Quote:
Originally Posted by carbuff
Are these designed to try and eliminate the need for a floating-style rear end by allowing the rotor to float on the hat, instead of the more complicated traditional floater rear?
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No! The rotor and mounting hat pictured are what is referred to as " radial mount " in that the rotor to hat mounting system allows for radial movement that will be caused by operating in high heat conditions. Because the mounting points are not captured but in a radial slot the mounts can actually move outboard to a bigger diameter when they expand due to being extremely heated. Conventional rotors and hats with fixed bolt circles can crack and fail at the mounting points due to the forces of extreme heating.
The floating rotors your thinking about are generally used on motorcycles with small caliper piston bores/thin friction material pads and won't work well in a automotive application because of the use of thick friction materials/bigger piston diameters used. Think about it, pads are 1/2 worn through 1/8" or better and the rotor is rattling around knocking the pistons back into the caliper bores.....heading into a high speed braking point into a tight turn.....go for the brakes.....pedal sinks almost to the floor before the brakes respond.....not something you want to have happen....will happen with poor wheel bearing maintenance too....or excessive rotor runout.
Last item.....a " floating rear axel " the word float....only refers to the axel shafts which float between the differential and the outer hub assemblies this allows for safety in the event of a complete breakage of a drive axel, everything stays in place and the event is usually only felt because the car suddenly wants to drive in the direction of the broken axel ( type of locking differential used can greatly effect this tendency )...the snap of a rear axel can be quite a life changing moment in the middle of a high speed banked turn
