up to about 3%
difference in tire diameters before the system begins to complain and implement corrective
actions that negatively impact performance. Unlike the Traction Control system, the ABS
cannot be disabled with the push of a button, so you'll be unable to defeat the hobble if
your ABS imposes one. You can use the Tire & Drivetrain
Calculators on this site's Tech
Docs page to determine the outside diameters of your tires.
TECH TIP: For
safety and optimum performance, wheels and tires should always be matched by width. As
a rule of thumb, the correct rim for any tire is one that is at least 80% as wide,
flange-to-flange as the tire's specified section width but no wider than the section
width. A modern tire's section width in millimeters usually appears on its sidewall as
the first three digits of its specification. To convert this metric value to inches,
just divide it by 25.4 (the approximate number of millimeters per inch). The tire will
best fit a wheel at least 80% as wide as this, but no wider.
Always match your tires and rims in this way. The shoulders
of tires stretched over rims that are too wide tend to curl in toward the middle
of the tire, resulting in less tread contacting the road, increased tire wear, and an
unnecessarily harsh ride. Much more importantly, centrifugal action can actually pull
the tire beads away from the bead seats on the rims at higher speeds, resulting in
death by stupidity. Conversely, a tire mounted on a rim that is too narrow will provide
a soft ride, but will also result in an inadequate bead seal and force the tread into
a convex shape, leading to poor steering control, compromised handling, and accelerated
tread wear. Obviously, both extremes are risky, so many shops will refuse to mount
tires on rims that are either too wide or too narrow for them.
If you find the math above too challenging, you can rely on the
tables provided by by most tire manufacturers and vendors. Some wheel and tire vendors
don't offer specific information on width-matching tires to wheels, but
Tire
Rack does, so you can find the approved rim width range for any tire on the company's
website by selecting the "Specs" tab on the tire's
page. Then, just locate your tire size in the left column and read across to the
"Rim Width Range" column to find the acceptable
rim widths for that tire. It doesn't get any simpler. If you choose to ignore this guideline
and mount your tires on rims outside the specified range, you'll probably experience some
difficulty in locating an outfit willing to perform the work, due to liability issues. Also,
the only shops willing to accommodate such folly typically reside at the bottom of the food
chain, so you'll probably get what you deserve in more ways than one.
Below is a photo of a factory wheel and tire assembly next to one of the
BBS/Bridgestone combinations. (Obviously, the actual size difference is nowhere
near as large as it appears in this photo, because the new wheel/tire combo is standing
in the foreground, which exaggerates the difference.) The folks at
Tire Rack
mistakenly shipped the wheels with Panoz center caps, one of which can be seen on
the BBS wheel in this photo, but the company overnighted me a set of the correct
center caps as soon as I notified them of the mistake.
I was delighted to discover that my expectation regarding slightly taller
tires had been correct. Raising the car up 1/2" by adding an inch to each tire's overall
diameter eliminated the intermittent scraping I had been experiencing, and I stopped cringing
every time I needed to negotiate railroad crossings and broken or uneven pavement. Even
better, speed bumps were no longer impassible obstacles to be avoided. As an added bonus,
the larger diameter tires filled the gaping fender well openings much better than the factory
rubber had.
NOTE: If you are considering the
installation of larger diameter tires on your own lowered car, a word of caution is in order.
You should first be certain that the offsets of the prospective wheels are close to those of
the factory wheels. Otherwise, you could run into rubbing issues. The offsets of my RK's are
just about spot on, so even though Taz sits fairly low, I have not experienced any rubbing
with my larger diameter tires. However, a few individuals running setups with offsets that
pushed their wheels and tires farther out have reported intermittent rubbing when their
suspensions are jounced. Although this rubbing can be eliminated by either raising the
suspension back up slightly or switching to wheels with offsets closer to OEM, you may want
to avoid the problem altogether.
It is reassuring to note that, although the
RK's have long since been discontinued,
their popularity continues unabated to this day, and good used sets still sell for as much as they
did when new. This is quite a testimony to their excellent quality and appealing design.
Editorial Comment:
Automotive artists love to sketch cars with wheels barely small enough to stuff inside the fenders and tires with
absurdly short aspect ratios. This has been true since the invention of the pneumatic tire. And, until we as a
society had been sufficiently dumbed down, just about everyone over the age of six realized this was merely an
expression of artistic license and a means of endowing automotive sketches with modestly cartoonish traits. We all
recognized that there was no allowance for suspension travel, and that the
vestigial sidewalls would have resulted in unbearably brutal ride qualities for
those vehicles.
Nowadays, however, we see an ever-increasing
assortment of idiots attempting to emulate this absurd cartoon-car look, because the Ruling
Class has succeeded in whacking about a point per year off the average plebeian's IQ over
the past quarter-century, and common sense has fallen by the wayside. The most ridiculous,
of course, are the trucks and SUV's sporting absurdly huge wheels shod with rubber band tires.
Time for a reality check, folks. Those are TRUCKS and UTILITY vehicles! HELLO! Not only does
this sort of folly dramatically compromise their ride and design capabilities, but dressing a
sow in an Armani suit buys you nothing but a well-dressed pig. Trust me, "stylish truck" is a
universal oxymoron throughout the civilized world. I realize we're a little off topic here,
since this site isn't about trucks. Or pigs. Nonetheless, all vehicles with enormously oversized
wheels look for all the world like garish comic book refugees owned by people who understand the
phrase "good taste" only in relation to food. Let's face it: an SN95 or New Edge Mustang
looks completely ridiculous sporting wheels larger than 19's. Furthermore, anyone who has ridden
in a vehicle with ultra-low profile tires can confirm that they are real kidney busters over
anything but glass-smooth roadways.
