Any Interest in Wilwood Front Brake Caliper Brackets?

[Elan45]

Steve,

I've already said more than I should. My experience w/ these calipers
was primarily on a Nissan GT5 car competing in SCCA at the national
level. I was horrified at how much the calipers flexed while I was at
the caliper end of a bleeding operation. Admittedly, this was at least 5
years ago, and since then, my friend has finally given up trying for the
national championship, after being on the lower rungs of the podium for
many years. We always had problems getting the pads to wear evenly,
because of unequal pressures on the back of the pads. Calipers had to be
rebuilt every other race, because of scuffing on the pistons and dirt in
the annular clearance on the atmospheric side of the seals.

The pistons were nothing more than deeper cup type freeze plugs and I
had another person on this list machine us a set of SS pistons from
billet, which helped a lot. But when the day is done, I think the reason
you see them on lots of race cars is that they are cheap. They are easy
to buy, lots of shops sell them where there are few outlets for AP,Alcon
and Bremba. Yeah, brakes only slow you down, but when they hang up,
don't release fully which adds drag to the car when you don't want it,
and don't exert as strong and smooth a braking action when you want it,
I blame these components for part of the reason we never climbed to the
top rung. Joe Huffaker could always outbrake us.

You've never really said what you were doing w/ this car. If you are
autocrossing or just fast street driving, I can't imagine you'll ever
feel the change in unsprung weight. If you are seriously racing the car,
then you'd be "improving" the rear too. I am using Girling's old alloy
calipers on both my Lotus vintage racers and there are times I wonder if
both aren't overbraked, because they are such light cars.

My actual advice would be to go back to the original calipers, which
would be lighter than the +2 calipers that I believe you said you were
using, and buy some soft carbon/kevlar pads for them. I use "power pad"
brand on my racers, but others will also be good. If you have a choice,
use the softer compounds, since the harder ones will glaze over because
the car is so light.

Roger



road caliper with full dust seals. As for flexing; I have not
experiance
of this but I have seen Wilwood calipers on many race cars.

BTW I am also looking at HiSpec Motorsport M16 as well.

Roger Sieling wrote:







--

Regards,

Steve Waterworth
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