Practically Classics Forum

A delivery came so another piece of the puzzle or two!
The caliper brackets which bolt onto the hub were up for sale by some sellers seperately
but I found someone selling clapers and brakets for the same price as a braket including
postage do it was a no brainer and £17.77 per side




A comparison, 2003 Voyager Calliper on the left with mk1 neon on the right




I'm just wondering about the size of the voyager piston being a bit bigger than needed?

Will they fit under your standard wheels? The size difference looks pretty big so you may need to find some an inch larger with more offset.

TerryG wrote:Will they fit under your standard wheels? The size difference looks pretty big so you may need to find some an inch larger with more offset.

Larger, yes, but not with more offset. This would muller the handling in a new and exciting way, being FWD you'd probably get massive torque steer (especially with a more powerful engine) and it'd put extra strain on wheel bearings that are probably already marginal with that engine swap.

But remember that handling, ride and noise will suffer anyway, because with much larger calipers and potentionally larger wheels you're massively increasing the unsprung weight on those corners, which is a significant downside IMHO.

Mind you, none of that really matters because the car doesn't actually run, eh?

Just alittle reminder I took 16 inch wheels off the car as those wheels were damaged and I fitted
14 inch wheels which was another factory alternative. I do have a set of steel 16 inch steelies in
the shed. The tyres will be 205 50 16 again.

What's your point?

When I changed the front brakes on my MK1 focus to ST170 spec, I had to fit ST170 alloys as the standard ones when bolted up wouldn't turn as they were pressed hard against the callipers.
I still have 17s but they have a wider offset as the ST170 calliper is slightly deeper.

Sorry if a little all over the place in my last post side effects of dentist appointment.

The 16 " wheels with 205 50 16 tyres are able to fit nicely in under the spring mount
on the struts, and are as close as you can get to what were fitted by the dealers and
the factory for export which are 185/70/r14 and currently on the car.

The factory/dealer alloys available on exported neons were 16" alloys but they never
did a 16" steel rim on the neon so I have a set of VW with the same bolt pattern
sitting in the shed.

A tyre and wheel size comparing speed difference calculator
(might be useful for others to use)
http://www.neons.org/tire/

And the standard wheel size in the voyager 2001 to 2007 is 16"
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/CHRYSLER-VOYA ... 233a73c8cb

After reading that why do I have visions of a lamp post shaped dent in the front of a Neon while it is on its way to the MOT station.

There is much more to it than just the diameter of your wheels. Also I would suggest you check the capacity of your master cylinder to see if it is capable of providing sufficient fluid to your new larger callipers as from the picture you have posted, I doubt it is. It may also spoil the brake balance so you may find your rear wheels lock up as they have the factory brakes long before the fronts do as they require so much more fluid to do the same job of the standard ones.

Please speak to somebody with some knowledge of automotive brake design and by someone I mean a human not a keyboard warrior.

I've found this thread interesting, and think its a good chance for a civilised debate and learning session for any of us, me included as we all have different thoughts on modifications.

So, my thoughts are below, they may well be wrong, part right, or total twaddle, but I'm always happy to learn so long as folks are gentle with me

Would it not be possible to just uprate the standard discs and pads to ones more motorsport orientated, say slotted discs, better pad friction material and even perhaps braided flexis.

My reasoning being the potential problems as mentioned in other posts, could outweigh any gains in extra braking capacity, and a more OE based upgrade would allow suspension geometry to remain the same bearing in mind that the suspension geometry is designed by the manufacturer with many things including wheel size / tyre side wall height taken into consideration, and that is regardless of other factors such as the unsprung weight / wheel bearing capability issues mentioned. So a possibly slightly less efficient braking system could in theory actually be more efficient due to the set up being sympathetic to the original vehicle design.

I may get strung up for this but my way of thinking in the past when upgrading engine performance was that a car will stop as quickly from seventy miles an hour with say 80 BHP as the same car with 100 BHP, though of course the extra engine weight in the conversion could be a factor here. Also I suppose an issue could be the slowing of momentum if coming onto the brakes from faster acceleration?

Anyway, just a thought, others will no doubt tell me why my thinking is flawed, but for my money I'd think the safer bet is to keep things as near to standard as possible so as to keep the manufacturers intended design fairly standard, whilst making gains through uprated but standard fitting components.

One last thought from where I am coming from, is that I was always told brakes don't stop you, tyres do, and no matter how big the brakes, they can only ever be as good as the tyres stopping capability.

Thoughts chaps

In order to fit any brake callipers to the voyager hubs, I needed to get the correct slider
brackets, which came as a package deal with the callipers. If you look on ebay and other
sites just the slider brackets are about £20 plus postage per side.

Then there is the piston size factor! If I hadn't bought them to see a side by side comparison
I wouldn't have been ab;e to do so at any of the local scrapyards as there are no voyagers.
(no chrysler or dodges for that matter)

The slider part of the bracket is supposed to be able to take more than just a voyager calliper.
It is the same slider dimensions used on other vehicles produced by chrysler such as the pt
cruiser. The PT cruiser uses a lot of neon parts but has larger brake discs which I am planing
on using. I was also looking into getting a PT calliper for comparison.
(please see links at the start of this thread for details)

Those who do the big brake upgrade on mk1 neons in the USA use PT cruiser knuckles but
change drive shafts etc as well as having to have those knuckles machined down by quite a
bit to fit! but still use the PT callipers with the stock setup.

Unlike the later chryslers most had the bearings pressed into the knuckles, where as the
bearings are now usually in units which are held in place by 4 bolts. If this unit can be changed
to that which can be bought off the shelf then it will be factory parts and not expensive custom
made parts.

Oh and this big brake option will only be fitted to the neon after the car has been for an MOT
& failed due to the inadequate handbrake which Neons always get advisory notices or fail on!
As this is a gathering of parts and setting things together on the bench for later fitment
process.