Ok this is a Corners section and we ain't talking caliper color, 12 piston, $600K maybach's.

Anyway it it a question of merit.

First, every solution has a downside.

Too big of brakes wastes money, adds weight, adds unsprung weight, increases hp requirements for acceleration due to flywheel effect, and increases brake requirements because of flywheel effect, and slows steering response because of flywheel effect.

One very important factor people forget. It takes grip(tires) to use all that clamping force. If you are not running on slicks all day than you will most likely never use the full capacity of these high dollar 6 piston kits.

We witnessed this many times at the Optima Challenge. Light cars with massive brakes on cold street tires equals lockup. I am not saying this can't be done sucessfully but it takes a lot of thought and engineering to make these combo's actually work efficiently.

It all depends on what you're doing and your driving ability.

Brakes convert kinetic energy to heat. The clamping force creates a HUGE amount of friction (obviously). That friction creates heat.
A stock 10.75" brake rotor that is 1" wide can only dissipate so much heat. After it's too hot the braking ability will fall and it's time to stop.
The large diameter rotors that are really thick will be able to handle more friction without overheating due to the extra mass.
The same goes for the brake pads.

Monster brakes are useless on an autocross. You can't build up enough speed to really fry the brakes. Yeah, they'll be warm but you seldom drive for 2 minutes.

On a road course with a heavy car things will be different. The constant use over a long period of time will build a disturbing amount of heat.

Tires are important in braking but if driven improperly you can overheat just about any kind of brakes without burning up a typical street tire.

I managed to overheat the stock brakes on the hot rod while I was running BFGs. Since moving to the large brakes and performance tires I have not experienced any brake fade.

Is it possible to go too big on brakes? Certainly! The rotors I use on the hot rod weigh a staggering 37 lbs each. Put something like that on a light weight race car and it'll slow down measurably. It's simply too much mass.

Why did I use them? At the time (2004) there were no cost effective large 4 wheel disc brake kits available for our cars. Instead of waiting for the market to catch up, I used my employee discount and bought stuff from work. It took me a little while but I made it all fit the car. Best of all, I got 4 wheel disc brakes cheaper than the available (and smaller) front wheel disc brake kits.

A little bit of info about performance brakes for the uninitiated...

Look at a good pair of brake pads (random pic):



See the beveled edges? That allows a smoother contact between the pad and rotor. When contact is made the ramped edge reduces the chance of the pad skipping and jumping. There's also less vibration. That means smoother and quieter braking.
That cut down the center of the pad allows gasses, debris, and scrubbed off brake pad material an exit. Getting that stuff off the pad means the rest of the pad can do more work without the other stuff being in the way.
Almost all of today's street oriented pads have backing materials that will reduce the friction between the back of the pad and the caliper. Again, this leads to smoother and quieter braking. Most of the brake squeal people hear comes from the pad vibrating against the caliper.

Just depends on how fast the car is and how many laps you're running. Last go around on Tim's car we took a bunch of weight off each corner by using two piece rotors and replacing the Viper calipers with 6 piston Baer units.

Awsome topic! As ive actually been looking at my car and asking myself that exact question.

With the WW light setup for under 3200 lbs on the alterktion and the oem dr diff explorer discs on the rears the cars stops better then anything ive got with power brakes.

Also Dr Diffs 1 inch plus master I can lock the brakes up if I try hard, I like the fact they do not lock easily.

I do wonder what is opt. psi pressure the master should put out and what might be over doing it as I two ive had to two foot the brake ped a couple times from over 125 heading into a 90 degree turn.

My front rotors stay a lil blue, rears look used hard but not blue.

At this point I dont have a front back bias? adjustment valve but do have the WW unit I could use.

It looks like its been explained to a good degree but id like to hear more about what a balanced system should feel like and react.

I let Dr Diff pic my master after filling him in on the rest of the car, I think I might be pretty close. But there is so much I dont know.

The one upgrade I know would be worth is I do not currently run the cross drill/slotted rotors.

Rotors are all kinds of confusing to some people.

Obviously, you need a vented rotor or you're simply not serious.
Vented referrs to the fins between the inner and outer braking surfaces.

Drilled rotors can be iffy. The benefits are lighter weight, better cooling, and better venting of brake pad gasses and debris.
The down side is that a poor quality rotor that is drilled after casting will often show stress cracks between the holes after heavy use.
A quality rotor will have the "drilled" holes cast into them when the metal is poured.

Slotted rotors seem to be a bit of a step up from the drilled rotors. They offer the same benefits but don't crack as often as the low quality drilled pieces. Often, you'll find them drilled and slotted.

Many hard core race cars have gone to slotted ceramic rotors for the ultimate in light weight high heat brakes.
An all-out effort like that is generally useless when cold but will toss you through the windshield when hot.

Disagree all you like. Just do a little research first.
The ramps are there for the reasons I stated. You will not find them on max-effort pads because chatter and squeal are expected.



Here's the EBC Green Stuff performance street brake pad:



Here's the EBC Blue Stuff for road racing:

The ww rotors are vented feets, and im lucky enough to be able to go from street/strip/road race with changing the front coils from 350# to 550# and the rear leafs from my caltracks to the mopar zero arch springs and keep the 4 corner QA1 double adjust shocks.

And if I really wanted to go more full time into it, switching back to a 4 or 5 speed is just an extra day.

