Ryan,
I agree - brakes should be only as big as necessary to accomplish the task at hand. The added mass is also rotating mass (as well as unsprung), and many cars accelerate slower with big brakes.
For track days or road racing, they can be helpful, of course.
I also think that many times people report brake fade, it is because they are heating the brake pads to a new high temperature (for them), and this is causing the fade. When I was road racing (years ago), the standard practice was to warm new pads gently for a lap or so, than do one huge fade at the end of the fastest straight. Once they had been cycled like this, they would be fine.
But even if you had driven the pads for a long time (on the street), and got them fairly hot, they would still fade until they had seen 'racing temperatures' for the first time.
So when someone says their brakes faded after a single emergency stop from a high speed, that may not necessarily indicate the need for bigger brakes - the thing to find out is if it does it on the next stop.
Steve
I agree - brakes should be only as big as necessary to accomplish the task at hand. The added mass is also rotating mass (as well as unsprung), and many cars accelerate slower with big brakes.
For track days or road racing, they can be helpful, of course.
I also think that many times people report brake fade, it is because they are heating the brake pads to a new high temperature (for them), and this is causing the fade. When I was road racing (years ago), the standard practice was to warm new pads gently for a lap or so, than do one huge fade at the end of the fastest straight. Once they had been cycled like this, they would be fine.
But even if you had driven the pads for a long time (on the street), and got them fairly hot, they would still fade until they had seen 'racing temperatures' for the first time.
So when someone says their brakes faded after a single emergency stop from a high speed, that may not necessarily indicate the need for bigger brakes - the thing to find out is if it does it on the next stop.
Steve
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