Brakes

[mrblaine]

Do you have any test data on the material? Coefficient of friction vs temperature?

Not really, all I have are the edge codes and those are pretty useless.

 

[sureshot007]

Do you make them yourself?

 

[mrblaine]

Do you make them yourself?

No I do not. I live in SoCal, they would likely frown very highly upon a brake pad factory in this part of the world.

 

[kcjeep6]

Except the bracket...

You are not going to break the bracket, it’s 3/8th steel plate and some round spacers, I tack welded the spacers. Now I did lose 3 out of the 4 bolts (No Fun). I was able to find the bolts in a local hardware store.
Make sure to use lock washers and loctite, my kit did not come with lock washers.

 

[mrblaine]

You are not going to break the bracket, it’s 3/8th steel plate and some round spacers, I tack welded the spacers. Now I did lose 3 out of the 4 bolts (No Fun). I was able to find the bolts in a local hardware store.
Make sure to use lock washers and loctite, my kit did not come with lock washers.

If you lost 3 of the bolts, then you did not use Red Liquid Loctite on the caliper saddle bolts upon the initial install.

If they were supposed to have lock washers, they would have been included. Lock washers for the most part are a waste of time and money and haven't been a viable solution for keeping fasteners tight for a very long time.

If you pay attention to what the OEM does, they've been moving away from lock washers on fasteners for a long time in favor of upset lock nuts, serrated flange heads on bolts and serrated flange nuts, tri-lobe threads, and deformed lock nuts.

To clarify further, it's been awhile since the caliper adapters have been steel, at least 200 kits ago. All the new ones are 6061 T-6.

 

[kcjeep6]

If you lost 3 of the bolts, then you did not use Red Liquid Loctite on the caliper saddle bolts upon the initial install.

If they were supposed to have lock washers, they would have been included. Lock washers for the most part are a waste of time and money and haven't been a viable solution for keeping fasteners tight for a very long time.

If you pay attention to what the OEM does, they've been moving away from lock washers on fasteners for a long time in favor of upset lock nuts, serrated flange heads on bolts and serrated flange nuts, tri-lobe threads, and deformed lock nuts.

To clarify further, it's been awhile since the caliper adapters have been steel, at least 200 kits ago. All the new ones are 6061 T-6.

Mine are Vanco and they maybe 3 years old. Instructions said the Calibers & Rotors are “98" Ford Explorer. I had a special application, “88” D30 with Warn conversion, I had to go to the newer knuckles.
Yes I believe I used red Loctite and used a torque wrench, maybe I was too excided to try out my new brakes and forgot to torque. Who knows old age is setting in. I set up the brakes and drove to Fordyce. They came loose on the way out of the trail. I’m a firm believer in gluing thread.
I also run Vanco Hydro Boost & TSM disc kit in the rear, I love my Vanco brakes, I have no reason to carry clean underwear!

 

[mrblaine]

Mine are Vanco and they maybe 3 years old. Instructions said the Calibers & Rotors are “98" Ford Explorer. I had a special application, “88” D30 with Warn conversion, I had to go to the newer knuckles.
Yes I believe I used red Loctite and used a torque wrench, maybe I was too excided to try out my new brakes and forgot to torque. Who knows old age is setting in. I set up the brakes and drove to Fordyce. They came loose on the way out of the trail. I’m a firm believer in gluing thread.
I also run Vanco Hydro Boost & TSM disc kit in the rear, I love my Vanco brakes, I have no reason to carry clean underwear!

Not that I doubt you, but when I first developed the Vanco Kits for Van, he sent out instructions specifically telling folks to use Red Liquid Loctite. The folks in the rust belt times at least 5 tech calls that I took, all decided that anti-sieze was a much better thread locker than Loctite.

After I figured out what happened on the first one, the next 4 got an immediate "Why did you deviate from that part of the instructions?" from me. Across the board, they all admitted their mistake and said they didn't want the bolts to seize in the holes from rust. After I pointed out that not only is the specified loctite a thread locker, it is also a thread sealant that keeps water out.

