The brakes on the Riot always bugged me, if you are thinking about painting calipers, don't, it looks crap. I used caliper paint and even with my best efforts at cleaning off the rustproof coating on them I didn't get it all off and the paint didn't stick. Then when I got the paint on and then got brake fluid on them it all fell off. Painting calipers is a bad idea.

I decided on making them look better as they are so visible on the car. I took off the rear calipers and stripped them down before dispatching them to the powder coater who gave them a coat of gold powder coat and a coat of lacquer as well. I got them back within a few days and fitted them back onto the Riot.

The front calipers on the other had I decided to get rid of them completely. The Ford Capri calipers albeit good on Capri look a bit "clunky" on a lightweight kit car. I had seen an article in a magazine about Hi Spec brake calipers and had a chat on the phone with them about the best option for the Riot. I went for the Ultralight 4 Pot version, anodised in gold. The came through the post within a few days and first of all I was shocked at how light they were, less than a kilo each!

Also not to mention how well made they were as well, all CNC machined, anodised in gold and had HISPEC engraved on the front of the caliper. Fitting them was a straight swap with the old calipers. The pad which I hoped would be a straight swap from the old caliper was not. I needed a set of pads for the new calipers as the area in which the pad sits is 76mm across and the Capri pad is 78mm across and the holes were in the wrong place. I also ordered a set of EBC green stuff pads which fit the caliper which come from a Nissan Skyline of all cars. I had to shim the caliper away from the hub with a M12 washer so the caliper would sit centrally on the disc and used a single coil washer under the hex of the nut for good measure, as I had noticed that the bolts holding the Capri caliper were alarmingly loose!

The new caliper is tiny compared to the old Capri one and almost vanishes inside the rim!

Out of interest I weighed the Capri caliper, my kitchen scales only go up to 3 kilogrammes and the caliper goes way off the scale, I wrapped the caliper in clingfilm so I wouldn't drip brake fluid all over the place. After a bit of digging on the internet states that the Capri caliper weighs in at 3.8Kgs so just by fitting two new calipers I've shaved nearly six Kgs off the weight of the car.

On to my least favourite job, bleeding brakes, I hate doing this as it makes so much mess. I managed to push out all the air out of the calipers the new calipers took quit a bit of bleeding to push out all the bubbles. Once the car was back down on all 4 wheel I noticed that I could barely move the car as the fronts seemed to be binding quite a lot. It turns out that the EBC pads have a "Brake-In" coating that is supposed to help break in the pads and will get better after about 20 miles or so.

I also reset the hand brake as well. The handbrake never really worked the last time as the cable was using a bolt as a pivot for the cable and I could never really get enough force on the hand brake. I bought from a yacht supplier a 38mm alloy sheave for about £5 and fitted it on the bracket I made up the last time and spaced it out with washers. The cable now passes over the pulley and when the handbrake is applied the rear brakes actually work! I got through the SVA by the skin of my teeth on that one last time.