4 pot caliper myths

[Mark_Ritchspeed]

Just been looking at a thread from Cliosport . Needless to say it really pisses me off when I read things like these statements from people who dont have a clue what they are talking about .

"problem with the wilwood is they don't have any dust seals, so need stripping and maintaining every 2/3000 miles"

YES , thats why my bottom of the range Wilwood calipers are nearly 4 years old and covered @ 40k miles without any problems


"you'd be a fool to get non dust sealed calipers for the road"

WHY , because some "respected" tuner has told you that and wants to sell his twice as expensive kit ?



"I do know a lot of people who use Hi-Spec big brake kits and they're all pretty happy"

Try and find someone who has used these on track with a heavy , powerful car and punishes brakes and they will be able to tell you how crap Hi-Spec stuff is .



Over the coming few months (as I get back into the trackday scene again) I will quite happily demostrate how my cheap , low quality , non dust-sealed set-up has never faded , leaked or seized in nearly 4 years of complete abuse .

Bear in mind I had already spent nearly £3k on brakes in one year experimenting before getting a set-up that worked every single time without fade, was easily serviceable and above all value for money . In my old Willy 3 I went through 17 sets of front discs IN 1 YEAR listening to various "respected" tuners advice on the matter .

In the prevailing years since using the Wilwood set-up my discs now last 4-5 track days before needing replacing . I used to change discs every single trackday and sometimes during the actual day.

In 99% of road going cars THE weakest single item in the brake set-up is the standard IRON caliper . It is NOT the discs , pads , hoses or fluid . It is the iron calipers that simply cannot dissapate heat which causes your pads to disintegrate , your discs to warp and your fluid to boil .

And before some clever bloke comes on here and says wheres the evidence ? I am not a scientist , I do not have figures on paper , its all practical experience at demolishing brakes on road and track. And yes , occasionally they have actually caught fire .

RANT OVER

p.s That wasnt supposed to be a rant , I just wound myself up a little .

[northy]

nice post.....so will there be any deals on brakes from your good self mate ?

[Mark_Ritchspeed]

Yep , looking to finalise prices for about half a dozen kits (to start with) over the next week or two .

At the moment the Clio kit is looking at about £400 delivered , which includes , calipers , choice of pads , braided hoses , brackets and fluid. We "may" be able to get this price down slightly further , but it is already undercutting an all in price from Rally Design . As their kit price of £325 does not include , pads , fluid , hoses , delivery or vat .

By the time thats all factored in you are looking at nearer £500.

[northy]

nice...hopefully my yozzasport kit will do the business for me.

Im sure a few on here will be needing them. The williams brakes arent the best are they !

[KingStromba]

Mark, sound like you know your stuff. Brakes are on my to do list. Im completely standard at the moment, and i do think i could do with a fast road set up. I dont take my car on track, but may do in the future.

I have braided line to fit and as i say apart from that i am standard. What are your recommendations? Even if i dont upgrade i will need new discs and / or pads soon anyway so might be a good time to uprage a bit.

Could you give me some prices when you have them and what i am looking at. Pm me if you dont want to put them up here.

Am am pretty untechnical so simple technical explantations with reasons would be much appreciated.

[Mark_Ritchspeed]

The first thing to ask , is do you overheat the brakes on the road ? If you dont and the car doesnt go on the track then stick with a fairly standard set-up.

Never , ever bother with drilled discs . They are weaker and crack or warp in no time . The only drilled discs that work , aren't actually drilled at all . They are cast that way with the holes already in the discs . Porsche discs are a good example of this and they seem to get reasonable wear rates out of them.

Grooved are another iffy one . Multi-groove discs are all about the show and should be avoided . The maximum you should need is either 4 or 6 grooves , but the biggest problem with these is the grooves fill up in no time and then the discs start to vibrate and become noisy. They are also weaker than plain vented discs . This isnt a problem for WRC cars as they have new discs every service between stages.

Personally , wherever possible I stick with plain vented discs which are the strongest ones available . In other words standard discs.

Pad choice is a personal preference , but in my experience the uprated Tarox rally pads were about the best ones using standard calipers . Mintex M1144/55's are also very good but pretty expensive . I must admit its been a while since I used standard calipers , but I seem to remember the Ferodo (ds2500 , 3000) were pretty good.

I havent tried EBC in recent years , but I refuse to trust a manufacturer who can release such substandard products in the first place . I remember using their Greens and Reds in the early days and they were just plain dangerous. By all accounts they are supposed to quite good now , but I wont be trying them to find out.

Edited to say , their may be other better alternatives available now but I havent used standard calipers for @ 4 years.

[KingStromba]

If the calipers are the week point, could you just get an uprated caliper, braided lines, fast road pads and standard disc?

What would that be like?

[Craig]

on my old blue 16v i just had grooved/drilled disks, mintex pads, and braided lines and it was bang on! more than enough for the roads!

had wilwood 4pots on the banana, they were great, but didnt really get the use they could handle!

[Mark_Ritchspeed]

That is pretty much the set-up I have on mine .

This is the package we will be marketing , albeit with better calipers than mine is running on.

Will have to re-check my prices as I have a "feeling" that the kit for £400 includes new standard size discs .

[northy]

Never , ever bother with drilled discs . They are weaker and crack or warp in no time . The only drilled discs that work , aren't actually drilled at all . They are cast that way with the holes already in the discs . Porsche discs are a good example of this and they seem to get reasonable wear rates out of them.

Oh dear.

Just bought some Tarox sport japan disks for mine. Ill see how i get on with them