Floater setup--yes or no

[MillerBuilt]

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[68protouring454]

when I road race, i always re pack the bearings and clean the tubes after each race weekend, which is 4 -30 min sessions for practice and qual, and 2 35-45 min races. I always have some oil in the the tubes(with inner seals,which we silicon as well). Never had any bearing issues etc, we also ran our fluid level high but found it to get by the seals and start to wash the bearings out, in sprint races (under an hr) generally with a rear end cooler, you can keep 2.5-4 qts plenty cool.
A floater will absolutely stop knock back, HOWEVER, the rear end has to be straight, we do all our welding with a jig(and a certain procedure) and still get run out to .200-.300 thou, we then heat and squelch till we have under .008. Now once you have a straight housing, now you space your caliper correct and you will have NO knock back.
Most of the time complaints on caliper knock back with a full floater is, either axle run out, or a caliper not spaced properly on rotor.
Now when you get into hard track day, time trial etc use you will now get the rotors so hot the heat gets into the calipers and boils or starts to boil the fluid, which will give you a spongy knock back feeling pedal, now add cooling.
It all adds up to going fast, generally on a protouring car with a d.o.t tire you wont get the brakes hot enough to do this unless you have really cheap brake fluid or race compound pads.
we use gun drilled axles

the zr-1 set up looks nice.

[Ron in SoCal]

^ Tech we can use. Thx for adding to the discussion Jake. Can you comment on the brand/design you're using, how many splines on the axles and if you see any difference in side loads in a floater set up for AutoX vs Roadrace (besides the hotter fluid mentioned above)?

I'm digging everyone's input here. As Todd said, floaters in the PT world are really in it's infancy. I bet there's alot more to be learned from real world use.

[Blake Foster]

Originally Posted by JSM

Interesting point on the gun drilled axles. Chicayne also offered a gun drilling option on PT for this setup. Blake, does the retaining bolt you speak of seal out fluid for the gun drilled axles or some sort of sealed cap to retain fluids?

we have not discussed the gun drilling much as of yet, the avle would have to be drilled short ( so the retaining bolt has material ) so that would have to be a blind hole.
the cap on the hub end IS sealed.

there was a comment about camber / toe settings being an option, there have been talks about that as an option and Chicane and SKF are running some numbers to see if a ball end axle can be used to any extended service life. More on this as we get more information.

[ccracin]

I think Jake is on to something with the run out. In fact that is something I have been concerned with on here for years. I see people buy axle housings and then weld brackets to them. Guaranteed they are running out excessively afterword unless they follow a procedure similar to the one Jake mentioned. That's another topic all together. The way I can see this working and what you mention Blake about Speedway using snap rings helps substantiate my theory. If when the housing is being constructed, you machined a seat for the seal on the inside of the tube that was concentric with the carrier bearings and hub bearings than you could ensure a good fit. When we were using them, they were sold as lip seals to press in the end of the 3" axle tube with no machining. The tubing is typically DOM, but I'm not sure what the mfg. tolerances are with regard to wall thickness and ID/OD concentricity. In any case, I think runout was definitely an issue. All of our housings were jig built and straightened, but maybe not close enough. It sounds like Speedway is machining the ID on the NASCAR stuff since they are using snap rings. The amount of compliance in the seal will help a lot too. You'll get it handled Blake. Good luck with the product!

[Blake Foster]

ordering one tomorrow for my Nova to have in for RTTC. and let the beating begin.

[TheJDMan]

Originally Posted by killer69

What does Mosier use for a parking brake?

PARKING BRAKE? I don't need no stinking parking brake!

But seriously, I have two options in mind. 1. Is to use a pinion mount park brake from Speedway Motors for $299. 2. Wilwood makes a puck style mechanical spot caliper which (just so happens) is the same caliper that is used for option 1. but I would mount a pair of them on the rear rotors at about the 3 o-clock position. I would just need to fabricate mounts for them, then Inline Tube can make custom cables which would connect to the factory PB cable system.

I suspect as floating hubs gain acceptance in the PT world manufactures will step up and provide the pieces I had to fabricate. Time will tell.

[TheJDMan]

Originally Posted by Bad94

looks great. what rear rotor is that? part number?

whats the WMS to WMS measurment?

Any pics of the caliper bracket?

The rotors are Wilwood 160-8508 and 160-8509 GT series which are 13"dia x 1.1" thick with a 12on7" bolt circle. I did not want drilled rotors.

My 9" was ordered from Moser with 57" WMS to WMS. My rear Forgelines are 18x12 with a 5.5" bs.

BTW, if anyone is curious, I purchased a freshly rebuilt surplus NASCAR center section from Roush Fenway racing in a 3.64 ratio with polished ring and pinion for $850. One thing about this center section is that it is setup with -8AN fittings if I decide to install a rear end cooler at a later date.

[GregWeld]

Just thinking out loud here -- but wouldn't "what works in NASCAR" come with some caveats? --- as in --- don't you think they rework and inspect just about every aspect of these cars after every race? So while the seals might be "fine" for NASCAR -- 500 miles isn't that big of a deal if they're being replaced all the time...

I don't know if they do that - but just saying that what might work on a NASCAR might not be so "user friendly" for our PT cars.

[DFRESH]

Thank you to all of those who have posted thus far to this thread.

As the original poster, I should clarify a few things about what I was/am after. Understanding that knockback is a real issue that several folks I know have and are personally dealing with, I want to know if they had to do it over again, would they have choosen to go with a floater setup--this begs the question, which one and why.

Now, I do value opinions, and I should also say that I tend to place greater value on that individual's opinion that has actually used the product in the manner that I am going to use it and can provide me actual feedback, specifically that it works and has worked for XXXX amount of time. Some of you have outstanding technical and scientific abilities in which you can compute load on the face of a bearing and have it expressed as a percentage, build a 1.21 jigawatt flux capaciter, etc., which I know is also valuable information and makes appropriate points to lend solid credability to the various products out there. Those points are well made and actually help me feel better about making a purchase of those specific products as well. I don't have those same talents in every area and rely on this site and you industrial mega minds to help fill me in. (No comments about my personal abilities from the peanut gallery are necessary on this point.)

In the end, for me, I want to know the part works ---and works for my intended application, which in my case is lots of street miles (trips of 400 to 600 miles at a time), track days, auto crossing (peanut and large tracks). Additionally, do I have to give up the center caps on my wheels? This may not seem like a big deal to some, but to me, I would be bummed out to have to give up those up. Small thing I know, but it's an individual thing.

This is why I value and have valued the opinions of guys like Todd, Dave, Chad, Payton, James, and others like them that can and will chime in. They are out at the tracks, have hit the streets and have used their cars, generally speaking in a similar fashion. I would hate to purchase one, find out they make some crazy noise at crusing RPM's, or require maintence every 5k, etc. It's my comfort level in assessing the next purchase--kinda like investing 401, after you have excess income, what is the best approach to take when wasting it on a car---my response, careful and thoughtful wasting by asking others who have wasted it before me if it was worth it.

Thanks again to all who have posted as I believe it will help others considering this same purchase as well. It appears we are well represented on this topic. I would hope that one of the mags would cover this topic in depth with some real world testing (Rupp, job opportunity--you can quit building motors and switch to floaters----GMR, Baer, Speedtech, Speedway--put them all on BP this year and give us feedback--there's got to be a story in that).

Doug BW Fresh