The lame justification that I invariably hear offered
for mounting 20" monstrosities on a New Edge 'Stang is a desire to "close the gap" in the fender
well. Then, I see that the overall diameter of the wheel/tire combo hasn't increased a single
millimeter, and I realize that excuse is complete BUNK! Even worse, the larger wheel actually
exaggerates the gap more than the smaller one did. As any professional automotive stylist will
confirm, given the same overall diameter, the wheel/tire combo with the larger diameter wheel
and shorter sidewall tire will emphasize the space around it MORE than the combo with a smaller
diameter wheel and taller tire. That's just the way the visual processing centers of our brains work,
so don't go around peddling that "close the gap" nonsense unless you've installed larger diameter
tires, because THAT'S the only way you're going to accomplish it. Otherwise, if you must drive
around sporting 20's or larger on a New Edge Mustang, at least be sure you are also flashing plenty
of heavy gold chain and blaring the latest rap tunes, so there's no doubt about your psychological
disposition.
Dunlop SP Sport MAXX
As we are all acutely aware, tires are consumables, just like brake pads
and discs, and my Bridgestone Potenzas were certainly no exception. Here is a shot
of the Cobra's left front tire after about 10K miles and a few track events. (I'll bet you
can tell I had a fair amount of negative camber dialed in, can't you?) As you can see, this
tire was in dire need of replacement, as were the others.
The S03's had been excellent performers at the expense of some ride comfort.
They had been designed to trade away a bit of road isolation in favor of improved steering response
and handling grip. Since Taz was a performance vehicle and strictly a weekend warrior, I had been
very satisfied with my S03's. By the same token, tire technology had advanced significantly
in the intervening years between their purchase and the advent of their retirement (pardon the pun).
I figured it was time to try one of the newer offerings, so I opted for a set of
Dunlop SP Sport MAXX rubber in the
same sizes that I had been running with the Bridgestones.
The tread design of the
SP Sport Maxx tires was very similar to the old
S03's, and considering how well the
Potenzas had performed, I considered this a
good thing. Additionally, the Dunlops
averaged about three pounds apiece lighter than the
Bridestones, which is
always a good thing from a performance standpoint. As
for grip, steering response, and road isolation, it would be unfair to compare any new tires to
a set of old, beat carcasses. All I will offer in the way of a subjective evaluation is that I
was very pleased with every aspect of the performance of these new
Dunlops.
TECH TIP: Given the same weight, larger diameter wheels will have a higher moment of
inertia (rotational mass) than smaller diameter wheels. However, the largest
contributor by far to the polar moment of any wheel/tire assembly will be the
tire itself. The tread area of the tire, with its heavy belts and thick rubber, will
usually account for the highest percentage of the assembly's static weight, so
the tire's overall diameter will be the determining factor in the assembly's angular
moment of inertia. Therefore, from a handling standpoint, lightweight tires are
at least as important as lightweight wheels, if not more so.
2009 UPDATE: By
mid-2009, I had determined that the Dunlops were equal to or better than
the Bridgestone tires they had replaced in every respect but one: tread
life. In fact, the rear tires were worn down perilously close to their wear bars
after only about 6K miles of use. However, this use did include a number of open
track events, so I suppose I got pretty much what I had bargained for.
Sport MAXX Redux
In 2009, with Taz's sneakers nearing the end of their service lives,
I began casually researching various newer offerings. It appeared that comparable
replacements in the same sizes were going to cost me at least a grand until
Tire Rack,
in conjunction with Dunlop,
offered a smokin' deal on some new old stock
SP Sport Maxx tires. A
super deal, in fact. Even though I didn't need
the tires quite yet, I had been so completely satisfied with the performance aspects of my
old Dunlops - let's disregard the mileage issue - that I jumped on the deal.
I banked the new
Dunlops in a climate controlled storage unit against
the day when the old ones would require replacement. Mid January 2010, that day arrived. In
truth, the tires should have been replaced months before they actually were, but I pushed them
for every mile I could squeeze out of them, and when they finally came off, the rears were well
down into the wear bars. In fact, their tread was so thin that it almost looked painted on, and
I was lucky that I hadn't been nailed for an equipment violation. You can clearly see this in
the photo below of the rears after I removed them from the car. As you can also see, I had been
running a tad too much negative camber on the driver side rear (tire at the right in the photo).
This has since been corrected.
Interestingly, my first set of
Sport Maxx tires had been produced in
Germany, but the second set was manufactured by
Dunlop in Japan. After running them
for a few thousand miles, I concluded that they performed essentially the same on the street.
Their ride felt a bit softer, but that probably had more to do with their greater tread depth
than anything else. Since I never got this second set to the road course, I am unable to
offer offer any sort of track performance comparison between them and the German
Dunlops.
Michelin PSS Tires
 By
October, 2014, my second set of Dunlops had aged out and become rock-hard, and the
tread on the back tires was down to 3/32", as well. I had been researching newer
max-performance tire offerings for several months, and had considered fresh rubber from
just about every tire company on the planet at one point or another. Although I was
intrigued by the outstanding performance being reported for the new
Michelin
Pilot Super Sport tires, I had been hoping to find comparable performance in something
that wouldn't lighten my wallet quite so much, but I gave the nod to the
PSS in the end
because of its consistently high test scores and enthusiastic owner reviews.
Michelin's goal with the
PSS was to develop a tire that had the
dry grip of a DOT-legal R compound tire like the
Pilot Sport Cup with the wet performance
of the Ultra High Performance Pilot Sport 3. To achieve this objective,
Michelin
incorporated three advanced technologies into the tire's construction: Twaron, a
bi-compound
tread formulation, and what the company called "Variable Contact Patch 2.0."
Twaron is a high-density fiber that has been incorporated into various types of equipment,
including tennis, sailing, and mountain biking gear. The material is also used in aeronautics,
military gear, and motorsports. A Twaron belt was incorporated into the
PSS to provide
variable tension. It tightens the tread more than the shoulders to improve high-speed stability
by evenly distributing pressure in order to effectively overcome centrifugal force. The use of
Twaron also results in reduced outer shoulder temperatures and the ability to transfer heat
more evenly across the face of the tire.
