HSV (Harrop) Brakes
Anyone who owns a standard V8 Commodore (ie Non HSV) and drives it hard will have no doubt found the limits of their factory fitted brakes at some stage during a spirited drive.
While the brakes Holden fit to the V6 range my be suitable for a V6 - to go and fit the same brakes to the V8’s is simply a joke in my mind.
I put up with my brakes for a while until it was time for my first set of brake pads - after doing some homework i went with some Ferodo DS2000’s (available from www.partsco.com ) and what a difference they made! They had awesome bite, no fade and ok they had a bit of dust but nothing excessive and given the performance they offered in the factory brakes i was more than willing to put up with it.
While the Ferodos were great in the factory setup i still wanted more and given that i race my car i really needed something bigger with bigger rotors, plus i wanted to some bigger brakes to fill the big void in behind the 19″ rims!
Sometime later a mate of mine came round and showed his latest score from Drury Car Spares (local Commodore wrecker)….he had a nice set of HSV (Harrop) stoppers out of a GTS Commodore. These have the 343mm front rotors and 315mm rears with cross drilling and the calipers are a 4 spot front which give improved clamping over the factory 2 spots.
I was jealous! But i would have to wait and wait…but my patience paid off and soon an identical set came up at Drury for $2k and i jumped on them. The rotors needed skimming due to some scoring but once this was done they were ready to go in.
Once fitted i was expecting a great improvement so out i went for a spin…..while they were definiteley better they were not as great as i was expecting and this is i’m sure due to the improvement i had already seen going into the Ferodo pads in the facotry brake setup (seriously the DS2000’s in the factory setup is a great brake mod for those wanting improved brakes on a budget).
I think i can get an improvement with the Harrops if i go to a better pad but i will cross that bridge when the current pads get low enough.
