Well done that man

Servos merely reduce pedal effort and travel for a given brake line pressure. They don't make brakes any more powerful and they reduce feel which is why race cars generally don't have them. A non-servo system would have a bigger mechanical advantage at the master cylinder but the net result is the same.

ABS certainly helps if different tyres have different grip levels i.e while cornering or on a non homogenous road surface but in perfect conditions it can actually increase stopping distances. Maybe not so much with modern systems but early ones weren't so good at extracting the maximum from the available tyre grip.

As an aside, many years ago, 20 maybe, I was doing a project in the Unipart auto parts business as a consultant. One day I was out at a test track looking at brake pad material test procedures which were very thorough. Turned out the two test drivers that day were the same ones who had driven the Granada in the Ford adverts for ABS when it came out in the 80s I think it was and they related a few stories. If you recall the advert the car was driving down a country road when a tractor lurches out of a farm gate in front of it, the driver brakes and swerves at the same time and supposedly effortlessly manoeuvred round the front of the tractor and went on his merry way. It was meant to demonstrate how a non ABS car would just have slid straight into the tractor being unable to both brake and swerve simultaneously. Whether it even needed to brake is another matter.

Of course it was all very carefully choreographed with the vehicles moving at exact speeds and to precise timing marks so they could just avoid each other. With all the cameras set up the word was given to go, the Granada comes barreling down the road, the tractor moves out on queue, the car driver hits the brake pedal, the ABS does FA constructive and the Granada does indeed slide straight into the side of the tractor and get written off. Red faces all round from the Ford technicians and that isn't the take you got to see of course.

Then there was the Renault situation they told me about in the early days of Renault ABS systems. A French woman driving through Paris in the rain has a crash in which she describes the car as just sailing on as if the brakes had completely failed. Renault test the car exhaustively but can't find anything wrong with it. It stops quite normally in every situation they try it in. They conclude she was lying and trying to cover up some mistake of her own. Then another similar case comes in but again they can find nothing wrong. It stumps all concerned for ages until someone finally spots that the accidents are only happening on cobbled streets. It transpires that at a very specific speed and size of cobblestone the ABS is switching the brakes on and off at exactly the same frequency that the car is traversing the cobbles. Every time it tries to brake the tyres are actually just between cobbles, have no grip, lock up and the system releases the pressure again just as the tyre does get some grip back on the next cobblestone. Maybe it was an urban myth but they made it sound quite convincing.

Reply to
Dave Baker
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The Highway Code distances are calculated based on 0.667G. If a Discovery can only manage 0.5G in good conditions then I certainly don't ever want to be in or near one.

I'd expect well over a G for a good car.

On normal road tyres 1g is very much the limit for most cars. A few might just exceed it on very good rubber but not by much. Race slicks are another matter but you tend not to see those much on road cars!

Reply to
Dave Baker

Nonsense. A very old and long since disproved old wives tale. Slick race tyres have a coefficient of friction against tarmac of about 1.3 and Top Fuel drag cars on wrinkle wall slicks leave the line at close to 4g.

Reply to
Dave Baker

Maximum coefficient of friction (without using glue) is 1. Maximum retardation, therefore =1G. Anything more is a figment of imagination.

Reply to
<me9

From my experience with Landrover/ Rangerover / disco, I'd believe the 0.5 on average. They have other redeeming features, but braking (in a straight line

-- they often pull to the left in lower gears) is not one of them.

Reply to
<me9

It was by the standards of most reasonable people.

Reply to
John Rumm

Race tyres do use glue! That is why they don't last very long as the rubber glue sticks to the surface and wears rapidly.

Having said that the coefficient of friction can exceed one due to the way the rubber interlocks with the rough surface, but I doubt you would get acceptable millage from a tyre that gave much above one.

There is also the issue of weight transfer as the car pushes more than half its weight onto the front on braking which will complicate things a bit.

Reply to
dennis

Who mentioned reasonable people? It appears "reasonable" people around here can't grasp the idea that on the pavement is still on the road even after some not very subtle hints (like its still on the public pavement so its on the road).

Reply to
dennis

That is partly true, why would a deaf person need an aid as they could see the green man!!

Cheers

John

Reply to
John

ISTR half a G is the HGV MOT limit.

Brake balance matters. Most cars lock the fronts far too early; those that don't (like mine) can do better than most.

I was working on a project where we had a recording accelerometer nearly

10 years ago. I saw 1.2G on it on an ordinary Rover saloon. Without ABS.

Andy

Reply to
Andy Champ

Any good bike will hit 60 in 2.5 seconds.

60MPH is 26.8m/s. So that's 10.72 m/s/s. 1 G is 9.81m/s/s.

So bikes are a figment of your imagination.

Andy

Reply to
Andy Champ

Have you been sniffing glue again?

Reply to
The Medway Handyman

Maximum *retardation* is stopping. What's the 60-0 time like?

And I think you'll find the massive downforce on the front wheel under heavy braking gives you pretty good grip on tarmac. The bike effectively 'weighs' more than it actually does, which affects the equations significantly in terms of how much 'stop' you can get from the tyres.

Reply to
PCPaul

maximum braking,. just before you go over the top and kill someone.

Reply to
dennis

The increase in downward force on the front wheel is only at the expense of reduced downward force on the rear wheel. You do get increased downward forces with suitable aerodynamics, but this can be easily reversed to become lift in some circumstances, with disastrous results.

Reply to
<me9

In message , "dennis@home" writes

Reply to
geoff

Maxie, you said with such panache! Such a star. Fantastic.

Reply to
Doctor Drivel

Why don't you, you could always learn to drive and then you wouldn't need to be as touchy.

Reply to
dennis

Without aero assistance tyres - good tyres on a good surface..can do about 1.2G..racing slicks more, but I duuno how MUCH more.

'Coefficient of friction' is pretty meaningless with tyres, or we would NOT have wide flat ones for racing purposes.

Coefficient of friction applies far more to hard surfaces sliding over each other. Not soft sticky temperature dependent rubber on tar roads.

ISTR that in the ground effect/active suspsenson days, Mansell was pulling >5g sideways through the silverstone bends..

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

In message , "dennis@home" writes

what makes you think you have the faintest idea what my driving's like

Reply to
geoff

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