The bi-compound tread formulation wasn't a new technology, but
Michelin took it to
the next level. On the outside of the tire, a carbon-reinforced elastomer ensures endurance
during hard cornering, while the high-grip elastomer used on the inside enables the tire to break
through standing water and grab the road. In the
PSS, only the outer 20% of the tire is
composed of a summer compound. The remaining 80% consists of a winter/wet compound. This is
because Michelin discovered during development that adding more summer compound failed to
improve the tire's dry grip, but did reduce its capabilities in wet conditions.
Michelin's Variable Contact Patch 2.0 is all about maintaining a maximum footprint. It
enables the tire patch's shape to change during hard cornering, so the amount of rubber in contact
with the road remains the same.
I opted for tires that were slightly shorter than the
Dunlops they replaced, but still a
little taller than the factory originals. At 255/40-18, the
PSS tires are a bit wider in front,
but the backs are slightly narrower at 265/40-18. A more square tire width arrangement theoretically
improves handling, and I confirmed its benefits after the break-in period.
Nevertheless, the
PSS 265's actually have a wider tread than any of the car's previous 275 rear tires, despite
their narrower section width, probably due to the
PSS's extremely square shoulders.
Here's how the tires looked after being installed:
Although the front
PSS tires are smaller in diameter than the rears by
approximately 1/4", the difference is far too small to
trigger the Cobra's ABS, which will tolerate rotational differences as high as 3%
before intervening. However, I was a little concerned about the possibility of scraping
the mufflers and cats, which were the lowest parts under the chassis, because of the
shorter tires. To avoid this, I raised the exhaust system slightly before heading over
to my local Discount Tire to have the
pros there install the new rubber. That adjustment was sufficient to provide even more
ground clearance for the cats and mufflers than I'd previously had with the taller
Dunlops. The lowest point under the car is now part of my K-member brace,
which shouldn't be a problem, since that is located between the front tires.
I won't be indulging in any “spirited” driving for the first couple hundred miles,
but my initial impressions with respect to the PSS in “normal” street driving
are great from a handling standpoint, but not so stellar from a ride perspective. I
had been expecting a much softer tire, because the
Max Performance Tire Survey at Tire Rack
had placed the
PSS at the top of the heap with respect to ride comfort within the category.
These tires are stiff – every bit as stiff as my old
Bridgestone Potenza S03’s,
i.e. a little stiffer than the Dunlops. Impact harshness is marginally lower right
now compared to the old Dunlops just prior to their removal, but probably only
because of the thicker tread on the new tires. I expect this will change as they wear.
The Michelins are extremely quiet, but not very forgiving over road irregularities
such as broken pavement, tar strips, and manhole covers. I had been skeptical that any
tire could score as high as the PSS in both handling and comfort, because there
has always been a tradeoff between the two. It appears my skepticism was well-founded.
Hopefully, the
PSS will make up for their unforgiving nature with improved
performance. If so, they will still have been a great choice. After all, Taz is a
Weekend Warrior, not a grocery getter, so improved traction and handling are higher
priorities than a cushy ride. I'll let you know after I've had an opportunity to
better explore the capabilities of these tires.
QUICK UPDATE:
Just a few short
break-in drives were required to soften up the sidewalls of the
PSS tires,
after which they became quite forgiving over the rough stuff. I have no idea why
they were so stiff "out of the box," but they are now quite compliant, so I'm a
very happy camper.
Brake System Upgrades
After supercharging the Cobra, I thought it would be a good
idea to bump up Taz’s braking ability to bring it more in line with his accelerative
potential. In other words, I thought he should be able to stop as well as he went.
Since Ford had delivered the factory-blown Terminator Cobras with the same
braking components as the ‘99/’01 Cobras, it was apparent that Taz’s brakes were already
reasonably proficient for a Dearborn assembly line car. Still, I wanted more.
Editorial Comment:
You've probably heard the old cliché that brakes don't stop cars - tires
do. Well, that's true, but only up to a point. Sure, Pa Kettle probably isn't going to haul down
his Lincoln Town Car any more quickly with mondo brakes in a panic stop situation on a public
road than he could with his OEM setup. His stopping distance will be limited by the coefficient
of friction between his all-season radials and the road surface. On the other hand, how well do
you think Pa's OEM brake system is going to hold up to a few hot laps at his local road course?
Chances are he'd be in for a bit of agricultural driving fairly quickly, because his brakes would
have cashed in their chips. My point is that resilience in the face of sustained abuse is the
primary reason for looking into better brakes.
There's plenty of room for improvement in most
OEM brake systems with respect to everything from fluid to pad and rotor composition, and
the 1999 - 2004 Cobra brake system is no exception. Even if you don't track your car, objective
testing confirms that better brake components will reduce your stopping distances, particularly
if you have sticky tires, and they'll hold up much better when asked to perform above and beyond
the call of duty. Better brakes are also less "grabby" and more linear. They're easier
to modulate, so they are less prone to premature lockup. If your car is equipped with ABS, the
anti-lock system isn't called upon quite so early to intervene in a panic situation. Net result:
shorter stopping distances. Don't take my word for the improvement that better brake system
components can make. Watch
THIS VIDEO ( <-- clicky link) from DBA that demonstrates the
improvement achieved with one of their kits.
Although I briefly considered switching Taz over to a silicone-based DOT5
brake fluid as part of his brake upgrade project, I quickly discarded that notion after reading
of all the DOT5-related issues that owners were reporting. This left me with DOT4, and my choice
of a DOT4 fluid was easy. It had to be Motul
RBF600. Since this 100% synthetic brake fluid was developed specifically to withstand the
rigors of racing, its performance is absolutely phenomenal. With a dry boiling point of nearly
600F degrees and a wet BP of 420F (higher than the dry boiling point of many DOT 3 fluids), the
thermal resistance of this formula is far superior to just about any other DOT4 fluid on the market.
