KaiB

ditto...but I'm a recidivist and enjoy the rawness of simple cars.

analogmike

Also it's one more thing to go wrong. Ask BGB what they think about ABS, it probably cost them the team championship at Lime Rock last week.

J richard

+1 not to mention the early 6 is still susceptible to black ice mode. Twice I had thought I had just overlooked a corner and fortunately had nice long run offs, asked the mech to check the abs for faults come to find out its the same old issue and a common one... Perhaps why it was ultimately dropped.

Rickard 993 Turbo

Maybe its better to get My 997 gt2 Abs Working then.. Cheaper and never heard of ice mode on them

analogmike

Street car ABS won't work AT ALL in racing.

Rickard 993 Turbo

I have friends that run on slicks on both 993 turbo Abs and 996gt2 Abs and it works fine

KaiB

Then the sad fact is they're not pushing their cars hard enough.

Rickard 993 Turbo

Nja, Almost same lap Times' as 997 cups so they pusch them hard

dass

The bosch MK4 system is brilliant and for the ultra skilled driver you can even turn it off.

ZSA Motorsport

AnalogMike has it 100% correct. Street ABS wil not work on a race car. The parameters are all wrong. I believe a tuner or two have been able to reprogram the 987 ABS units in the caymans (ie. interseries caymans). but other than that, its a bad fit.

That said, we'd done 5 or 6 Bosch Motorsort 4 ABS installs, and that unit is top notch. I tend to agree with mike that i like not having ABS as you can use the brake pedal to help rotate or slide the car midturner, mid-braking, etc. Thats precisely why i like the system. I like having the ability to adjust the settings and i usually run my camaaro in a very high setting where the ABS only really kicks in if its truley locking up at a high level. zero to 10 are preprogrammed. you can adjust settings for the car, weights, track, diameters, tons of variables. And then settings 11,12 are custom programs where you can have tunes specific to your tire, car, track, etc. you can also flip it off in total.

i generally run it in the 7 or 8 setting which is as close to have no ABS as possible and only if i make a big mistake or the tires are going off, does it kick in. on new slicks for qualifying, i leave it in the 8,9, 10 settings. if its raining, i love having it in the 2,3,4 setting. Its very dynamic and does an amazing job.

its expensive. its maybe 11, 12 grand depending on options, connectors, etc. Figure it 1.5 days to install, to connect to a cup car can stream, to get the motec config sorted out.

not cheap, but i think its an amazing setup.
we are a reseller of the units and have yet to have a single client suggest it was anything other than amazing.

Geoffrey

I have purchased 6 Cup ABS systems for as little as $1200 used and paid as much as $3400 new. I agree with everyone here that street ABS will not and does not work for any driver really pushing the car. I have the 993 GT2 Race ABS system in my 964 RSR and I think it is a better system than the 996 Cup, however, I also think the Cup is a great system for club racing. Whenever I have installed ABS, I have always installed a push off switch like the 964 Cup cars had where you can simply shut off the system in the event of an emergency. I have not had any issues with a 993 GT2 or 996 Cup ABS system failing on the track, however, my sample set of cars is not that large.

I've also hat the opportunity to work on several BOSCH ABS M4 systems and agree they are really what you want.

ZSA Motorsport

Geoffrey is one of the sharpest guys i know when it comes to race car engineering and electronics. he is one of our main sources for MOTEC, Bosch and other can/data needs. He's been involved in several of our MS4 installs in several areas. He knows his stuff. Anyone truley interested in learning more, give him shout.

J richard

Geoffrey?...never heard of him....

James-GMG

Guys,

ABS can be your friend, without question.....just ask the Cadillac boys in WC when they put in on their cars......they wen't faster with it!

If set up properly, a Motorsport unit that is, it can be a savior. The WC cars with it have a great advantage vs not ABS cars.....that's why back in the day they made the ABS equipped cars run an additional 50lbs.

Regarding which ABS system is best out there........I asked my Engineer this question a while back when a customer wanted more details between the Bosch and the Teves, and this was his answer.....

James,
This is fairly typical as far as having a partial understanding of what is out there for ABS units. For the last few years Bosch offers their own motorsport unit that has an adjustment ****, which along with a certain level of programmability was their main pitch. Very few of the Grand Am cars use that unit, the Riley Camaro is the primary one because Riley sells it as part of the car package. Sakata is a Bosch dealer so that unit is the one he understandably wants to sell customers that go to him for a system. The reality is that it sounds better than it works in practice. Ask Sakata how many wiring harnesses he builds for my system compared to the Bosch, you might be surprised.

The Motorsport system I sell is not Bosch but Teves. Virtually every Grand Am car that has chosen to specify their own Motorsport ABS system, the exceptions are the Camaro and Mustang which have Bosch and OE respectively as specified by the builder, are racing with a system I supplied them. Since 2004 or so we have been using a system based on ABS hardware that would come in an E46 BMW, the MK60 system. That unit was used extensively in every BMW and most of the Porsches as well, including four of the TRG GS cars as well as many World Challenge cars. Certain versions of the software even had a form of adjustable "limited slip" that could be cockpit controlled, which could be interpreted as stability control. All of the units from the very beginning to the present, are supplied with a Yaw sensor. All of the systems I sell also have had the option of an anti-knockback routine that would reset the pads automatically after each corner.

We have just completed two full years of racing the latest generation system, the MK60E5, which now has 5 internal pressure sensors so that brake pressures can be monitored in real time. This system also uses what we call analog control valves which can regulate brake pressure in a progressive and fluid way, compared to any other system that uses digital valves that can only be opened or closed fully. This is the difference you now feel in the pedal where the old ratcheting feel is gone during ABS action. Often ABS action is not even felt by the driver, professional or amateur. The latest generation software for the E5 system includes all the previously mentioned features as well as a ten position sensitivity adjustment and the ability to send the current front and rear tire sizes. This software was recently developed with Porsche works teams in Europe. The sensitivity setting as well as the tire sizes are all part of the two way CAN communication
that goes on between the ABS and data system. Besides sending these settings, the data system receives all four brake pressures and wheel speeds, a fault signal, Yaw and Lat G data, etc. A couple of the best Grand Am GS teams have tested the Bosch system against the Teves and have chosen my system. In the World Challenge series where the option exists, only my ABS system is in use.

The other notable differences are that our system is less expensive and easier to install. In most cases we use the production wheel speed sensors rather than forcing customers to adapt to a supplied set of sensors, which can be a difficult exercise in many applications. Because the Bosch name is so well known, our ABS system is often mistaken as or assumed to be Bosch. Teves or Ate as it is sometimes known, is probably the most prevalent ABS system out there worldwide, found in various models of the vast majority of manufacturers. Besides starting with the best hardware available, our biggest advantage is that we have great R&D guys constantly developing the software not only on the highest performance road cars in the world, but also working with some of the best factory race teams that race with ABS. I hope this clears things up a bit, let me know if you have any other questions.

We have run the Teves system in our WC cars since they were first allowed.......they are dialed in from the Factory and ready to go......

Geoffrey

I wish the Tevis software was more user friendly, however, the ability to see all of the pressures on the MoTeC DAQ via CAN is great.