upgrading brakes

[bigman_10]

this is only in the 'ideas' section of my grey matter at the moment but i'm thinking of upgrading my 1.3 solid front discs and rear drums to the gti setup alround as i saw an auction on ebay for something similar. how hard would this be and what would i need to get? could i still use the same brake lines and servo? (or is that a stupid question)

really i just want to upgrade the rear as my front discs and pads are fine so i dont want to be changing the front really.

As i said i've not looked deeply into this but as i've still got a few days of 'garage time' left and finished spraying the bonnet and wheels i'm looking for the next majorish mod to do whilst it's still in my dads garage (he'll kick me out soon and i'll be back to the driveway ) Another obvious thing is that is there any point? although the 55 standard horses (more like 25 ) are probably trotting away under the bonnnet it's hardly a race horse, if you get my drift!

Like most of my upgrades quite alot of my idea's are pointless (rev counter for example that is more flippin distracting ), but that's besides the point it's damm good fun getting out the spanners.

so to sumarise this small essay i would like to know:
what i need e.g. hoses, pipes, rear knuckles (or whatever they are), calipers, discs, servos, bias valves?
would it be straight forward....ish
would it be a noticeable difference
and lastly would it be a far better idea to save the money spend it on a fat crate of beer?

sorry for being a pain and as you can probably tell i'm not the most experienced mechanic but would give anything a crack!

Chris
 

[Steve_B]

The front brakes do most of the work so I can't see this making that much of a difference (someone correct me if I'm wrong). You'd be better off thinking if there's something else to spend your garage time on imo.

[fused]

not sure but might be less mucking around to pick up a gti rear beam? no idea if it will just bolt on or not! or if the break lines will match up? anyone else know for sure??

[takethefifth]

Crate of beer!  For the work thats involved I can't see you'd get that much benefit from it.  Mind you I am in love with beer so a little bit biased.....

[Diamond Hell]

If you fit rear discs you'll need to fit a bias valve, which fits just in front of the rear beam.

You need this because the rear discs are rather more effective than the drums.  The bias valve limits the fluid pressure when the car is not loaded, stopping the rear brakes locking before the fronts.

The bias valve means you will have very different brake pipes at the rear beam.

You'd be much better off fitting 256mm front brakes and a 22mm master and leaving the drums on, although something in me senses this is being done so you don't have aesthetically poor rear drums.....