brakes Double front caliper setup: Good or Evil?

[ClayW]

Found this on Nick Vyse's site. It's a Cretan-owned/built 2002 with a 2L Italian spec s14. They've adapted 7 series struts, but I could see using double calipers on a stock 2002 strut. Seems easy enough to bolt on another set of calipers to your big brake setup.

http://www.m2bmw.com/greek.htm

My question is: Is this beneficial? I guess you could just split the brake lines coming in. I'm just curious if the added unsprung weight would be paid back that much in additional stopping power.

[BLUNT]

im no expert but it seems there are better solutions if you need that much brake. thats a lot of unsprung weight

[Kidasters]

Seems overly complicated to me. Plumbing both (all four?) so they will work together will be complicated. And lots of weight. Why not just go to a bigger caliper?

I guess I think of it this way - when I see new Porsches (or new Bimmers) with huge discs - they only have 1 really big caliper, not two puny calipers.

[Harv]

It is true that it is a lot of unsprung weight. But I have experience with one particular o2 (the white and green car) with two 1600 calipers on each front wheel. It also had 320i rear drums and the front rotors were cross drilled and such. Man did that thing stop!

Seems overly complicated to me. Plumbing both (all four?) so they will work together will be complicated.

Not so much. You use two single line calipers per wheel. Simply running a brake line to each caliper.

As Blunt said, there are better ways to stop these days. Willwood calipers on tii struts, or Volvo calipers on regular struts using of course 77 320i hubs and rotors comes to mind.

John

[scestes]

That looks like a standard 2002 strut in that picture to me. Or am I wrong? I just did the front and rear brakes on my e38 and the strut in that pic doesn't look like mine. Is this an older 7 series?

[gracer]

With the ventilated disk, it probably would work. But with the stock disk the heat build up will be a problem. Unsprung weight is also a factor. G

[robspeed]

ya, you need a BIG mass to dissipate/absorb all that heat. the extra friction will create extra heat, and it has to go somewhere. there is no free lunch. talk to Lee about a real solution...

[alp]

I believe it was Pontiac who has developed a caliper that is 360* around the disc. Talk about huge pad surface area!

[Mike_R]

Have you guys ever seen an aircraft landing gear wheel? 3, 4, even 5 calipers surround the disk. Just a thought. But I agree, if it was a good idea then someone would have done it before now.

[ClayW]

That looks like a standard 2002 strut in that picture to me. Or am I wrong? I just did the front and rear brakes on my e38 and the strut in that pic doesn't look like mine. Is this an older 7 series?

It's a modified strut. Looks like the 2002 strut with the 7 series spindle.

[TobyB]

It would be good for places where you don't really have a rotor dissipation

problem, but the pads overheat. In the old days, this was pretty common.

Now, the limitations are more with the rotor, and there are

ways to raise the permissible temps in almost all parts of the

brake system.

But it looks cool in a vintage go- fast sort of way.

Lee's massive setup is lighter and more efficient. And really, really overkill.

Doesn't mean I don't want it, though...

t

[Guest Anonymous]

(nt)

[Guest Anonymous]

the calipers are the standard 2002 items.The disk is 302 mm ventilated from a bmw e34 530 and pads are ferodo racing ds 2500. The master cylinder is 24mm from a fiat Ducato truck. The rear brakes are 280mm from e28 with ferodo racing pad and standard bmw 2002 calipers. The brakes work perfect and are very strong with no heat buildup and also as race experience has shown very good on hard use.

[Guest Anonymous]

To get the front brakes set up the strut has been modified by hand the way you see it we used a hub from e36 and we have made adaptors to get the calipers to sit on the strut.The rear set up has been modified by hand so that the trailing arms accept the brake setup from an e28 as it was on the original with the wheel bearing so minor modifications need to be done.

[Guest Anonymous]

the calipers are the standard 2002 items.The disk is 302 mm ventilated from a bmw e34 530 and pads are ferodo racing ds 2500. The master cylinder is 24mm from a fiat Ducato truck. The rear brakes are 280mm from e28 with ferodo racing pad and standard bmw 2002 calipers. The brakes work perfect and are very strong with no heat buildup and also as race experience has shown very good on hard use.

I don't understand why you used 2002 calipers, rather than calipers that would more readily accept the rotor width. You've said it was a ventilated E34 rotor which would be 302x22 mm, and it seems the calipers from a (front vented) E12/E24 would work better as they are made with the spacer between the caliper body halves to be correct for 22 mm width rotor (otherwise, those E12/E24 caliper bodies are same as 02tii caliper bodies.) How did you accomadate the width?

Was there an issue you had seen with the strength of the stock front spindles or bearings?