None of them had repeat performances of lost caliper bracket bolts. And while I'd love to have everyone believe I'm some sort of fastener guru, all I did was take a large clue from the OEM side and copy their use of Red Loctite on the saddle bolts.

I suspect you forgot to torque them.

 

[sureshot007]

You are not going to break the bracket, it’s 3/8th steel plate and some round spacers, I tack welded the spacers.

There is no such thing as "indestructible" when it comes to rally. Granted, when something happens that breaks the bracket, I'm sure I will have much bigger problems...

Not really, all I have are the edge codes and those are pretty useless.

So can't you contact the manufacturer and ask them for the data? Any reputable performance brake manufacturer will have those details handy.

 

[mrblaine]

So can't you contact the manufacturer and ask them for the data? Any reputable performance brake manufacturer will have those details handy.

I've sat here and typed out what was well over 6 or 7 paragraphs of info explaining a whole bunch of things, but at the end of the day, no one will really care about my drivel.

I'll be a bit more succinct. Here's the bottom line. Stock brakes suck. We sell parts for stock brakes only because folks won't spend the money on real brakes.

When it comes to racing, no pad and rotor will fix your stock brake's inherent flaws.

At the very end of the day, we're talking roughly 200 bucks for your race car's brake upgrade and nowhere does 200 bucks buy you race quality brakes. Now, I have no doubt that I can make your stock brakes the best they can be, but they will still be stock brakes and only you can fix that and you've expressed all the reasons why you won't and I can't fix that.

I think I'm going to try and bow out of this as gracefully as possible. I've given serious consideration to sponsoring a set of brakes to you, but I can't get past the fact that no matter how good our stuff is, I would never recommend that anyone race on the stock brakes in any iteration.

If you ever see your way clear to do a set of real brakes on the front of your race car, please get in touch and we'll seriously chat about some sponsorship.

 

[sureshot007]

At the end of the day, I want to just test out running a good set of pads. If that doesn't do the trick, then it will be time to upgrade the hardware. I do really appreciate your sponsorship offer, as I can always use all the help I can get.

BTW - the Comanche had Hawk HP+ pads front and rear, and it worked great for 2 seasons. This is the main reason I'm just looking for a good pad and not worrying about upgrading the hardware.

 

[mrblaine]

At the end of the day, I want to just test out running a good set of pads. If that doesn't do the trick, then it will be time to upgrade the hardware. I do really appreciate your sponsorship offer, as I can always use all the help I can get.

BTW - the Comanche had Hawk HP+ pads front and rear, and it worked great for 2 seasons. This is the main reason I'm just looking for a good pad and not worrying about upgrading the hardware.

Well, if you had Explorer Calipers, I'd send you the sets of Regular Hawk and Hawk HP+ pads we tested and found severely lacking in performance compared to even the EBC Greens. They are at best a mid level performance pad and aren't even in the same class as the Black Magic stuff. I'd even throw in a set of very fine EBC Slotted rotors to go with them. They don't work either. Well, let me rephrase that slightly. They don't work well enough to justify the increase in cost.

 

[sureshot007]

EBC's Green and Red are both garbage. They sent me some prototype new Yellows for my other race car and they were much better than the previous time I tried the Yellows. Hawk HP+ is good for short periods, but they do fade after 5-10 minutes of aggressive use on tarmac.

However, I'm running 25" tires on dirt and gravel, so I'm not looking for a ton of clamping force, which is why I didn't opt for a brake swap. I was really interested in finding something for the rear 9" drums, as it seems that no one makes anything off the shelf for them.

 

[mrblaine]

EBC's Green and Red are both garbage. They sent me some prototype new Yellows for my other race car and they were much better than the previous time I tried the Yellows. Hawk HP+ is good for short periods, but they do fade after 5-10 minutes of aggressive use on tarmac.

The big issue with the non race EBC stuff is how you break them in. If you overheat them in the first 500 miles of stop and go, they are trash and you should toss them in the nearest rubbish bin.

So since you've hit me with many tech questions, it's my turn. At what temp were the Hawk pads going into hot fade?

However, I'm running 25" tires on dirt and gravel, so I'm not looking for a ton of clamping force, which is why I didn't opt for a brake swap. I was really interested in finding something for the rear 9" drums, as it seems that no one makes anything off the shelf for them.

