Should you upgrade brakes when you upgrade power

[Greboth]

Your arguements are invalid because tyres!

I was thinking about this on the way to work this morning, if the brakes on the car are good enough to lock up your wheels/ engage ABS under heavy braking then upgrading your brakes would be pointless for road use as you're not going to be able to stop any quicker. Track use though would be definate upgrade, probably worth upgrading if the powertrain is stock due to overheating and fade.

As for the B road blast, more power means higher speed achieved before braking i don't think it would have too much of an effect. If the speed limit is, for example, 60mph then the only time that this would have an effect is where the braking points are close enough together that you cannot hit the speed limiy of 60mph. So unless you go from moderate power to monster power the speed differential at those braking points between stock and modified isn't going to be huge therefore extra braking force isn't going to be greatly different.

Edit: This is ofcourse assuming that speed limits are not broken. However those who would in a modified car are likely to in a standard one too so really rules the poit a little moot.

In summary I think the best answer is you don't NEED to but is probably a very very good idea to upgrade them too. As said above balance is what you should aim for.

 

[Conanius]

I agree with upgrading the brakes.

Try and keep the car balanced

Power - handling - brakes

Or, to be annoying and state the obvious

Power - handling - brakes - driver skill

Absolutely no point doing any improvements if you can't make use of what is there. To a point with point this is useless (0-100 won't get hugely better if you know how to launch anyway), but better cornering skill should equal higher speed on the straights.... As long as you don't hit vmax on the straight !

 

[MOOGLEYS]

Accelerating faster means you reach your intended speed faster. When at speed the braking forces will be the same but having bigger/better breaks will stop the car in a shorter distance as long as the car is not already at the maximum friction to weight ratio.
During acceleration you will be increasing speed faster than before so it makes sense to have better brakes to slow the car if needed.

When accelerating faster you are increasing the mass of the car which if you intend to stop will require more force to stop. Remember "Every action has an equal and opposite action".

The argument is about travelling at a constant speed which in that case if the mass or frictional contact of the car has not changed then the braking will be the same as before no matter how fast you achieve that speed. But brakes are used for a lot more than just breaking from a constant velocity which is really why bigger and or better brakes will give better performance.

 

[Jonnycoupe]

Your arguements are invalid because tyres!

I was thinking about this on the way to work this morning, if the brakes on the car are good enough to lock up your wheels/ engage ABS under heavy braking then upgrading your brakes would be pointless for road use as you're not going to be able to stop any quicker.

Your drive to work is dull

 

[Greboth]

Your drive to work is dull

I don't drive to work, I get chauffeur driven along with lots of other people

 

[Zuban]

Exactly, you have a way of increasing the heat into the brakes over same time period, ie work done. Yet there is nothing to improve the rate at which heat is rejected from the brake or the heat capacity of the brakes.

Work done is what matters and is why torque is useless unless you can apply it at a decent rate, work done, power.

thanks, see this is where the reasoning given, as in both cars still stop in the same distance, fell flat on its face for me, its not that the statement is incorrect, it just makes too many assumptions, whether these differences are enough to manifest themselves as a problem, who knows that surely depends on a bunch of other variables, but to come out with a blanket statement like that seems shortsighted.

 

[Jonny69]

My opinion is use your head. If you're starting with a car with bad brakes then you'd be foolish not to. If you're starting with a car with good brakes then you might not need to, but if you're likely to be needing to pull the car up from 150mph then probably so...

 

[Simon]

My physics is a bit rusty, but surely this statement is incorrect -?

A car going from 0-60 in 2 seconds compared to a car doing 0-60 in 10seconds will need the same brakes stopping from 60mph.

The statement is correct in this context.

Bigger brakes dont stop the car faster either, brake upgrades due to power increases are about maintaining brake peformance over several stops. When driving hard the extra power means higher speeds at braking points so you have more speed to remove= more heat.

Brake upgrades for when you make the car heavier/ tow a trailer are when you look at increasing braking torque with bigger disks and pads.

Often bigger brakes make the car stop slower when you compare single stops as they end up upsetting the brake bias meaning you still max out the front tyres but the rears do less.

 

[Stringy]

If you're not going to track the car then there's not necessarily a need to upgrade brakes unless you're planning on hitting higher speeds. As long as you use the extra acceleration responsibly (unlikely) then you just work to the same braking distance. However, it seems pointless to not upgrade the brakes as they're every bit as important to driving spiritedly on a B-road/country lane, but for normal driving it would not be necessary.

But then again why do an engine transplant for normal driving...

 

[Zeed]

For normal car use hmm. In my case brakes ware first thing i always invested on my cars. Cos it would **** me off to crash my modded car cos of **** brakes :/

 

[Meridian]

He's saying, before and after 'power upgrades' you will only reach the same max speed, this assumption seems to be based on the fact that regardless of how much power you will never exceed the NSL......

Out of the many things he doesn't factor in is, what if you wish to brake later than oem items will allow..... You don't need to exceed the speed limit for this.

First, that's not what I said. I said that the speed you drove at would not change, and very carefully did NOT mention legal speed limits. If your top speed was (say) 120mph before, and is 135mph after, are you really likely to drive much faster afterwards? For all but the slowest cars, your speed is dictated by factors other than power (and in many cases, the posted limit): road conditions, visibility, type of bends, and how much you value your licence (and life). It's rare for most people to get near their maximum speed these days, unless they're trying to check what it is.

And your point about late breaking is also only relevant in those very rare circumstances where the extra power enables you to get to the next corner faster than before. Again, on public roads the acceleration of your vehicle is very seldom the limiting factor in how much speed you get up to corner, and it's unlikely that you will go much faster between bends than before. And if you do, it's by about 3mph.