About Wilwood Brakes?
 

To All:

Why are the top end Brakes of Wilwood generally less expensive than the Bear, Alcon and other 4 and 6 piston Brakes w/ 13 and 14 inch two piece rotors?

Thanks,

tyoneal

so we low buck guys can afford it..

The high end Wilwood's are not cheap by any means... considering that the STR caliper runs about $3800.00 a piece.

The cheaper stuff is what is packaged in kit form for the general populus. What you are actually "seeing" is their bottom end products.

FWIW: I was thinking about the 6 front 4 piston rear calipers.

ty

To add to what Chicane said. The Superlite 4 piston IS (I think) the top-of-the-line Wilwood rear caliper, pricewise. I would guess it is pretty comparable with whatever anybody else has to offer (you can only put so much brake on the rear anyway).
Where things get a bit cloudy is the 6-piston front calipers. The Superlite 6 is almost the bottom of the Wilwood 6-piston line (I think the GN6 is cheaper, but I don't know if they still offer it anymore). Above that, you have the TC caliper (~$750/piece), Integra 6R (~$1800/piece), the Prolite (~$2700/piece), and the STR (~$3800/piece). So, basically, Wilwood is using one of thier cheapest 6-piston calipers to make their kits from (not saying they're a bad caliper at all, in fact, that's what I'll be using).

The others
Baer: I don't have any tech here (I don't know their price for just the calipers)
Alcon: Imported (very expensive just for that reson)
Brembo: Imported (same here)
AP: Imported

They're also not of a monobloc design which reduces the price considerably.

The word "mono-block"... is over rated by itself.

FEA rules... and that is what keeps it affordable.

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What is the main difference between these two?

http://www.wilwood.com/Products/001-...6R14/index.asp

and the,

http://www.wilwood.com/Products/001-...SL6R/index.asp

Is the major difference between these two the size of the Rotors or do they adapt to higher heat situations.

http://www.wilwood.com/Centers/Infor...let/c59704.asp

I guess my car with me and/or someone with me could be as heavy as #3800 lbs. It is not uncommon at all to have 60-90 days at or above 100 degrees.

Is there any reason why fast repeated stops or slow downs from 100+ mph
would push into bad fade? (This is the major condition I am really familiar with regards to brakes, and being about to put them "into" fade fairly easy. has been very disconserting in the past, and makes driving confidence go away pretty quickly for me because the braking peformance is always changing.

Is this anything I should be concerned with with either one of these levels of product?

I know I'm probably beating the hell out of a dead horse at this point, but it is unintentional. I speak from a pure lack of updated knowledge.

At this point It's more I know what I don't want, or like, rather than what I do, as I said before my experiance, and ability to evaluate current technologies is limited.

Thanks,

tyoneal

I agree. Some of the C5R cars I've seen run high-end calipers that are often not a monoblock design...ask those guys and they say the same thing.

They often don't use 14" rotors, either.:yes:

I ran a 4 piston 12" rotor in my NASCAR LMS racing days. I raced on a 1/4 mi paved oval. My rotors would be gloing red after 10 laps... and they worked great. I think these huge rotor/caliper combos are way over rated in my humble opinion...:captain:

The big rotor craze is just that. Look at the sizes that wilwood sells with their Road race kits. Not 14". I bought the road race kit for my mustang and it was 13" fronts with 12" rears. Now pads that is whole other story....

I couldn't agree more. I ran a NASCAR LMS on a half mile oval at speeds reaching 105 at the end of the straights. I was on the binders 2 times a lap for 50 laps. NO FADE with 12" rotors and 4 piston Wilwood calipers. The brake craze is more the COOL factor than required performance.

Caliper width. The first link is for the "Narrow body" caliper and the second link is for the standard "first design body" caliper. Other than that, they are pretty much the same thing. The narrow body allows you to run this caliper in wheels that have 'clearance' issues with the caliper.

All that AND, the 6R14 has a larger bridge radius (the caliper is built around a bigger radius to clear a larger rotor) and uses a slightly different pad (skinnier and has a larger radius for a bigger rotor)

I agree, but another reason (and a big one) why road race guys don't use huge rotors is pad wear. 14" rotor will wear a pad much faster than a 12" or 13" rotor, and they can't make too many stops to change pads. NASCAR guys have massive rotors that dissapate heat quickly, even though they're 12"...so it's not really a fair comparison.

My rotors were 1.25 wide. I wouldn't call that massive. I think the biggest factor is the pad material. I was racing on a 1/4 oval and that is even harder on the brakes because there is even less time to cool, than when I raced on the 1/2 mile tracks...

To all:

You guys have been great. In just these last dozen post the clouds have cleared.

If other people have things to add with their personal experiance please jump in and add your tales.

The 6 piston, 13 inch Front, 4 Piston, 12 or 13 inch rear rotors, sound like they will work just fine and be everything and more I will ever need.

Life is good............

Thanks you very much, The examples used where the perfect insight I needed.

tyoneal

Isn't this site awesome! I have also received an unbelievable amount of help. I think you made a good choice. That setup will be arriving at my house from PRRC this week. Good luck.

Tyoneal, I think you are headed in the right direction with your selection. The real quest for education... is going to be in brake pad selection.

The only other advice I could steer would be, that you pay peticular attention to and make sure that you center the caliper over the rotor during initial installation. Being that these are radially mounted calipers with non floating rotors... 0.010" off center makes a huge difference in pad life/wear, not to mention performance. Essex makes a caliper abutement (radial and/or lug) shim kit for $9.38... just for doing this.

The 2005/2006 C6R uses an APRacing CP6080 mono-bloc caliper and a 14.96" carbon rotor. The race car carbon/carbon stuff is a whole'notha story... :unibrow:

I run 15" rotors on the front of my 2,100 lb GT1 car with Brembo Endurance calipers. I can tell you that at Road America were you have three fast sections of track that you see over 150mph before heavy braking that the rotor size with proper cooling make a huge difference.. I was killing cars with 13" rotors and ABS . The only other thing I do is cryo my rotors . I use pagid orange race pads... for the street though , this would certainly be overkill... I also have a racing buddy who ran two piece Wilwood calipers and he switched calipers because he was having braking problems he believes to be due to flex in the caliper ... that being said I am going to run the Wilwood's on my Camaro because I beleive they will be plenty fine for the street and some hot laps at the road course. I won't be doing 30 min sprint races with the car