Hoopy,
Rally Design sell a neat little mechanical caliper for £45 that will accomodate the rear vented discs up to 20.8mm thick if you are set on this upgrade. IMO the claw caliper is more than up to the job if the correct pads are fitted. The problem with this caliper and the caterham installation is that its fed by solid pipes which is poor engineering as part of the caliper floats, this can work harden and cause the flared ends to fail it also can act as a spring disturbing the position of the floating part of the caliper and thus seating of the pads each time you take your foot off the brakes. This is partly resposible for the poor peddle feel. The rigid pipes also make it very difficult to successfully bleed the calipers. I have also noted on my car that under hard use the rear discs are expanding and hitting the fixed portion of the calipers. If these problems are addressed by installing flexible hoses and reducing the diameter of the discs by about a mm, I can see no reason why the claw calipers should not do the job I have no problem with bite,breaking effort, or fade . Another important point to watch out for is pad wear when using these calipers, if the pads get below half worn 4MM the floating part of the caliper can foul the radius arms.
Rob
Edited by - Rob walker on 4 Jan 2003 09:13:50