Does Brake Material Matter???
 

I'm rebuilding the front end on my Aero RV and am going to rebuild the disc brake calipers and am wondering what I can do to reduce the parasitic drag inherent in braking systems, especially disc brakes.

I'm guessing some of the various materials they use for disc brake pads vary in the amount of drag they induce when the vehicle is running down the road. Does anyone have any data on this? Do ceramic disc brake pads induce less drag on the rotors than say, semi-metallic pads or regular organic pads?

Does anyone know of any specific modifications you can do to disc brake calipers (other than cleaning and lubricating the parts and rebuilding the cylinders) that will make them release more efficiently?

Being a one ton front end these calipers are massive compared to my Saturn. If you jack the wheel off the ground and spin it with your foot, it only turns maybe two revolutions before it stops. That's a serious amount of drag.

More important then pads is going to be that the seals that act as a return spring on the piston is good and that the piston is smooth, that the pins that let it float side to side move freely and that there isn't a bunch of crud in your brake lines that will bind up and wear out the system.

Thanks Ryland, I intend to do all of that, I'm just wondering if the pad composition makes any difference, or if there are other mods I can do.

I would see if there is any other drag in the system. Should spin freer than that?!?!?

Yes it does.

My original Suzuki brake pads didn't rub on the bike - well, at least not audibly.
Then I started using sintered EBC HH pads , and they rubbed quite noisily against the disks .

Anyone I know who used them, had this rubbing issue.
You could actually hear who had HH pads on when they moved their bikes ...
But they stopped you a lot better, with much more feedback :cool:

Just remove pads and calipers and spin your wheel then. You'll have a data to compare with all your future measurements.

Everything is bigger. Bigger bearings, more grease. No surprise it has more drag than the saturn.

As has already been said, do all the regular maintenance. Don't mess with pad material. Ceramic is expensive and reliant on everything already being up to temp. This is why they aer used in racing where hey don't get the chance to cool off. I doubt you could get them in your size anyway.

I think it is more important to stay on top of the rear drums. Make sure they are properly adjusted.

When I removed the caliper assemblies and spun them again, they spin with ease. I should have counted the revolutions before continuing the tear down but I didn't. The difference was night and day.

I'll go through both caliper assemblies, install some new pads, break them in and try it again. Thanks for the input everyone.

Has anyone seen any studies on brake drag?