You aren't kiddin Jon! heh heh. Lotsa back and forth
on the subject already!
Ok, so I guess I will invest in some bigger front
brakes then. :)
Anyone have any opinions/experiences on front brake
upgrades? ;)
Thanks!
--- jon@dakota-truck.net wrote:
>
> david.clement@verizon.net wrote:
>
> : IMHO, unless you are consistently carrying a load
> the cost of doing the swap is
> : going to be a waste of money. In an empty or
> lightly loaded truck there is so
> : little traction out back that the rear wheels
> provide little in the way of
> : stopping power. That's why they all have anti-lock
> brakes on the back wheels.
>
> : Your money would better spent upgrading the
> fronts.
>
>
> Agreed. Rear disc brakes are practically a
> religious topic so
> I hesitate to even post this :-) but I will do so
> anyway. :-)
>
> The fact is that around 80% of the braking is
> done by the front
> wheels, so any improvements that you make in the
> rear are only going
> to affect 20% of your total braking ability. I
> completely agree
> with Dave in that if you want to put your money to
> the best use
> as far as improving braking ability goes, improve
> the front brakes
> first.
>
> By way of example, lets assign arbitrary values
> which represent
> braking power to the front and rear brakes. The
> front brakes have
> 80% of the power, and the rear have 20%, so lets
> break it into
> fifths and assume that each fifth of the braking
> system, as it
> currently stands, contributes our arbirtrary number
> "10" to
> the system as a whole. So, the current braking
> system would
> look something like this:
>
> Front brakes: 10 10 10 10 (= 40)
> Rear brakes: 10 (= 10)
>
> So, the front brakes have a stopping power of 40
> and the rear
> brakes have a stopping power of 10. The total power
> of your braking
> system is 50. Now, double the power of the rear
> brakes:
>
> Front brakes: 10 10 10 10 (= 40)
> Rear brakes: 20 (= 20)
>
> The power of the front brakes remains at 40, but
> the rear brakes
> have doubled to 20. This means the power of your
> braking system
> as a whole has increased from the stock 50 to 60.
> Now lets see
> what happens if we instead doubled the power of the
> front brakes:
>
> Front brakes: 20 20 20 20 (= 80)
> Rear brakes: 10 (= 10)
>
> Now, the power of the braking system as a whole
> has increased
> from the stock 50 to 90.
>
> Doubling the power of the rear brakes increased
> the power of the
> braking system by 20%. Doubling the power of the
> front brakes
> increased the power of the braking system by 80%.
> In fact, in
> order to equal the 20% overall increase we got by
> doubling the power
> of the rear brakes, we would only need to increase
> the power of
> the front brakes by 25%! Obviously, this will vary
> from vehicle
> to vehicle, but I don't think it would be too
> farfetched to imagine
> that it will cost less to increase the power of your
> front brakes
> by only 25% than it would to double the power of
> your rear brakes.
>
> Another aspect that ties into the above (which
> Dave already
> mentioned) and which concerns our trucks especially,
> is that there
> isn't a lot of weight on the rear wheels as compared
> to the front,
> and when you brake, the rear of the truck gets
> lighter still!
> Eventually, you get to a point where increasing the
> power of the rear
> brakes won't make any difference, because they don't
> have enough
> traction to apply any of this additional power to
> the ground. About
> the only thing I still remember from my Econ 101
> class is that they
> refer to this phenomenon as the law of diminishing
> marginal returns,
> and it applies to a whole lot more in life than just
> economics. :-)
>
> IMHO, the VAST majority of the cars and trucks
> on the road
> do not need rear disc brakes. Heck, my '70
> Barracuda has drums
> all the way around, and that will put your face in
> the windshield.
> (That said, I *do* plan to swap to front discs on
> that car because it
> is relatively easy and inexpensive to do so for that
> particular
> vehicle, and there is certainly a stopping distance
> and maintenance
> benefit.) The rears, however, will remain drums.
>
> Unless you are road racing or autocrossing or
> something along
> those lines, most people will not use the added
> benefit of rear disc
> brakes. Don't get me wrong - I am not saying the
> vehicle will not
> stop better, but how much better? Better enough to
> justify spending
> $1,000? $3,000? $5,000?
>
> Everybody has their own budgets and priorities so
> to each their
> own; I'm just here to say that if you have other
> mods competing
> for your vehicular budget, I'd skip the rear discs
> and do other
> modifications first, which have a better bang for
> the buck.
>
> --
> -Jon-
>
> .-- Jon Steiger ---- jon@dakota-truck.net or
> jon@jonsteiger.com --.
> | 1970 Barracuda - 1990 Dakota 'vert - 1992 Ram
> 4x4 - 1996 Dakota |
> | 1996 Intruder 1400 - 1996 Kolb FireFly - 2001
> Ram QC 3500 CTD |
> `------------------------------------
> http://www.jonsteiger.com --'
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