It's pricey, but well worth the money. Of course, if you want to go
all in,
Motul
also offers an RBF660 formula with an even higher BP - for considerably
more
money, of course.
For the front of the car, I wanted the brakes that came on the purpose-built
2000 Cobra R. Even though Taz's brake system was no lightweight setup, the 2000 Cobra R brakes were
demonstrably better. The rear Cobra R brakes differed from those of all garden variety ’99–’04 Cobras
only with respect to their pad composition, but the front brakes were a different story. The front
Cobra R's included big, beautiful 4-piston
Brembo calipers. I lusted after those massive calipers, so I bought a
Ford Racing 2000 Cobra R
front brake upgrade kit, which included a pair of slotted
Brembo Sport rotors and a pair of
Goodridge braided stainless lines in
addition to the calipers.
Installation of the upgrade kit was a snap, and I had the passenger side done
in no time. Unfortunately, the '00R calipers weren't compatible with my
BBS RK wheels.
I realized I had a serious problem as soon as I tried test-fitting my passenger side wheel. The wheel's
spokes would not clear the caliper. Not even close. My first inclination was to push the wheels out
far enough with spacers to gain the clearance I needed for the calipers, but my measurements indicated a
38mm spacer requirement. Minimum! For those of you who don’t do metric, that equates to
just about 1.5 inches. This workaround wasn’t acceptable from either a performance
or an
aesthetic standpoint, but swapping out my BBS RK’s for different wheels that would clear the
calipers wasn't an option either. Hillie had spent far too much money on the
RK's for me to
discard them after just a couple years. The calipers had to go.
I managed to minimize the financial impact of my aborted initial brake upgrade path
by parting out the Cobra R brake kit's components, but the old wallet still took a bit of a hit.
That hurt, but even worse, I now had to formulate an alternative brake upgrade solution. No worries. I
could still improve the car’s stopping performance by upgrading the pads and rotors, even if I couldn’t
find stouter calipers that would clear my wheels. And a set of braided stainless brake lines would also
help. Time for a little more research.
I ended up selecting
Baer
Eradispeed+ rotors for all four corners. These are 2-piece units, consisting of billet aluminum
center hats affixed with National Aerospace Standards stainless fasteners to high strength steel alloy
rotor rings. To prevent rust formation outside their fire paths, the rotor rings are zinc washed. Each
ring is also vented, slotted, and cross-drilled to maximize bite and minimize fade. As a bonus, each
Eradispeed+ rotor assembly weighs
significantly less than its OEM counterpart (an
average of 3 lbs each, front and back, for a total savings of roughly 12 pounds). This reduction in
unsprung rotational mass pays off in improved acceleration and handling, as well as braking performance.
Editorial Comment: Charter
members of the Flat Earth Society will attempt to persuade you that rotors must be HEAVY to provide good
braking performance, because you need all that good old cast iron to dissipate the heat generated by pad
friction. Nonsense! Which dissipates heat better, cast iron or aluminum? (For the knuckle draggers in our
audience, the correct answer is aluminum.) The aluminum hats of 2-piece rotors do a much better job of
pulling heat away from the friction surfaces than any single-piece cast iron rotors possibly can. Empirical
data collected from aluminum alloys indicate thermal conductivities between 120 and 180 W/mK (Watts per
meter*Kelvin), somewhat less than pure aluminum, which weighs in at 237, but still respectable. By comparison,
stainless steel variations range from about 12 to 45, and iron is even lower. Get the picture? Iron SUCKS for
heat dissipation. In fact, the only reasons that iron is used at all for rotor rings are that (1) it's cheap
and (2) it's capable of withstanding pad abrasion and the resulting heat for extended periods. However, as the
price of carbon ceramic discs is gradually eroded by the economy of scale, those will eventually replace iron
as the rotor material of choice. Why? They are lighter and dissipate heat even better than aluminum. Iron adds
unwanted weight to the vehicle, which saps fuel economy, and all that extra weight is both unsprung and
rotational, the worst type imaginable from an automotive performance perspective.
As far as pad choice was concerned, I selected a set of
Ford Racing 2000 Cobra R
pads for the rear. After all, they had been good enough for a vehicle that had been engineered as a dedicated
track car. But I was undecided about the front pads until I discovered that
Brembo had released a line of
"Sport" pads employing a new friction material that
Brembo called
FM1000. This material, developed
in collaboration with brake pad manufacturer Ferodo
for use in high performance applications, was designed to provide a very high coefficient of friction across an
extremely wide temperature range while still retaining low noise
and low dust characteristics.
I also added
Russell brake
hoses with braided steel jackets and Russell Speed Bleeder caliper bleed valves to all four corners to supplement
Taz’s brake system upgrades. The braided stainless hoses would promote a more solid pedal by minimizing hose expansion
during hard braking, and the Speed Bleeders would enable me to quickly and easily bleed the brake system without
an assistant and without any undue drama.
2009 UPDATE:
When I installed my
Russell
braided stainless steel brake hoses, I was still running the OEM rear half-shafts, and clearance between the hoses and
the outer CV boots joints hadn't been an issue. However, after replacing the OEM axles with
DSS Level-5 half-shafts,
I neglected to check for potential interference between the already installed
Russell hoses and the new axle shafts,
which were equipped with much larger outer CV boots. This was a mistake. Eventually, the braided line rubbed through the
outer boot of the driver side axle, requiring the CV joint to be re-booted and repacked with grease. To minimize the
likelihood of this situation reoccurring, I replaced both of the
Russell brake hoses in the rear with a braided pair
from Maximum Motorsports. The
MM hoses were
significantly shorter, which minimized the interference potential. The
Russell front brake hoses have remained in
place, and I have not experienced an issue of any sort with those.
