Stev0 Posted January 2, 2013 Share Posted January 2, 2013 (edited) Firstly, compliments of the season to everyone.. Okay, so for all of us who drive on the correct side of the road, the brake booster of my manta is inconveniently located on the busy side of the motor where you have intakes and exhausts all over the place.. Now, converting the fuelling to a sidedraft setup is not even remotely going to fit with the brake booster where it is now.. Somebody told me that a vw golf brake system works on linkages that actually operate the booster from across the firewall.. has anybody tried this, or know of a better way of doing it? i want to keep the car looking clean, not very keen on cluttering the engine bay too much.. pics would be a huge help.. Edited January 2, 2013 by Stev0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doveyte2800 Posted January 2, 2013 Share Posted January 2, 2013 (edited) check caspers project on his ascona some while ago, he had his mounted behind the lights. 76 Coupe ( Hovis ) in projects page 2 or 3. regards Ian Edited January 2, 2013 by doveyte2800 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Retro Power Posted January 2, 2013 Share Posted January 2, 2013 another option, not a five minute one, but a very neat one, is to use a mk1 or mk2 escort aftermarket pedal box, which points the master cyls rearwards inside the car, you can they either run without servo (many do, I actually prefer this) or then fit a remote servo elsewhere in the car (can go anywhere like in the boot etc) Here you can see how we've done it on an ascona b, which is not too dissimilar in terms of space, and we are also doing the same on an opel gt at the moment. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stradacab Posted January 2, 2013 Share Posted January 2, 2013 http://forums.mantaclub.org/topic/20218-stradacab-and-devil-fishs-400r-roadtrack-project/page-13 Page 13 has some info on Polo conversion for you Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stev0 Posted January 4, 2013 Author Share Posted January 4, 2013 what are the drawbacks of running without a servo? just more pedal force required for same stopping power? hoe uch of a difference does it make? where does one find the aftermarket pedal boxes? who makes them? strada, correct me if i'm wrong, but my manta A's servo isn't as big as the manta B's, it's quite small, much like the polo's.. the master cylinder is in the way of the sidedrafts.. i wonder if i can lower it.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Retro Power Posted January 4, 2013 Share Posted January 4, 2013 disadvantage of non servo is increased pedal effort for the same stopping power, but you also get more pedal feel. we get the pedal boxes from Rally Design (they are made overseas as far as I know) this is the mk2 escort one, http://www.rallydesign.co.uk/product_info.php?cPath=562_580_581&products_id=4029 they've stopped doing the mk1 escort fabricated pedal (fabricated pedals, cheaper!) box (and anybody who says they have stock probably doesn't) We use the mk1 escort one in ascona/manta b, I would guess that its probably a slightly better fit in a manta a as well...maybe! This one would be the one then, assuming you are keeping a cable clutch....http://www.rallydesign.co.uk/product_info.php?cPath=562_580_581&products_id=16453 PS incidentally, the smallest servo on the market, to my knowledge, is the mk1 nissan micra unit, which is tiny, much smaller than the polo unit or anything/ else I know of (we used to use the pug 106/citroen ax unit before, which is small too, but the micra unit is much smaller) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
611 Posted January 4, 2013 Share Posted January 4, 2013 Hey Stevo I think the Vauxhall Nova ran a serve on the passengers side with a linkage across to the pedals on the drivers side. Not looked into how easy it would be to fit a manta! I ran an MG metro servo and master cylinder on mine with the side draught carbs, but inverted the master cylinder and ran remote resiviors, think i also had to tilt the servo slightly forward. It stopped it when it had the 2.1 running in it no problem. Think i still have the remote pots in the garage :-) I might have some pictures as well. Will have to route through the Manta stuff. Here's the new setup, non servo, still a bit tight in there :-) http://www.theopelproject.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/2012201220111.jpg Andy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stev0 Posted January 5, 2013 Author Share Posted January 5, 2013 @retro - I see three master cylinders on that pedal box of yours.. how are those tied into the orginal piping, and where are the reservoirs located? @andy - so you basically did away with the servo and bolted the master cylinder directly to the firewall? not bad, but will it work? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
