caliper kick back or drum brakes?

[bryant]

im new to autocrossing and have a new to me car that ive started autocrossing with. its a 71 maverick with 4 wheel wilwood disk brakes. as i digest my experience on the autocross i realize i was experiencing caliper kick back with the pedal needing more travel than normal. so i had a similar car with wilwoods on the front and 11x2.5" drums in the rear. it stopped really well but i never autocrossed with that car. mostly it was a street strip car. my question is, would it be worth swapping to the drum brakes to not have the kick back problem?

[OG_Racing]

what kind of rear calipers are you using?

[bryant]

wilwood 4 piston kit
http://www.wilwood.com/BrakeKits/BrakeKitsProdRear.aspx?itemno=140-11389-DR

[JLMounce]

How old are your wheel bearings? The more play and deflection they allow, the more knock back you're going to get.

I'd change those first and see if it decreases your knock back issue. It's important to note that you're always going to have a bit of knock back in a disc brake system.

[bryant]

they are 3 years old. about 10,000 miles on them. ill check them. still no input on the possibility that rear drum brakes could provide better consistency that the disk brakes with the knock back?

[gray86hach]

With 9" style bearings you should not have knock back. If you have c clips then go with a floating caliper.

Tim

[OG_Racing]

Under racing conditions the 9" press in bearings do knock back pads. I see this all the time with my American iron racers.
you'll need to switch to a floating caliper, or a floating axle.
Please don't go back to drums, nobody likes drums :P

[TheJDMan]

Going to drums is a step backwards. Floating calipers or floating rotors is your best course of action.

[Schwartz Performance]

Yep what all they said.

Drum brakes are the best, but only once. Then they're too hot and fade quickly.
We use floater rear ends on all of our chassis to prevent the knock back.
The only way to get around it with a regular 9 inch using a fixed caliper is weld the bearing retainer onto the axle shaft :)

-Dale

[carguykeith]

Yep what the last 4 or so folks said, either floating axle or calipers is the only way to remove knock-back. Didn't Wilwood develop a retrofit bracket and caliper for those that wanted to upgrade to a floating caliper from their fixed caliper rear kit? I know they sell a floating rear caller kit now but wasn't there some people on hear that talked Wilwood into making the kit and were able to just get the bracket and caliper?

[Jetfixr320]

Would this be the floating kit? http://www.wilwood.com/BrakeKits/BrakeKitsProdRear.aspx?itemno=140-12210-D

[Schwartz Performance]

That's a floating caliper kit yes. Any caliper that mounts with a pin like that is a floating caliper.

-Dale