I shot several photos while working on the 2005 brake upgrade project, but I
somehow ... um ... misplaced them afterward. Instead, here are a few shots of the
Eradispeed+ rotors as they
looked after a few hundred miles of use.
After having lived with the
Brembo FM1000 pads for quite some time, I now feel confident in
reporting that Brembo achieved
almost all of its design objectives with its
FM1000
friction material. These pads produce mad grip, and are completely silent. Unfortunately, they also coat the
wheels with prodigious quantities of reddish dust during any spirited driving. Well, if I must live with pads
that score only two out of three, I'd rather live with the dust than with either noisy pads or poor performance.
Another aspect of the FM1000 pads worth mentioning is that they wear quickly, but leave the rotors
relatively unscathed. I suppose it just comes down to which you'd rather replace more often. My first set of
FM1000 pads appeared ready for replacement after just a few thousand miles
plus a couple track events.
When I pulled my pads for inspection, I was surprised to find that all my front pads looked like the one on the
left in the photo below. (The pad on the right is a new
Brembo Sport.)
I've always maintained that everything automotive involves tradeoffs, and the
Brembo FM1000 pads have
demonstrated themselves to be no exception. They stop the car as if it has dropped anchor, and they're library
quiet, so they do an excellent job at what brakes are designed to do without being obnoxious about it. Furthermore,
they're easy on the rotors (something most performance pads, including the
Ford Racing '00R rear pads, are not).
However, there's a flip side to this coin: fast pad wear and copious dust. Nevertheless, when I replaced my
first set of worn FM1000's, I decided that, at least for me, their advantages outweighed their disadvantages,
so I installed an identical set of fresh pads. Now, I like them so much that I keep multiple fresh sets on hand,
because I won't even consider running anything else.
During the car's 2006/2007 round of suspension upgrades, I scored a couple decent brake photos.
Here's a shot of the left front rotor just before I buttoned everything up. At this point, the rotor has about five
thousand miles on it. The reddish color you can see in various places is
FM1000 brake dust. Funky looking
stuff, isn't it?
And here's the left rear rotor with the same mileage. You can see quite a bit of scoring on this one,
courtesy of the Ford Racing
2000 Cobra R pads, which tend to be much harder on rotors than the
Brembo Sport pads. Next time around, I'll be installing the
Satisfied Motorsports Gran Sport
pads offered by Tire Rack. Hopefully, they'll be a little more rotor-friendly.
TECH TIP: Slotted and slotted/drilled
rotors are directional parts. If you install such rotors on your vehicle, try to at least APPEAR as if you know
what you're doing by installing them correctly. Brake manufacturers advise that, for vented rotors with
directional internal vanes, you should orient your rotors according to the direction of the vanes to achieve
maximum rotor cooling. I agree. The vents in straight-vaned and pillar designs aren't directional, so there's
no air pumping advantage either way. However, orienting those such that the ends of the slots nearest the outer
edges of the rotor faces contact the pads first will direct debris away from the calipers, keeping brake temps
lower and prolonging caliper life.
Editorial Comment:
The same Flat Earth Society mentioned earlier on this page also maintains
that cross-drilled rotors will invariably develop stress cracks, particularly if the car sees
any track time. Well, maybe and maybe not. It's just possible that any propensity for cracking
may depend on WHOSE cross-drilled rotors you are running. The Eradispeed+ rotors pictured above
had already been subjected to multiple autocross and road course events, including lots of hard
braking into Firebird Raceway's Turn 1 at better than 155 mph and plenty of usage through the
twisties along the back side of the track. No cracks. Imagine that. These rotors had been on the
car for some time and were still in great shape.
Sure, if you buy cheap, poor quality rotors, they'll
probably crack in short order, so don't buy junk rotors. Cheap rotors aren't manufactured from the
same quality alloys that good rotors are, and their holes typically aren't chamfered, leading to
premature stress cracks. Stay AWAY from them! The last thing we need is another nimrod who bought
junk rotors embarking on a crusade to rescue the rest of us from the evils of cross-drilled designs
when his real problem was, in fact, entirely due to a substandard product, rather than an intrinsic
design flaw.
Here's another myth that needs busting: the notion
that blank rotors can produce stopping distances as short as drilled rotors. No, they can't. Period.
I've seen the hard numbers generated by objective comparison testing, and those numbers make the
performance differences indisputable. Fact is, a drilled rotor presents a more aggressive surface for
the pads to work against. This is exactly WHY drilled rotors wear down pads faster than blanks will.
The aggressive surface produces greater friction, which results in shorter stops. It's just simple
physics, folks, but it seems to have escaped the Flat Earthers. Slotting a rotor will not, by itself,
shorten stopping distances during normal driving, but slotting does improve a rotor's degassing
capabilities over a blank's, which can help during competitive driving. Depending on your choice of
pads and your driving style, this may or may not be of any real benefit to you. Nevertheless, you
WILL realize shorter stopping distances with drilled rotors compared to blanks. (That's why
high-performance exotics like Ferrari, Lamborghini, and Porsche, not to mention ALL the killer sport
bikes on the market, are delivered with such rotors.)
I am really weary of the negative light in which various
Internet Luddites have cast drilled and slotted rotors. It's ridiculous, especially considering how
many racecars of various types use these rotors. Anyway, if a picture is worth a thousand words, here
are several thousand words for your consideration ...
Yes, Virginia, ALL the above rotors are installed on REAL
professional racecars. The kind at which sponsors throw mass quantities of advertising money. The rotors
in the top row of that composite all belong to NASCAR and Circle Track teams, and those at the bottom are
mounted on Formula GT3 cars. Such rotors are the rule, not the exception, on these racecars, as you can
easily verify, since there are numerous photos and references to such racing brakes plastered all over
the Internet. Obviously, these brakes weren't installed for their bling factor. They were installed
because they WORK better than blanks. DUH!