611 Posted January 5, 2013 Share Posted January 5, 2013 (edited) Hey Stevo Not quite as easy as that :-) Its like retro's setup but he is using a pedal box that has all the cylinders attached. 2 master cylinders for brakes, front and back and one for the clutch. Im using the same setup, but am not keen on running the master cylinders that side of the bulk head, so i have the proper wilwood pedals on the inside. Brake with the two master cylinders, front and back and a bias control to balance the brakes from front to back if needed. and then the cylinders on the other side of the bulk head and the clutch pedal is the 3 rd one as will be running hydraulic clutch on mine as well. So same setup for both just different ways of doing it :-) You could just run the wilwood brake pedal with two cylinders and run normal pedal for clutch. Wilwood also do a floor mount and one with cylinders on the inside. http://www.wilwood.com/Pedals/PedalList.aspx mounting cylinders on the inside will give you all the space you need in the engine bay for the carbs, but im not sure how tight it will be under the dash for the setup. I used the seperate pedal option as i wanted to keep the pedal setup as close to the original as possible and didnt want to have to offset them to fit it all in. The B's and asconas might have a bit more room under there? Your normal master cylinder should run one feed to back and one feed to front, so all you are doing is connecting them to seperate cylinders in stead of them coming out the one. Easy!! Andy ps. I can get some pics from inside and post on monday if you want? Edited January 5, 2013 by 611 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stev0 Posted January 6, 2013 Author Share Posted January 6, 2013 please do pal, brake systems aren't my strongest area, you're a huge help Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Retro Power Posted January 7, 2013 Share Posted January 7, 2013 (edited) Yep as 611 said, the 3 cyls on our setup are clutch plus front and rear brake. A "normal" car master cylinder is effectively two cylinders linked together in one bore, a "bias box" setup uses two seperate cylinders to allow adjustment of front to rear bias, pretty much the norm on competition cars. The wilwood setup uses pedals that are too long to fit properly under the dash on a manta b/ ascona b, we looked into those a while back (you can opt for the shorter pedals, but then the pedal ratio is too low to work well with no servo). Similarly the floor mount setups put the master cylinders through the upswept section of the floor, which makes things very tricky. particularly as one of the cylinders ends up inside and through the chassis rail! Running the cylinders inside the car was very normal not too many years ago, and is something I am very happy to do. There are many pros and one con to doing it this way. The con is that its something else inside the car which can catch fire (though this is extremely unlikely! ) The pros are that the cylinders are out of the way, protected from the elements, protected from engine bay heat, away from causes of fire and use up otherwise unused space behind the dash, plus the bias bar is very easy to adjust without long springy cable adjusters. Edited January 7, 2013 by Retro Power Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
611 Posted January 7, 2013 Share Posted January 7, 2013 Plenty of space under the A series for the wilwwod pedals :-) And they are almost in the same place as the original pedals, so you can still keep the nice driving position that hey A has, which was the main reason for doing it like this. Here are a couple of pictures (not the best as on my phone) they bolt up on the bulk head and then im going to add some bolts from the top to make sure they are extra strong and dont move. I have shaped the bulk head a bit so the cylinders come out as straight as possible, as its on a slight incline as standard. I hope this helps to give you and idea. very easy to adjust the bias from the pedals and i also have one of those springy cable things as well :-) Andy http://www.theopelproject.com/?attachment_id=547 http://www.theopelproject.com/?attachment_id=546 http://www.theopelproject.com/?attachment_id=545 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caseih Posted March 25, 2016 Share Posted March 25, 2016 Retro power : does the mk1 bias pedal box fit in the same holes as the original pedal box in manta A or do I need to make new holes? It looks like it is really tight to fit the brake lines when the bias is mounted.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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