- Hey team, Andre from High Performance Academy here, welcome along to another one
of our webinars.
Just wanted to cover off a little project that we've been working on with our Toyota FJ40 build
and if you aren't aware of that build, we've got a Toyota FJ40 classic truck that we are basically
modernising.
It's got a 4.3 litre Toyota 3UZFE engine swap, we've converted from leaf springs to coilovers
among other things.
Now today I just wanted to focus on one of the aspects of this build which is the braking system.
And if we just jump across to my laptop screen, we've gone with a fairly extensive upgrade on
the brakes on this truck,
In factory form they're drum brake and they don't really do a great job of stopping the car
which obviously doesn't inspire too much confidence and when the original 3B diesel
engine probably produced about 25 horsepower that wasn't such a big deal but with the 3UZFE,
we're probably expecting maybe around about 300 horsepower.
Still not going to be a rocket ship, that's not what it's built for, it's not a race car.
But it would be nice to be able to confidently and repeatedly stop the vehicle so we have
gone disc brake all around and the calipers that we've got on the front here, I actually
managed to find on our local Trademe, online buy/sell/swap etc website and I
actually made a bit of an error with these, there was really no scale in the pictures.
And I assumed that these would be sort of the fairly common WRX/Mitsubishi Evo
size which would fit under a 17" wheel conventionally which is what we've got
on this truck.
When they turned up they were absolutely massive and again there's no real scale in
this photo so you can't probably appreciate this, I think they might have been off a
2021/2022 model year Range Rover Sport or something of that nature, I'm not quite
sure but they're absolutely massive.
Designed really around about a 20" wheel, so we have managed to shoehorn them under
the 17 but not a lot of room to spare.
On the rear, and I have actually covered these in a bit of detail in a previous webinar
but this is an Audi electric handbrake system with obviously the hydraulic brake,
it's a slider caliper, we're not really doing a lot of work at the back.
And that's the key components there, obviously disc brake conversion all around
as I mentioned.
Now on top of this though we have gone with a MK60 ABS unit which is the Teves
unit which is commonly found in a lot of BMW models.
Now this is going to be a little bit out of left field for me, we haven't done this before
but this MK60 unit is pretty commonly used as a standalone ABS unit.
And the nice feature of this, being standalone is that it doesn't need to be in the original car,
basically you can hook this system up and retrofit it into basically any vehicle you want.
They are quite commonly used in club day race cars, even at semi professional level
because they are relatively cost effective.
The MK60 system is also the one that was fitted to the E46 BMW M3 and the M3 CSL and
quite a common upgrade, if you want a little bit more performance above and beyond the
base MK60 unit is that you can actually, there are a few companies that will flash the
CSL mapping into that ABS computer so I haven't tested this first hand, obviously
the FJ40 as I mentioned, it's not designed as a racecar but we're testing this around, is this
going to be a cost effective option for potential club day race cars?
If we're looking at the commercially available aftermarket standalone ABS systems from the
likes of Bosch, we're sort of talking numbers in the $8000-$10000 NZD vicinity so you know
if you're building a half a million dollar GT3 racecar, have at it, makes a lot of sense but if
you're beating around in a $15,000 club car, it's very hard to justify basically the entire
expense of your car on an ABS system.
So just to cover off what is included here, so this shot that we've got here is of the
brake master cylinder on the FJ40 and we've got, normally there's a pressure switch on the
underside of these for I think it's for the brake light circuit.
So this ABS unit requires a brake pressure input for the front and the rear circuit so
we've just managed to drill and tap the master cylinder to take those two sensors.
These were included as part of the kit.
On top of this here is the actual ABS computer and pump.
So this needs to obviously be plumbed, we've got the front and rear circuits come straight from that
master cylinder and go into the ABS unit and then we've got 4 outputs that go obviously to the
4 corners of the car.
Not really too easy to see on this angle but this plastic connector here is for the
connector kit for the unit.
All of this stuff, if you want to make up your own wiring harness, it's all available brand
new, pretty cost effective as well.
Now obviously we also need to include wheel speed sensors and the BMW wheel
speed sensors are unfortunately not going to work in our application because of the live
axles that are fitted to the car.
However, the BMW sensors are a reluctor sensor, variable reluctor sensor or magnetic
sensor and I had already confirmed with the company that I purchased all of this gear from,
that basically any reluctor sensor was going to be compatible.
So we should be OK there.
Obviously there's a lot of testing to go into this.
One aspect is getting the wheel speed sensor signals which wasn't that easy.
So Brandon had just mocked up a test fitting part here, he designed this in
Fusion 360 and then rounded this out out of MDF, obviously that's not going to be
too suitable for final fitment but it just allows us to actually test the fitment and
make sure everything should work, get all our clearances right so once we've done
that, we'll be able to produce the final part in a ferrous material that will work
with that reluctor sensor.
Now few considerations here, it's not just a case of fit all the parts together
and send it out the door and it's going to be OK.
Obviously when we're dealing with something that is safety critical like the braking system,
we want to have the confidence that the braking system is going to work as advertised
and before I went too far with this, I actually contacted, here in New Zealand, the Land
Transport Safety Authority and the low vehicle volume technical authority just
to get some advice on this and what we could do.
And basically we're in unchartered territory here in New Zealand, no one has so far tried
to do this and get a car complied, registered certified for use on the road.
So basically they've said well you know what you're doing, you've done the research,
we haven't so present us with a case study on what you're doing and then some testing to
actually prove that it does work and we'll then look into it.
So little bit to go but we're pretty excited to test that out and as I say if this does work
as we expect, then it does open the doors for a very cost effective unit for club level
racing.
I think, off the top of my head, the total parts cost for all of this was around about the
$1000 USD mark and if you want to spend some time in a wrecking yard, you can probably
get it for literally cents on the dollar so it does look to be a very cost effective solution.
Now other sensors that go into this, there is also a yaw sensor that needs to be mounted,
I haven't got a photo of that.
There is also a output from that ABS unit which is quite handy that gives the 4 wheel speeds
as a digital signal so what we can then do is encompass that, bring that data into the
ECU for things like traction control strategies or launch control, again obviously not launch
control in an FJ40 but you get the idea, it gives you that data so you don't need to double up
on sensors.
Another consideration that's going to come into this is with the sizing the master cylinder,
that's really critical here, this affects the overall brake bias.
Now ABS will of course stop your brakes from locking but it's not a silver bullet to fix a poorly
sized brake system so we still want the brake master cylinder sizing to be at least in the
ballpark so that our brake bias mechanicaly is set there or there abouts.
And then the ABS unit can come in and pick up the pieces if something isn't quite right.
So again we're a little way off testing this but pretty excited to see how it works out and of
course keep watching and we'll keep telling you how it works out once we get it onto the road.
If you liked that video make sure you give it a thumbs up
and if you're not already a subscriber, make sure you're subscribed.
We release a new video every week.
And if you like free stuff, we've got a great deal for you.
Click the link in the description to claim your free spot to our next live lesson.