During a heated debate with one of the aforementioned Internet Luddites, I was
challenged to produce some objective testing results supporting my position that drilled/slotted rotors do,
indeed, offer performance advantages over conventional blanks. With apologies to the original author for
not providing his name, here is a direct quote from an SAE engineer:
"There are many claims as to the benefits of drilled vs
slotted rotors on stopping power. This guide is intended to provide some facts about drilled and slotted rotors.
As a member of the SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers), I was pleased to see a paper "The Effect of Rotor
Crossdrilling on Brake Performance" by two GM engineers published in 2006. They examined three
vehicle platforms with cross-drilled rotors vs standard rotors to measure convection cooling capability, fade
characteristics, wet braking, pedal feel and lining wear. The result is summarized as follows:
-
For the sports sedan, the coefficient of friction was 21% higher for
drilled rotors than standard front rotors at 340F and higher using 15 brake
snubs at 62mph. The track simulated 124 mph fade test showed 37% better
brake output for drilled rotors. The drilled rotor brake temperature was
also about 150 degrees cooler.
For the performance car, the coefficient of friction was significantly
higher for drilled rotors especially at high temperature.
Wet braking at high pedal pressure was the same for drilled or standard
rotors. Wet braking is not significantly improved by drilled rotors.
Pedal force was much more consistent with drilled rotors over the brake
temperature range. That is, to stop at the same deceleration rate, the
driver does not need to modulate pedal pressure based on different brake
temperatures. This reduces driver fatigue and improves brake response.
The authors also reported that drilled rotors prevent pad resin glazing on the rotor.
So we now have solid evidence that drilled rotors have benefits over standard rotors.
However, I have not found any published paper to show how slots affect brake output. So I
reviewed inertial dynamometer tests using ISO NWI 26867 from Link Testing in Detroit with
slotted rotors vs standard rotors. The results showed no significant difference in the
coefficient of friction during the fade sections, hot stop section or pedal sensitivity
portion of the test. My hypothesis is that slotted rotors do not contribute to rotor
cooling whereas drilled rotors improve convection heat transfer to cool rotors and reduce
brake fade. I should also point out that the pad lining wear for the slotted rotor was very
severe during the test, i.e. the pad was chewed up over 20% more than the lining with stock
rotors. While I believe that slots will help remove gas and debris from under the pad, I am
not sure that this has a significant effect on brake torque for normal street driving.
Perhaps the effect of slotted rotors is more significant on the race track, and conversely,
I believe that drilled rotors are better for street and highway driving. For most drivers, I
recommend drilled rotors over slotted rotors, and this conclusion is supported by the fact
that Corvette, Ford GT, Porsche, Mercedes and BMW come with OEM drilled rotors."
I subsequently downloaded and read the referenced SAE technical paper for myself.
If you like, you can do the same for a nominal fee. Just browse to
THIS
Web page. After
reviewing the paper, I wrote a detailed synopsis. Here's a link to that synopsis in PDF format:
Synopsis of SAE Tech Paper 2006-01-0691
The only real downside to cross-drilling noted by the paper's authors, Antanaitis
and Rifici, was accelerated brake component wear. Since there are mountains of empirical data out
there, including my own, indicating accelerated wear, most have been aware of this for quite some
time. However, I personally consider it a reasonable tradeoff for improved braking performance.
Brake components are, after all, consumables, and an accelerated wear rate is to be expected with
enhanced levels of performance.
2011 Brake System Refresh &
Cooling Duct Upgrade
Taz was overdue for a brake system refresh
by 2011. I hadn't performed
a pad or fluid change since early 2007, and I had been running the same
Eradispeed+
rotors since 2005. After six years and a number of track events, those rotors were finally
ready to move on to that big road course in the sky. They hadn't seen that many miles, but
they had been used hard on the street as well as on the track. I had asked Santa to bring me
fresh front and rear rotor sets for Christmas 2009 and Santa had been kind enough to oblige,
but I stashed the replacements for installation at a later time. I had stopped
going out to the road course by the end of 2008 due to a rule change requiring every ragtop in my club's Performance
Driving Program to run top-up unless equipped with a roll bar, and I hadn't been driving the
car that hard on the street - or even driving it much at all - for a while, so the wear rate
of the brake components had subsided considerably. (Just staying away from the track did
wonders all by itself to extend the service lives of the Cobra's brake parts.)
Finally, in 2011, Taz's brake fluid was
starting to age out and
the front pads had worn down quite a bit by then, so I decided to replace the works.
Since I had
been preparing for this system refresh for about 18 months, I already had everything
I needed on hand. I was good to go on the rotors, and I had enough
Motul RBF600
to perform a complete system flush. Also, I had cashed in on a couple outstanding sales
on Brembo Sport front pads, so I had stockpiled enough sets of those to last me
the next 20 years, and I had picked up some Satisfied Motorsports Gran Sport GS6
pads (unfortunately no longer available) to replace the
Ford Racing pads in the
back calipers. All that remained to be added were my time and effort.
I started with the rear brakes because I wanted to tackle the toughest
end first, and on the Cobra this is most definitely the rear. I think I honestly prefer
enduring root canal work to reseating those stubborn
Varga pistons. Despite my having
a very good set of Lisle brake
caliper service tools, those nasty Varga calipers always fight me something fierce.
Consequently, replacing their pads invariably turns into a war of attrition.
I wasn't swapping out the back pads because they were worn. In fact, the
Ford Racing pads were still practically as thick as the new
Gran Sport GS6 pads
with which I was replacing them. I was merely hoping to save the new rotors from a fate similar
to that which had befallen the old ones. The Ford Racing '00R pads use a friction
compound that is extremely hard, but also very aggressive, so they tend to wear rotors down
quickly while sparing themselves. Now, wear is one thing. Wear is to be expected, but there's
no excuse for scoring, and the '00R pads had also produced a lot of rotor scoring. The photo
below is a shot of one of the old back rotors next to its replacement. As you can see, the
Ford Racing pad has badly scored the old rotor. In this respect, the
Ford Racing
pads were unacceptable, so it was time to try something different. The
Gran Sport GS6
pads would hopefully prove a bit more rotor friendly.