I did not opt for the best rotors the first time as the front end kit was already over 5k and I only need to slow down one time after a high speed run so the rotors at the time were ok. Since they seem to be a bit torn amd my pads have a odd color the closest 1/8 inch towards the rotor it would be the good time to upgrade.

Currently my front end is the basic alterktion, power rack, sway bar I can take on and of with ease #550 springs 17x9 times 4 with bfg g force tires, Mopar zero arch rears on SS front boxes to the braced oem front attachment points and afco spring sliders on the rear. Frame connectors, 8 point and misc chassis modes to make more rigid then oem.

You may need to step up to a little bigger rotor. If you're under 3200 lbs I bet it's not by much. Since you're using Wilwood stuff you need to make sure your caliper is compatible with larger rotors. Some of the light weight stuff is thinner than regular rotors.

Try to get some air to the brakes. That will make a big difference if you're going to be running on road courses or longer duration events.

As for your brake pedal effort, many times you can get a difference in feel simply by changing to a different type of brake pad.

I assume this is a manual brake car. If you left the power pedal assembly in there and tossed the booster your pedal ratio will be off. That can increase pedal effort.

The idea behind multi-piston brake pads is for a more evenly distributed clamping force. The caliper is hard mounted and the pistons push from each side.

Older multi-piston calipers and those not intended for high performance driving have equal size pistons. That spreads the force evenly across the surface of the pad.

Larger high performance calipers have smaller leading pistons and larger trailing pistons. This puts more force on the trailing edge of the pad and helps prevent the pad from wearing on a taper. The leading edge of the pad lives a pretty harsh life and tends to get scrubbed more than the rest of the pad.

The bigger the caliper, the bigger your brake pad can be. That means there is more surface area for heat dissipation and longer pad change intervals.

Some calipers, like the 8 piston AMG stuff we're playing with have 4 brake pads per caliper. It acts like two separate brake calipers. The gap between the pads allows ventilation, debris clearing, and heat isolation from the rest of the pad material.
Few cars use them. Even Mercedes has stepped back to 6 piston calipers using one large pad per side with the same (or more) friction surface as the 8 piston units. They're also a bit lighter. The caliper I sent to Oz weighed 15 pounds in an otherwise empty box. Weight kills.

There are a few 3 piston calipers out there. These are usually slider type calipers with pistons on one side.

bigger brakes don't give more braking power per-se, that's a function of tire grip. and yes, a stock 10.87" brake can overpower tire grip in some instances and cause lock up as easily as a monster 14" rotor.

but as feets alluded to, bigger brakes give better fade resistance due to better heat dissipation and absorbtion

But there's more to it than that. Tire grip is only part of the equation. In addition to increased fade resistance, big brakes also offer a higher threshold of stopping before lock up. Tiny drum brakes have the ability to lock up, even with sticky tires, but that doesn't help stopping distances.

Big brakes offer the ability to slow rotation at a higher rate without locking up and therefore, retain traction & increase stopping ability.

When I put Stoptech rotors and calipers on the front of my car, I immediately realized that the antilock brakes engage far less often than with the stock brakes, even with the same tires. I never measured a before and after stopping distance, but I know I can drive deeper into turn 1 at Gingerman now..

If you left the power pedal assembly in there and tossed the booster your pedal ratio will be off.

I had to chuckle a bit on that one going on 28 years with this car it could have 3 diff ped setups. But to answer on the F-s its best to take all the parts from a manual brake car use the oem bracket actually I think the only way and have it work.

But if you use the manual car parts, even the oem rod to the master can be used as some of the later Fs used the two bolt al.masters just a smaller dia unit then now.

I will dig up and post what I have now specific rotor info and pad wise and see what you think I might do better with.

Im at 8400 feet right now and jet for 7000-8500 as this is where I play the most, I ran up PP long ago in a 4 cylinder mopar, it would be fun to try in the old dodge....I wonder what short bursts of spray would do at the higer up straights???

But im pretty much done till spring, they have the roads soaked with mag, so untill a couple spring rains in june

Feets, you seem to play with all the Mercedes stuff so maybe you can answer me this:

We rented a brand new 2008 Mercedes E-class Kompressor in Germany. That thing had (i believe) 18" wheels and the brakes filled the rim right to the edges. Looked like a 14" brake to me. That thing stopped insanely well. I'm gonna have to assume that high-end AMG sports cars have brakes that make that look like a Fox-body Mustang, but for me, that car is the measuring stick ov brake performance. It didn't even have good tires as far as i'm concerned... typical all-season rental Mercedes spec tires, nothing too wide. Yet... top-ending that sucker at 160mph and bringing it back down was utterly without drama, no matter how many times we did it.

What would that car have for brakes? and how would it compare with what you run? (or could build for a Mopar?) I'm guessing that car weighed at least 4000lbs too.

Does your stuff work better than an aftermarket 13-14" kit?


Having even that stock rental Mercedes' brakes on my 3200lb Challenger with MUCH wider and stickier tires would be insane.

I have 11 inch vented WW on the front, these in the pic in the back...I cant go bigger up front I dont think ot it may hit the rims???

What rotors would you upgrade to???







Anything here that would make this a good deal for anyone...???


Not mine or dont know who-s just local.


http://denver.craigslist.org/pts/2829756987.html

If so I could go look, dicker, ect....

They wanted to be sure the air was blowing across the brake pads and rotor vents.