Is there a such thing as too much braking power?

[Bugzilla]

I am ready to order calipers for my car. They offer both 4 and 6 piston options. The setup will be Wilwoods on 12" rotors. The rear is going 4 piston no matter what. I need to decide on the front calipers now. Is there a such thing as too much front brake? In my situation, I have more weight toward the rear and not much weight to slow down. Here are the details

2000 lbs car
40% front 60% rear weight
Wilwood proportioning valve
3/4" master
8.5" tires front 9.5" rear

Do you guys think a 4 or 6 piston caliper would be a better option?

[Noharmdoug]

What are you going to do with your car. If you can afford it buy the six piston. You can always tune the rest of the car for the brakes,proportion valve, tire size, master cylinder. Six piston breaks do have a certain Cool
factor.

[Noharmdoug]

Wilwood should take the information you have given and do some engineering to give you a scientific answer.

[Bugzilla]

Going from 4 to 6 piston is only a couple hundred $ so no big deal. I agree they would look awesome but the best looks don't always equal the best option. The car will see full track events but probably more auto x then anything.

[GEARBOXGARAGE]

Search for some of Ron Sutton's posts on here about formulas for figuring total brake system pressures. He gets pretty in depth with M.C. size, pedal ratio, piston area, etc. In the mean time, here are a few things that come to mind:

You have a relatively light vehicle that is rear biased on weight. The key here will be getting you car to transfer the weight properly to induce enough front grip so you aren't locking them up every time you breath on the pedal. Having narrower tires in the front with less of a contact patch than the rear may also be something to consider. Don't underestimate the use of the various pad compounds available to tune front to rear braking grip. Having a squared braking system (same piston area front and rear) on a rear weight biased car may actually benefit you. Looking at front engine/front weight biased cars, they already have a strike against then because of a heavy nose and benefit from large, multi-piston front calipers. Even equal weight biased cars such as the Porsche 911 can effectively utilize them. I don't think it will be impossible to make 6 piston calipers work in your scenario, but you may find yourself doing a lot of unnecessary tuning to dial it in to prevent the front from locking up prematurely.

[AMC Racer]

Too much brake will lock up too easily, be hard to modulate and adds unnecessary mass. Not enough won't lock, stop as quick, wear too quickly, overheat and fade. Best compromise is the lightest arrangement that works under harshest expected conditions (assuming you aren't changing parts to suit particular conditions).

Best to look at piston areas when comparing calipers as some caliper series have options for more piston area with a 4 piston vs. a 6 piston (due to pad length limitations), e.g. Wilwood Superlite4R can get up to 1.88"/1.75" pistons = 5.18 sq.in. area vs. the Superlite6R with 1.62"/1.12"/1.12" pistons = 4.03 sq.in. area. So their 4-piston has 28% more clamping force at same master size & pedal ratio, i.e. you'd need a smaller bore master or change pedal ratio to get same effective braking torque with the 6 piston as the 4 piston. Same pads, so not sure if there's much advantage to the 6 piston Superlite vs. the 4 ... except maybe more even pad wear?

Hope this helps.

[Bugzilla]

GearBoxGarage - I have read as much as I could with his post. There is almost too much info there but it has helped. I was looking at Porsches, Lotus, Ferraris and other cars that have more weight on the rear. They all seem to do a 6/4 combo. Again, it will come down to weight transfer on my specific application.

AMC Racer - I didn't even think about piston size. That will have a huge effect on the system like you said. Looks like I need to find out those details before moving on.

[Bugzilla]

Well no going back now.... Lets hope they work.

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