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Electric Park brake and rear caliper
woodsy144 - 8/10/19 at 08:51 AM

Hello guys,
I've been doing some thinking about electric park calipers.
Has anyone used them in their build?
Effective?
Easy to setup and use?
Donor vehicles?
Aftermarket options? Prices?
Any info would be great?

rusty nuts - 8/10/19 at 10:02 AM

Over complicated, extra weight , unreliable and often needs special electronic equipment to service No more effective than a decent cable set up

AntonUK - 8/10/19 at 12:05 PM

and no handbrake turns

coyoteboy - 8/10/19 at 01:15 PM

I'll be using some for two reasons:

1) Handbrake without secondary caliper.
2) Torque vectoring on the rear end (eventually) as I won't be able to get an LSD in my transaxle.

Some of the calipers are huge, that's for sure.

coyoteboy - 8/10/19 at 01:16 PM

quote:
Originally posted by AntonUK
and no handbrake turns


Shift lock or more torque needed, not a handbrake

nick205 - 8/10/19 at 06:49 PM

i had a couple of 2007 VW Passats with EPBs and got used to them very quickly. They worked well and personally I liked the reduced clutter of no handbrake lever in between the front seats. New brake pads time was a pain though as it seemed to required connecting to VW computers to calibrate the calipers to the new pads. I've heard people moan of reliability issues and costs, but didn't suffer any issues myself.

For a kit car though simplicity strikes me as the best option. On my MK Indy I used Sierra drum rear brakes, hand brake lever and hand brake cable. All worked very well and really didn't cost much either.

woodsy144 - 8/10/19 at 07:47 PM

There is a UK company offering a full aftermarket approach.
http://www.hispeccalipers.co.uk/electroslide.html

Anyone use them? Feedback??

coyoteboy - 9/10/19 at 02:48 PM

2.5Kg per caliper?! Bugger me.

nick205 - 9/10/19 at 03:42 PM

quote:
Originally posted by coyoteboy
2.5Kg per caliper?! Bugger me.


Can't see it in the HiSpec caliper spec, but doesn't each caliper have an electric motor in it to squeeze the brake pads against the disc?

Whilst electric motors can be fairly light it's asking for quite substantial sqeezing force to be applied to the pads to hold the vehicle staionary when parked, particularly on a slope.

I remember on my VW Pasast's when you pressed the EPB button you could hear the eletric mtors buzz as the EPB operated. That said the EPB would comfortably hold the car stationary when parked even on steep slopes. The car had an unladen kerb weight of around 1,500kg, pack it with a family of 5s luggage and I'd imagine you could be getting on for 2,000kg.

coyoteboy - 9/10/19 at 07:41 PM

Yeah of course it's going to be heavier, just shocked by how much. The motors don't need to be monsters, that's what gearing and high speed motors are for, but I guess they are designing with targets we can't see. It's just heavier than I expected.

[Edited on 9/10/19 by coyoteboy]

nick205 - 10/10/19 at 07:59 AM

quote:
Originally posted by coyoteboy
Yeah of course it's going to be heavier, just shocked by how much. The motors don't need to be monsters, that's what gearing and high speed motors are for, but I guess they are designing with targets we can't see. It's just heavier than I expected.

[Edited on 9/10/19 by coyoteboy]



Could be, I don't know the weight of a Sierra (or other) rear caliper with hand brake mechanism for comparison though.

nick205 - 10/10/19 at 10:51 AM

A Google search seems to indicate a weight of 2.3kg per caliper for Ford Sierra rear calipers with integrated hand brake mechanism. Not certain how accurate that is, but it makes the HiSpec 2.5kg seem reasonable.