Super big brakes on a hatchback - reasons why it's overkill?

AmDaMan

AmDaMan

AmDaMan

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Some bloke on another forum has just bought some 10pots for his 300bhp golf. He thinks that they will make his braking super awesome compared to puny 6pots etc..

Can someone explain why this is wrong?

From what common sense tells me it's a hatchback, it's light therefore the braking effort will far exceed the friction from the tyres on the road..

I know loads of other factors such as ABS, suspension, tyre width come in to it too but the point is 10pots are not necessary for a hatchback are they?:confused:

The only reason I can think they may be useful is slowing from mega speeds but even still 10pots would exceed the friction capacity of the tyres on the road and it would be efficiently slowed down by the ABS anyway wouldn't it?
 
If he had any concept of sense and value he wouldn't be spending that sort of money on a VW Golf, so you are fighting a losing battle arguing with him.
 
On our track VR6 golf we run little AP racing 290mm strap drive discs and 4 pot callipers with DS3000 pads, with up rated discs and pads on the rear just to keep a nice balance and prevent the rears from cooking.

The car is supercharged and weighs less than 1 ton and we run 15" rims with very sticky 205 Yokohama Advan AO48R semi slicks. The brakes are easily up to the job even in long heats. On the hottest days with pretty aggressive driving we have never hand issues with them. Traction is lost and the ABS will kick in well before the brakes give out, any more braking efficiency would probably ruin the dynamics of the car under braking and force us to run much larger wheels, something we dont want to do as it runs so well on stock size wheels with ideal suspension geometry.
Well designed 300mm 4-pots would be more than enough for a 300ish bhp 1ton hatch in a race situ imo.
 
Biohazard said:
At then end of the day you can only brake as well as your tyres will allow you.
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Another common misunderstanding, like "if the brakes can lock the wheels they are good enough". The tyre/road ultimately limit the maximum possible braking effort, but the brakes are almost always the limiting factor in hard, frequent use.
 
Dogbreath said:
Another common misunderstanding, like "if the brakes can lock the wheels they are good enough". The tyre/road ultimately limit the maximum possible braking effort, but the brakes are almost always the limiting factor in hard, frequent use.
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Whilst absolutely true, on the roads you really, really have to be abusing (most) brakes to get any significant loss of performance. On track its obviously a different matter!

10-pot calipers are absolute overkill for a road setup, there is no two ways about it!
 
[TW]Fox;11896134 said:
If he had any concept of sense and value he wouldn't be spending that sort of money on a VW Golf, so you are fighting a losing battle arguing with him.
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Why not? What is wrong with spending money on a golf? Would it be ok to spend that sort of money on a bmw?
 
there are a lot of golf people that are utter utter planks

they get a stupid mk4, remap it to 190bhp, and then they have to get S4 brakes or carbon ceramics from a carrera gt to stop the rampant horse power monster

i think its a case of someone has upgraded, has been banging on how worthwhile their upgrae was to whichever board they post on to self-justify the purchase, other people tag along with the idea and go even further.

eventually you get a culture of mk4 golf or a3 driving spastics who think they need rediculessly large brakes cos they think their cars are so fast
 
Surely 10-pots are actually counter productive?

Even if they reduced brake fade by having more swept area, they would increase unsprung mass by a significant amount, desgrading the efficiency of the susupension and concequently the braking efficiency.

Unsprung mass is the main reason why bikes have moved away from 6-pots to 4-pot radial calipers in the last few years.
 
Hesky82 said:
On our track VR6 golf we run little AP racing 290mm strap drive discs and 4 pot callipers with DS3000 pads, with up rated discs and pads on the rear just to keep a nice balance and prevent the rears from cooking.

The car is supercharged and weighs less than 1 ton and we run 15" rims with very sticky 205 Yokohama Advan AO48R semi slicks. The brakes are easily up to the job even in long heats. On the hottest days with pretty aggressive driving we have never hand issues with them. Traction is lost and the ABS will kick in well before the brakes give out, any more braking efficiency would probably ruin the dynamics of the car under braking and force us to run much larger wheels, something we dont want to do as it runs so well on stock size wheels with ideal suspension geometry.
Well designed 300mm 4-pots would be more than enough for a 300ish bhp 1ton hatch in a race situ imo.
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The thing is that a 330mm 8 pot kit can be considerably less than your 290mm AP 4pot kit, which is why they could be buying the 10pot kit. I guess it all depends on the make but yes, the huge amount of pots are just a marketing gimmic. FWIW I can get a K Sport 380mm 12 pot £1316 not that I would mind.
 
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DRZ said:
Whilst absolutely true, on the roads you really, really have to be abusing (most) brakes to get any significant loss of performance. On track its obviously a different matter!
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Not at all, you can fade the brakes of most average cars by a surprisingly small amount of 'spirited' driving, they simply are not designed to cope with it with tiny disks, weedy callipers and cheap pad material.
 
mmmm no ta i'll stick my stock setup thankyou very much,

works perfectly well with just a pad change

PICT0167.jpg


323mm brembo 4 pots with redsturr pads,


hauls the lardy leon down from silly speeds rather well
 
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