G'day everyone,

The first thing I'm looking to do with my new van is put disc brakes on it with a booster. I'm going to get minisport vented 7.9 on the front and the KAD rear kit. I have done a disc conversion before but have never played around with a booster, is a booster easy to install? where would i get the vacuum needed for it to work? are the boosters that are available on the miniparts sites suitable for this disc brake setup?

http://www.minisport.com/7-9-mini-vente ... ipers.html
http://www.minisport.com/kad1012070r-ka ... t-red.html

Cheers,
Paddy

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2015 Ducati 899 Panigale

A booster only reduces the pedal effort so with any of the boosters made for minis you really can't go wrong.

You get the vacuum from a take off from the inlet manifold (yours may already have a spot blanked off that you can just buy a barb and screw into it)

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"In two years time your car will be like a lady's clothes, out of date, my car will still be in fashion when I am dead" - Sir Alec speaking to Pininfarina

If you have a tandem MC, it is usual to just boost the front discs. The rears on a Mini do SFA in emergency braking. Even the KADs.

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DrMini- 1970 wasaMatic 1360, Mk1S crank, 86.6HP (ATW) =~125 @ crank, 45 Dellorto (38 chokes), RE282 sprint cam, 1.5 rockers, 11.0:1 C/R.

I'm not sure what setup you have, but you're looking at some pretty series braking there with that setup.

I'm looking at putting the 7.9's on my 4efte conversion (I'm still waiting on the engineer's opinion on brakes ATM) but some people claim that they are no better than the metro 7.5's. Some claim that the cooper s 7.5's are the best. The main reason for the alloy 4-pots is the weight reduction - but I'm opening a can of works here, there are so many opinions on the matter.

The rear setup, however, everybody seems to agree on. If you're racing and need to get the last bit of performance you can, go for it. But they don't do much braking - again, it's mostly weight reduction. It's a lot of money to lighten up you brakes.

Regarding the servo, the later rover minis were boosted, but they have their own setup, and I'm not sure how well that can be installed in an older car. Most people boost just the front circuit as the doc said. The boosters used in Australia are/were the VH44 units made by PBR, also used on some Holdens and Valiants. Recon ones seem to go for $300-$400. There are also a lot of chinese copies on ebay that tend to go for $170-$200. I've never even seen these before, so I don't know what the quality would be like. Might be worth checking the Valiant and Holden forums to see if anybody has bought them.

I haven't actually done it but looking at my rover set up it looks to me like the rover unit would bolt straight into an old mini.

Rover booster bracket goes where bonnet hinges fit on a Morris. Leyland and Rover bonnet hinges are wider and miss. You'll need to mod the booster bracket at least.

M

re the cheapo Chinese PBR copy servos, Laingy has put one on his van with 8.4" discs and tandem MC, it's working fine.
Personally, I prefer a genuine one for reliability and parts availability.

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DrMini- 1970 wasaMatic 1360, Mk1S crank, 86.6HP (ATW) =~125 @ crank, 45 Dellorto (38 chokes), RE282 sprint cam, 1.5 rockers, 11.0:1 C/R.

Servoed discs could be very useful with van when loaded up with several hundredweight of spares in the back.

But if you're running van empty would be really wary about rear brakes locking up under heavy braking.

I've not run van with this set-up but have a kit-car based on mini subframes with same wheelbase as the van, and it can swap ends very quickly... And that's on 7.5 inch discs without servo.

Always fit 5/8" rear wheel cylinders when running discs, servoed or not. Van is quite stable if you do this.
3/4" rears with discs are unsafe, even on a sedan- I found this out in the wet @ 110KMH on the freeeway.

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DrMini- 1970 wasaMatic 1360, Mk1S crank, 86.6HP (ATW) =~125 @ crank, 45 Dellorto (38 chokes), RE282 sprint cam, 1.5 rockers, 11.0:1 C/R.

Remember that Rovers with disk brakes run 3/4 but they have a different MC.

MC?

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Zulu...

1967 mini Cooper S

Master Cylinder.