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View Full Version : Road race brakes, my plans



Stupidnewbie
02-07-2005, 12:31 PM
After not getting very far with my Supra brake idea, I started looking at other options. I want something very effective at braking without killing my budget. The C4/C5 swaps with a PBR caliper are a good option, but I'm just wondering how they'd compare to a setup like this:

http://www.pitstopusa.com/detail.aspx?ID=44779 for calipers
http://www.pitstopusa.com/detail.aspx?ID=1197 for rotors

Wilwood rotor adapters and billet hubs are available through Summit for $48.95 each and $111.95 each, respectively. All the miscellaneous hardware is listed on their site, as well. I'd have to make my own caliper bracket. After all is said and done, I'm looking at about $500 for the entire front brake kit. The car is a '68 Firebird that is being built for some serious road race/auto-x use but still street-legal. I'm looking for effective brakes that don't need to win any Best in Trailer Queen awards.

Are these brakes going to out-bite a 13" PBR setup? The rotors are 12.19" diameter, 1.25" thickness and the calipers are 4-piston (1.75" diameter each) that use Wilwood Polymatrix pads.

Mean 69
02-07-2005, 01:56 PM
I think you are on the right basic track, but I'd highly recommend that you step into a heavy duty rotor for ANY track use with a heavy car like ours. The heat capacity of a thin-ish rotor (even though the thickness is 1.25", it is listed as a light duty piece) is questionable, you will need something with a fair amount of mass to deal wioth the hot-cool-hot-cool deal that your car will see on a road course.

Wilwoods lower end calipers have a reputation for flexing under high brake pressure, I am not so sure these would be my first choice. The lower end PBR's are pretty good, can't specifically state how they fare compared to the Dynalite's, etc, but these too have a reputation (pointed out to me from a fellow PT board member) for flexing, but in this case, to the point of failure. The C5 calipers look to be quite a bit stiffer, and might be a good option. For reference, I am re-doing my brakes at this time, and am still researching different approaches, etc. The units coming off are C4 pieces.

Mark

SHANE 73Z
02-07-2005, 03:07 PM
Personally, as my previous post showed. If I could build a custom brake kit for myself right now, I would be looking at least at the Forged Superlites for the front and maybe even the rear. The dynalite stuff just isnt up to the task. I would be looking at a 12.19" X 1.38" HD curved vane front rotor and a 12.19"x at least 1" for the rear.

Dont be afraid to check other sources as well Coleman has about 14 million different rotors on their site as well as custom rotors.

Shane

Salt Racer
02-07-2005, 03:37 PM
I agree with these guys. I personally wouldn't mind using forged Dynalites in the back with small pistons (in fact I have ones with 1.38" pistons on back of my 4300-lb car), but for front of a car that will be thrashed on tracks, Dynalites ain't gonna cut it.

Caliper rigidity aside, pads on Dynalites are very small and thin, meaning they don't isolate heat to brake fluid as well as thicker pads do. Fluid would boil even if the rotors have enough thermal capacity.

As far as pad compound is concerned, I wouldn't limit myself to Polymatrix. There are other excellent pads that fit in Wilwood calipers. I've been running Poly E pads on my car for 4500 miles. I was reasonably happy with them, but I just got a set of PFC 01 pads to replace them.

Mean 69
02-07-2005, 05:49 PM
Speaking of pads, I just ordered a set of Carbotech Panther Plus pads for the rocket. I am going to run them with the C4 calipers, manual/15/16" M/C, to see how they grab. Their tech guy stated that after three modest street stops they get into their temp zone and grab like heck. Very high cf, huge temp range from 150 to 1250F. If these work well, this will be the short term solution. Next stop (oh, what pun... corny, I know), thick rotors, sick calipers, and a neck brace to hold my head in place.

In seriousness, the combination of pads, properly sizing the M/C to actuate the calipers, and the beef of the rotors is of critical importance, WAY beyond the look factor. Once you really start to get after things, cooling becomes the next area of opportunity.

STOP!
Mark

SHANE 73Z
02-07-2005, 06:05 PM
Mark keep us posted. I am especially interested to see how your setup works with the 15/16" MC. I am going with a CNC Brakes setup that adapts dual masters and bias bar to the stock pedal. With the C4 bore sizes I was recommended to run 3/4" masters.

Take care,
Shane

79_EFI_Z
02-08-2005, 08:53 AM
stupidnewbie: I would at MINIMUM run one of these for the front if you are wanting to go Willwood.

http://www.pitstopusa.com/searchresult.aspx?CategoryID=4477

scroll to the bottom.. the last one has 4 x 1.75" pistons and will take a 1.25" rotor. they also take the same pad that the 6 piston caliper takes.. so they are a bit wider than the regular dynalite pieces. Also, it will accomodate the 12.75" c5 rotor.
I use the baer eradispeed 1 piece rotor on my setup because a: i didnt have the money for the two piece(the one piece is expensive enough) and b: they have a LOT of rotor mass to help with all the heat of track use.

Stupidnewbie
02-09-2005, 09:37 AM
Ack, yea I didn't mean to post the ultralite rotors, but basically I'm looking at 12.19" vented rotors like these: http://secureperformanceorder.com/usbrakestore/getproduct.cfm?CategoryID=3&ClassID=41&SubclassID=1585&ProductID=6466 I'm not stuck on 2-piece rotors, but it seems like the parts are readily available and easily upgraded later on. I'll avoid the Dynalite calipers, but 79 EFI Z, your link didn't work. Which model are you linking to? Also, does anyone have experience with the U.S. Brake F33i or F88i calipers?

79_EFI_Z
02-09-2005, 11:12 AM
here try this link instead http://www.wilwood.com/Products/001-Calipers/012-FSL/index.asp
i dont think they are more than $150 each from summit

Stupidnewbie
02-09-2005, 11:49 AM
Thanks! That link works and they are $138.99 from Summit. Looks good to me!

Salt Racer
02-10-2005, 07:46 AM
Forged SL on front of my car. Best bang for the buck.

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2005/02/th_106_0650-1.jpg (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v95/saltracer/Riviera/106_0650.jpg)

79_EFI_Z
02-12-2005, 06:10 PM
I pondered using those once... but since Joe already made brackets for the C5 caliper I just went that route instead.. I managed to get the caliper set complete minus the pads from touring classics for 290.. which breaks down to 145 per side... plus another 100 for hawk pads and I am at about 400 bucks. I think that is comparable with the superlite set-up depending on what pads you get, and I didn't have to go through the trouble of designing brakets for my spindle.