View Full Version : anyone explain true diff on Willwoods W6A and Narrow Superlite series brake calipers
For my application they offer both, the Superlites are priced a bit lower and have .25 smaller rotor but they appear to be just as good as the W6A
can anyone comment on these two and their distinct differences? are the narrowed superlights more or less for racing? Are these calipers both using the same shape brake pad?
dontlifttoshift
12-12-2012, 09:09 AM
The superlite has a bridge bolt that "should" help with flex...
The W6 runs a larger pad, but I think pad selection is better with the superlite from sources other than wilwood like hawk, carbotech, porterfield, whoever, I think.
Wilwood's website is pretty cool, in that you can look up specs for all of their calipers and then do a side by side comparison.
We setup a Camaro with W6 and W4 on 14" rotors and it worked out pretty well. We could probably use a little more caliper bore size in the rear as the prop valve is currently wide open. Also, FWIW, we tried this with a manual master first with a 1" bore and it was good on the street and autocross, but when we made laps at gingerman and blackhawk we decided to go to power brakes. I think its overboosted now but the customer is happy so I am happy.
ok thanks for the heads up, pad selection is super important to me as i do not want to be married to stock type pads on any of my cars.
looks like the Superlites will be the ones i go with
jpgolf14
12-13-2012, 04:14 PM
For my application they offer both, the Superlites are priced a bit lower and have .25 smaller rotor but they appear to be just as good as the W6A
can anyone comment on these two and their distinct differences? are the narrowed superlights more or less for racing? Are these calipers both using the same shape brake pad?
The Superlites are quite a bit cheaper than the W6A. The Superlites are medium sized caliper while the W6A is a large body caliper. That may or may not matter to you just from a looks point of view.
As far as function, you need to take a look at the hydraulic sizing and see which suits you better. There is likely a difference in caliper stiffness but it is likely that nobody knows the difference outside of the few people who did the analysis.
The W6A has a slightly larger volume pad. The pads will last longer and put less heat into the caliper and fluid.
I would not go for the narrow Superlite unless you absolutely need the wheel clearance. It uses a much smaller (thinner) pad than the normal Superlite.
Apogee
12-13-2012, 06:42 PM
The Forged Narrow Superlite 6R's are for wheel fitment as stated above, not performance...not that they don't perform admirably, because they do, but if what you're after is all out performance, the W6A is going to be a more rigid caliper with a larger pad, making it the easy choice. Next down in their line would be the forged Superlite, then the narrow forged Superlite, and so on down the line.
Hydraulically speaking, both the W6A and FNSL6R calipers are available with 1.62/1.12/1.12 piston bores for an equivalent caliper piston area of 4.04 square inches. There is a larger version of the W6A that can be better suited to some applications, but the majority of pro-touring applications I've seen use the 4.04 sq. in. calipers.
Tobin
KORE3
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