2013 UPDATE:
After running the
GS6 pads for a few years, I am happy to report that my back rotors are wearing quite smoothly.
No rotor scoring at all. Although the GS6 pads produce slightly more dust than the
FRPP
pads that preceded them, the dust is a very light gray in color, so it blends well with most wheels.
Unfortunately, I must sadly report that these pads are no longer available. I have one more pair on
the shelf in the garage. Then, it'll be time to find something else.
Here's a shot of the right rear after I finally had everything buttoned up.
In addition to freshening up the consumables, I decided it was time to get off my
dead ass and install the front brake cooling kit that I had picked up from
Quantum Motorsports
several months earlier. I had bought this kit primarily for its potential track benefits, and had
patently ignored it after I quit driving the road course due the aforementioned new club regulation
requiring PDP ragtops without roll bars to run top-up. But since I was pulling the rotors, anyway, I
figured I'd go ahead and install the cooling kit.
Unlike many of the more affordable brake cooling kits, which come with
300-degree hoses, the Super Touring kit from Quantum includes 3-inch diameter 600-degree hoses.
This kit also provides 6061-T6 backing plates with TIG welded hose ducts that have been properly
engineered to direct cooling air across a broad rotor swath and into the hub area. You can see both
the backing plate, with which I have replaced the OEM dust shield, and the high-temp hose in the
photo below. The other end of the hose is attached to the rear lip of the brake duct located in the
car's front fascia.
TECH TIP: The Quantum
Motorsports kit consists of high-quality components, but if you install one of these kits on an
ABS-equipped vehicle, you may notice that your ABS sensor cables rub against the hose ducts. No
problem. Just mark the points of contact and notch the brackets where the contact occurs. In the
photo below, you can see the notch I created in my driver side bracket. I also wrapped the ABS
cables with Stretch & Seal silicone tape in those contact areas and secured the cables to the
brackets with black silicone seal adhesive to avoid abrasion.
Here's a shot of the way the passenger side front looked after installation of the fresh rotor
and pads, ready for reinstallation of the wheel/tire assembly.
2011 UPDATE:
Toward the end of 2011,
the Quantum Motorsports website disappeared from the Web, but the company's brake
cooling kits are still in production, and are available through
Lambert Automotive Performance
Products.
The reason I stayed with the
Eradispeed+ rotors, rather than
trying something different in 2011, was that I had never ceased to be amazed by the level of
performance and reliability that the old rotors had provided throughout their entire service
lives. No point in looking for a better rotor - I doubt there's anything more capable out
there short of the high-dollar carbon-ceramic offerings. As for stress cracks, the old rotors
never developed a single one. Here's a close-up of a section of the old LF rotor for reference.
Still not a stress crack anywhere to be seen, is there? Nope. And there's
not a single crack anywhere else on this rotor or on any of the others, either. Although the discs
are visibly thinner within their fire paths then outside them, there isn't any cracking. Eventually,
I will send the four worn rotors back to Baer for ring replacements. That should save me a
couple hundred bucks compared to the cost of complete new rotors. Come to think of it, I may be able
to just drive over to the Baer factory and have the rings replaced while I wait, since the
Baer company is local to me. Either way, I'll have fresh rotors ready to roll when I need
them.
All of you Luddites who are still running single piece cast iron blanks need
to wake up and smell the coffee. Really. Or maybe not. Maybe you're already getting exactly the
braking performance you deserve.
2012 ABS/HCU Replacement
On this car, the ABS Controller and Hydraulic Control unit
are screwed together into a single assembly, which is bolted to the right
frame rail, near the front of the engine bay. During the summer of 2012, I began to
lose my brakes while driving in traffic one afternoon, and I barely made it home
before the pedal was sinking all the way to the floor with every stab. No BRAKE
light, no ABS light, but practically no brake bite, either. With the car safely
parked in the garage, I mashed the pedal several times in rapid succession, and then
looked underneath for the leak, anticipating a puddle of hydraulic fluid below the
master cylinder or at one of the wheel cylinders. To my surprise, the puddle was
located directly under Taz's Hydraulic Control Unit.
I put the Cobra up on stands and inspected the HCU, expecting to
find a loose fitting or damaged brake line. Nope. The fluid was coming from behind a
round plastic cover on its left side, below the fittings for the right side brake
lines. I popped off the plastic cover and discovered a brass plug with - of all
things - a weep hole machined into its center. Every time the brake pedal was depressed,
a fair amount of hydraulic fluid literally squirted out of that hole. A
WEEP
HOLE in a high pressure hydraulic system?
REALLY??? I'd like
to meet the rocket scientist who thought that was a good idea!
After diligently attempting to locate a shop, both locally
and on the Internet, that would repair or rebuild the HCU, I concluded that no such
shop existed, or if one did, I was unable to find it. There are multiple online
shops willing to repair the circuitry of the ABS Controller, which is screwed onto
the HCU, but everyone appeared to consider the HCU a "black box" with no user
serviceable parts. Furthermore, the complete assembly had been discontinued - gee,
what a surprise! - relegating me to the used market. I suppose this is just as well,
since the damned things ran well over a grand from
Ford when new.
Luckily I found several of these units for sale on
eBay
- all with their associated ABS Controllers still attached - for under $300. I settled
on one out of a low-mileage 2004 Cobra that was being offered with a 90-day warranty. After
the part arrived, I compared it to the original I had removed from Taz.