I guess you can view that however you like but there is never too much clamping force as long as you have good pedal throw.

Porterfield will make the rear shoes work very fine and when they get done and you get done wadding them up, you'll understand why trying to upgrade rear drum brakes with higher friction compounds is a waste of time.

Many years ago I ran a very large vacuum booster on my TJ and disabled rear proportioning in a misguided attempt to increase my overall braking. I had lots of line pressure, enough in fact that I could take the stock front brake pads and if I jumped on them hard enough, I could fold the ends of the pads over sideways.

I bought a new not reman set of rear brake shoes and had Porterfield re-line them with their most aggressive cold grip compound. About the 4th or 5th hard stop messing around with them, a funny noise emanated from the rear axle. Pulling the drums off, I discovered that I had folded the ends of the rear shoe over between the friction layer and the anchor pin.

I briefly considered having some laser cut pieces made to reinforce them and then came to my senses and swapped on rear discs.

 

[fyrfytr1717]

We continually test for the best stopping you can get with the Vanco stuff. I personally hand build every Vanco kit that ships and we do our best to stay at the top in outright performance.

So, when we found a better pad than the EBC Yellows that we tested several years ago, it became the standard offering in the kits and the only kit that we don't have them for is the one that uses the Dodge 1500 54mm caliper and that's only for a short while longer because the BMB pads are on the way for them.

I don't know if Van's website reflects this or not, but the only pad available is the Black Magic unless we don't have the app yet.

When the point in time comes that we find a better pad, it will become the standard.

The Vanco website doesn't really mention the type of pads included in the kit. It was actually the parts list in the install instructions for the "Updated 15" Vanco Big Brake Kit" where I found the listing for the pads. It can be found on the FAQ page on Van's website:


1 - Set Brake pads, Optional compounds include Black Magic or EBC Yellowstuff

Black Magic Brake pads will be Industry pad number 833 for 48mm and 652 for 46mm​

Thanks for all the great info you've contributed to this thread. Advice from someone with in-depth knowledge of what is being discussed is always appreciated. I think I'll have to try out some of those Black Magic pads when I wear out my EBC YellowStuff's. Maybe I'll even be ready to spend the extra $'s on a Big Brake kit by then. My factory pads lasted me almost 90K so it may be awhile. Maybe you'll have found an even better pad by then...

 

[Glenn B]

Great info in this thread, thanks! Will be looing at some Black Magic for my thing when I can swing it.

 

[sureshot007]

I have never heard of anyone having problem with the Porterfield road race compounds. And I even asked around at my monthly SCCA meeting. Maybe the "cold bite" stuff you had was a step under? In any event, I appreciate your input.

 

[mrblaine]

I have never heard of anyone having problem with the Porterfield road race compounds. And I even asked around at my monthly SCCA meeting. Maybe the "cold bite" stuff you had was a step under? In any event, I appreciate your input.

I guess I wasn't clear, there was no issue with Porterfield or their compounds, or their work in relining my shoes.

The issue was I overpowered the components due to a faulty design and application. I did the design and application.

 

[mrblaine]

The Vanco website doesn't really mention the type of pads included in the kit. It was actually the parts list in the install instructions for the "Updated 15" Vanco Big Brake Kit" where I found the listing for the pads. It can be found on the FAQ page on Van's website:


1 - Set Brake pads, Optional compounds include Black Magic or EBC Yellowstuff

Black Magic Brake pads will be Industry pad number 833 for 48mm and 652 for 46mm​

Thanks for all the great info you've contributed to this thread. Advice from someone with in-depth knowledge of what is being discussed is always appreciated. I think I'll have to try out some of those Black Magic pads when I wear out my EBC YellowStuff's. Maybe I'll even be ready to spend the extra $'s on a Big Brake kit by then. My factory pads lasted me almost 90K so it may be awhile. Maybe you'll have found an even better pad by then...

Van has to list an optional pad in case one or the other is not available. There hasn't been a set of the Yellow pads shipped for the 46 or 48 mm calipers for over a year and only then because the 833's were out of stock.