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Solid Vs Vented on a BEC
Davey D - 23/6/07 at 10:50 AM

Im looking at building a Hayabusa engined car, and im pricing up parts at the moment.

I have seen the Raceleda & wilwood kits, but i see they are solid discs. what are these like for cooling? do they overheat and warp, or are they easily upto the job? im aiming to use the car on track quite a bit, so i want something that will stand upto the job

Wadders - 23/6/07 at 10:59 AM

Easily up to it IMHO, infact i reckon you could get away with thinner solid discs with no problems.

Al.



Originally posted by Davey D
Im looking at building a Hayabusa engined car, and im pricing up parts at the moment.

I have seen the Raceleda & wilwood kits, but i see they are solid discs. what are these like for cooling? do they overheat and warp, or are they easily upto the job? im aiming to use the car on track quite a bit, so i want something that will stand upto the job

BenB - 23/6/07 at 11:02 AM

On a lightweight car like a 7 solid discs are fine. On a superlightweight car like a BEC seven they're definately up to the job....

scotlad - 23/6/07 at 11:09 AM

I seem to recall solid discs are lighter than vented ones too

worX - 23/6/07 at 11:16 AM

I'll second the above (or third/fourth it!)

You can even get away with running thinner solid disks as someone else has mentioned!

Steve

RazMan - 23/6/07 at 11:35 AM

You will probably find that you won't even warm up the vented disc enough and as a result braking efficiency will be worse than solids anyway.

bigrich - 23/6/07 at 04:09 PM

i used vented discs on my blade car and as said they are complete overkill in a 500 kg car and wiegh too much.. go with the solids they will be fine

ChrisGamlin - 24/6/07 at 03:13 PM

quote:
Originally posted by RazMan
You will probably find that you won't even warm up the vented disc enough and as a result braking efficiency will be worse than solids anyway.


Yep, I originally bought a Wilwood kit with vented discs on my BEC but after a while I changed to solid discs for several reasons, weight, to improve warmup of the brakes as I had a hunch they were staying too cool, and also so I could fit the pads I wanted without having to grind them down and waste half of the pad material, because I couldnt get caliper spacers big enough to accomodate the vented discs and the thicker pads.

[Edited on 24/6/07 by ChrisGamlin]

NS Dev - 25/6/07 at 04:14 PM

Agreed, but!................................

it does depend on how you drive and on what roads.

I recently took my (200hp, car engined, 550kg) locost at a smartish pace down a road near to me which is all 150 to 300 yard straights followed by 90 degree bends, and the (mintex 1144) pads in raceleda 4 pot calipers over solid cortina discs had cried enough by the last corner, and pad fade was setting in as was a huge cloud of smoke.

However, that was pressing on, and not a normal driving situation, and by comparison my sierra 4x4 has no brakes whatsoever left by the last corner on that same road, while going MUCH slower between corners.

In the locost it tends to be braking from 90 to 40 ish for each corner.

Just to give you some idea. I am certainly not planning on changing my setup but it is fallible given the most arduous of tests, which isn't necessarily the track as you get more cooling between corners on the track.