Surprise,
surprise!!! Sometime between when my unit and the HCU from the 2004 were manufactured,
Ford had eliminated that pesky weep hole. Do you suppose they discovered it was a
bad idea? Yep. Do you think it was unconscionable of
Ford to correct a defect in a
safety-related part without mounting a recall? Yep. (If I had bought a replacement out of
another '01, I would never have discovered this change.) I think this could even be
considered "criminal negligence" in a court of law. But I'm no lawyer. I just
know what seems WRONG to me.
Anyway, here's a photo of the original unit (on the left) and its replacement side-by-side.
To borrow a phrase from the IQ tests, "One of these is not like the other." Incidentally, all other
faces of the two units were identical, so it isn't as if that hole had simply been relocated.
If you own a New Edge Cobra, you might take a peek under that black
plastic cover on your car's HCU, just to see if you could be in for a similar experience at
some point. Also, bear in mind that my unit went south after only 25K miles, so your Cobra
doesn't need to be a high-mileage car for this problem to occur. If you ever need to buy
one, complete ABS/HCU assemblies were available at reasonable prices from
eBay
vendors at the time of this writing. Just be certain to buy the revised design. Although
separate rebuilt HCU's, sans ABS Controller,
are available from one or two
online vendors, they run twice as much as a complete assembly from
eBay, and which
design you would receive is uncertain. Finally, while the availability of rebuilt units
implies that someone out there is rebuilding them, good luck discovering
who that is.
TECH TIP: The HCU
contains fluid reservoirs behind normally-closed valves. When you buy a used ABS/HCU module,
these reservoirs may or may not contain air. New service units were delivered pre-charged with
fluid, but there's no guarantee a used one won't have air inside, instead of brake fluid, and
you may not find out until you need your brakes the most. During normal driving, the valves
remain closed, and no hydraulic fluid flows through those passages, so you won't know
there's air inside until you are forced to perform a panic stop and your brake pedal hits the
floor.
To ensure you don't end up without brakes in a panic stop situation
after replacing the HCU, you should first perform a standard 4-wheel brake bleed, follow that
with an "ABS Service Bleed," and finish off with another standard 4-wheel bleed. You will need
a specialized scan tool in order to perform the ABS Service Bleed procedure. Very few scan tools
have this capability, so you may need the assistance of a shop to accomplish an ABS bleed.
I have not disassembled my old HCU to see just exactly
why it
began squirting hydraulic fluid, but I suspect the cause was either a stuck valve or bad solenoid.
For now, I am just happy that Taz's ABS/HCU swap was painless and reasonably straightforward,
requiring less than an hour, including the initial standard bleed. If I ever become curious enough
to perform a post-mortem on the original unit, I'll update this section to include what I discover.
Michelin PSS
Tire Replacments
In 2021 my Michelin PSS tires still had plenty of tread remaining, but
had nearly aged out, since they had been installed in 2014. Therefore, I wasn't
too brokenhearted when the corner of a parking lot barrier ripped a gash in
the sidewall of the left front tire during a visit to our storage unit. I had my
local Discount Tire shop replace both fronts with a pair of new ones of the same
size, but I decided to let the backs go a bit longer.
The car had racked up only about 600 additional
miles by May of 2025, but I became concerned that Grundy would use the age of the back ones
to justify denial of coverage for a tire-related accident if one were to occur.
Since Discount Tire was still stocking the PSS, I had them install new rear
sneakers in the same size on the car. The Pilot Sport 4S tires
had already been available for some time, but I decided to stay with the PSS, since it was a
known quantity with which I had been very happy.
2025 ABS Module Replacement
The ABS fault annunciater in the Cobra's instrument panel lit up during a drive in the spring of 2025. The brakes still felt fine, but there
was clearly an issue somewhere in the system. After quickly confirming that there was no hydraulic fluid leak anywhere, I attempted to read the fault code with my
Vident i450 scan tool, but the Vident complained about having no communication with the ABS control module. I
reset the fault by pulling the ABS fuse under the
dash for a few minutes, but the fault returned during a short test drive after the reset. I
again reset the fault to reestablish comms with the module, and, hoping that the problem was as simple as a bad sensor at
one of the wheels, I put the car in the air and checked the signals from all the wheel speed sensors. No joy. They were all providing valid wheel speed data. Since the i450 is capable
of performing an ABS service bleed, I began the procedure, which cycles from the LF circuit to the RF, and then
to the RR, and finishes at the to LR. The LF bleed completed fine, but the ABS module
suddenly dropped comms with the Vident during the RF bleed, and the ABS fault lamp lit up
again. It appeared that the module itself was defunct.
New Bosch ABS modules for these cars are long gone, since they have been out of production for decades
now. After a lengthy search and being appalled by the shabby
appearance of all the offerings I'd found in the used market, I decided to
install a brand new spare ABS/HCU assembly that I had scored a dozen years earlier and
stashed on the shelf. This cured the loss-of-comms problem, and I was able to
successfully complete the ABS service bleed with the new assembly installed.
After a few subsequent drives in the car without another ABS fault being
triggered, I was satisfied that the issue had been resolved.
While I was poking around, looking for
an acceptable used replacement module, I
came across a couple of local automotive electrical shops that offered ABS module
repair as one of their services. However they were small shops that didn't
specialize in troubleshooting these modules, so I was reluctant to
entrust my failed unit to them. On the other hand, I didn't want to simply
discard the unit, considering decent examples had become essentially nonexistent, so I
began an Internet search for specialist companies offering a repair-and-return service.
There were several. The one I settled on was named
UpFix.
Its website was logically arranged and functioned well, the company had received
many favorable customer reviews on
Trustpilot,
and its building appeared professional and well-maintained in Google Street View. Although Upfix was
located in Georgia, the company was accustomed to doing business nationwide and
made it quick and easy to ship off my module for diagnosis and repair. Status
updates during the process were excellent, and my repaired module was back at my
doorstep in less than a week, complete with a one-year warranty that I knew I
would never use, because I immediately reattached it to its HCU and put the
assembly on the shelf as a spare.
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