Message text written by Mark Hooper
>Just to interject a little question here. If both sets of brake cylinders
are able to lock up the wheels, then surely the only difference in braking
activity would be the effort required to perform the aforementioned locking
(if the caliper pistons on the 4-pot had more surface area than the
original). As far as I've always heard, brake fade occurs after repeated
braking, not just rolling down the highway and then suddenly coming to a
rapid stop. So unless you're planning to do racing with lots of hairpin
turns and fast and slow driving there's no need for changing the calipers.
Right?
<
That's true. Brakes get hot because they convert kinetic energy to heat
(Einstein's theory of the conservation of energy). Unless you drive with
one foot on the brake (and applying a light pressure) the brakes are not
creating heat and will not get hot. Infact the air moving past will cool
them off if they were hot before. The shortcomming in the TR6 brakes is
the solid rotor which disipates heat at a slower rate than do the newer
vented rotors. But then vented rotors are heavier. I suspect that the
only thing a four piston caliper will get you is more even pressure across
the face of a longer, skinnier brake pad.
The only situation, outside of racing, that I can think of where the TR6
brakes may prove inadequate is hill decending. Montreal is like St. Louis,
fairly flat. The hills are gentle and short. Even down in the Ozark
Mountains if you go down hill for a mile it is a particularly long
downgrade. But gwt out west (or east in the appalachians) and you can
encounter mountain decents that can last 10 miles or more. If you control
your speed down these using brakes you can encounter brake fade. When we
attended the VTR in Breckenridge I used engine braking quite a bit and
although the TR7/8 brakes are notoriously mediocre I had no issues.
Dave
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