4 pot Calipers

[James]

Ive spent all night going through the search facility looking up brake callipers and I still find myself in the undecided camp!

I have at present M16 with Mintex M1144 pads which work well but I fancy a change to 4 pots for all the obvious benefits BUT Ive read some reports that the change over to 4 pots has in some situations made little to no diffrence and a couple of people found the pedal sudenley had a very long feel.

The Cat pads seem a good price and will take the Mintex pads BUT seem to have the long pedal feel (which is not what I want! the feel at the moment is very firm which I like) the Wilwoods seem to keep the feel but your bound to Wilwood pads that arent quite as good as the Mintex (As per conversation with Andy at Rally Design)

So heres my question will I see much differance with what I have now and the 4 pots? is it worth the change? and of course which to go for in your opinion.

cheers

James

[MAT1800]

I've just switched from the M16 to the CAT Calipers and there does seem to be slightly more pedal travel, they do certainly work though      and from memory weigh less than half of the M16's and this is unsprung weight of course  

Sooo... IMO the CAT's are worth going for, and they also look            

[cast iron]

Me too with CAT, no long pedal feel or change to the brake balance  

[Mat Jackson]

Can recomend Willwoods, and at the same time can upgrade to a larger front disc which has a great effect on braking.  Pedal feel and brakin gis much improved.  Only recomendation is to not go for te basic Willwood pads, as I have heared they are not brilliant.  I go tht e next ones up (cant remember the grade) and they have a great feel and brilliant stopping power.

As a kit, the larger discs and callipers cost about the same as a set of callipers on their own.

Mat

[cng1]

There's loads of choice of pads for Wilwoods, I've run Hawk, Mintex and am now on Wilwoods Poly A.  I've yet to find a reason to dislike the Wilwood pads, they're right up there with the 1166 and F-series pads but are a fraction of the price and don't suffer the fearsome disc wear that the F-series pads have.

In my experience tweaking the front does little for the feel, I tried pads discs, balance bars but it was sapping the rear calipers from the sierra type to wilwood powerlites that cured the fell issue

[Jan Coombes]

There is a nice set of 4 pot wilwoods in the ebay section.

[Neil Purdie]

Cat supplied Hi-spec 4 pots take a Lotus Elise pad, therefore theres a good choice of compounds inc 1144 as mentioned before.

I didnt notice any change in the pedal feel but there is a big difference in weight from P16 callipers. Yes mine were the imperial version instead of the M16.

[v7slr]

If you go for larger cross sectional area in your caliper cylinders, you will increase the pedal travel.

Caterham offsets this by offering a larger diameter master cylinder too.

[cast iron]

The CAT calliper whilst 4 pots have the same CSA as the M16. hence no change to feel or balance  

[Howard]

If the braking power exceeds the tyres grip then there is no gain except in feel, modulation, weight, and bling .

I run standard Ford M16 calipers with Ferodo DS2500 pads.  With Toyo T1R tyres I can lock the front wheels at 90mph plus when sprinting on track, so don't feel the need for more braking power. The feel and modulation are excellent and I've never run out of brakes on long trackday sessions.

Stickier tyres -888's and the like will allow you use the extra braking capacity although I suspect you could still lock the wheels with MI6s.

I too have considered 4-pots but I think the only real benefit is to unsprung weight (reason enough, perhaps) and feelgood factor.

Howard

[custardtart]

Why do you want to change? M16's are more than good enough for road and track use, only benefit of 4 pots is reduced weight but you won't notice this unless racing and then only if you're really aware of how your car feels.

4 pots look cool  though

[John Loudon - Sponsorship Liaison]

QUOTE

I can lock the front wheels at 90mph plus when sprinting on track, so don't feel the need for more braking power.

But if you add a brake biasing device, you can adjust the brakes to limit of adhesion at the front and improve the rears. This limit is even more so with sticky tyres.

The M16s are now hard to get spares for and the newest ones must be 30+ years old. You can also increase disc size with alternative calipers.

[Howard]

QUOTE

But if you add a brake biasing device, you can adjust the brakes to limit of adhesion at the front and improve the rears.

Absolutely.  And I have got one fitted. I used to suffer with the rears locking first, and fitted a Tilton adjustable bias valve to get the fronts to lock just before the rears.  I feel it's better that way - more feedback and control.

Am I missing a trick though?.....

[James]

Mmmm lots of interesting views thank you, Why do I want 4 pots good question, lots of reasons, weight for one, I also wanted to achive a little more feel to the pedal, the M16 are good with a very firm feel but its everything or too much and the brakes will lock without much warning, its hard to look   aproaching a roundabout with all four wheels locked up  

and of course 4 pots do look much   than M16's but wilwoods which I was leaning towards have big compromises, some calipers will take pads from other manufacters but there not cheap Mintex M1144 pads to fit the midilite calipers are £104.00 GULP!!!

and after talking to a number of people common opinion seems to be that there will be little to no gain from changing so I think I will have to think a little harder about this before comitting myself.

thanks for the views

James

[mark.anson]

The Willwood Dynalite caliper has lots of compounds available from various manufacturers. Its the powerlite that are restricted on pads