One good nickel deserves another!
1. The “poor man’s” rear brake upgrade is to switch to Series I/II rear wheel cylinders. These are 7/8″ vs .70, which is a 56% increase. I found an interesting website (by a TR6 owner) who made this change and documented the results: http://www.cs.du.edu/~ljanssen/tr6_brakeinstall.html.
2. Keep in mind that our discussions are based on “all things being equal”.
The trade off for increasing piston area is increased brake pedal travel. If we are too aggressive in our upgrade, we run the risk of running out of travel, and we will have to increase the master cylinder diameter. Once we do this you have changed our mechanical advantage, which is directly proportional to the areas of the two cylinders (or cylinder and piston in this case). This is why it is normally recommended that you use the smaller diameter Series I/II master cylinder when removing the servo – it increases the mechanical advantage.
3. I’ve owned my Alpine for 26 years and can’t say that I’ve ever experienced brake fade. Perhaps it is the way I use the car (touring/commuting- no autocross or competition of any kind). My desire is to improve the first stop – I’m not so worried about the 4th or 5th. I’d like to find a cost effective solution, since I’m the only person in the family that can drive it.