Even though he's still wrong. His reasoning sounds legit, in theory. But in real life he leaves out a lot of factors that have a much bigger effect than the slight mechanical advantage of larger diameter rotors.
@@awo1fman Note how you didn't name a single one, or demonstrate how that's going to outperform a device that's already limited by the tires. Since they're all capable of locking the tires and triggering ABS. In real life, he gave you several factor that might make you think bigger brakes are helping. He even left out the psychological effect that people expecting something are more likely to feel something, even if it isn't there.
This is literally humanity's biggest flaw 😂. We've all been guilty of doing it at least once in our lives, but sadly not everyone becomes self aware of this as they get older. When it comes to politics, it's truly astounding how many people refuse to even consider the possibility of them being wrong. They've built their entire life around their ideology, so to admit they are wrong is like realising they've been living a lie.
@@-Eternal-Damnation-politics cant be wrong or right . Its not a physical thing quantified by numbers in repeatable experiments. Its just opinion on morality. Completely subjective .
@@avancalledrupert5130Huh, not entirely. Lots of policy does a measurable quantifiable thing, before and after. A simple example would be if I tried to pass a policy of “no more repairing the roads”, where people claim that the roads will stay perfect for 100 years because of this policy. That just isn’t the case. You can also look at a policy like that and state as a fact that “the roads won’t be repaired”. None of that is opinion. What’s opinion is whether repairing the roads is good or not, but the input and historical data, and the result of the policy, and not debatable…and yet people argue about it.
Big respect not only for posting a follow up, but for maintaining your professionalism when others couldn't. This is a huge reason why this channel is my #1 when it comes to understanding automotive engineering with the intent of educating others - your commitment to providing content of exceptional quality shows in every video! Keep up the excellent work, and I can't wait for the next one! 👍
He made another video because he had a serious mistake in the first video @ th-cam.com/video/CyH5xOcsXxs/w-d-xo.html He showed a cross-section of the tires without considering the other dimension. Skinny and wider tires have the same 2D contact patch area! Google: "discount tire contact patch" for an illustration. Performance vehicles often use wider tires. This does not necessarily increase the size of the contact patch but rather changes its surface shape. Reshaping the contact patch makes it more efficient for accelerating, braking and handling.
@@johngalt1199 Most people do not realize this. Of course tire pressure and tire sizes do have some effect. But for proper inflation pressures and similar tire construction it is only the shape, not the actual contact area, which really changes.
I appreciate that you don’t waste our time with jokes, or with constantly interrupting the video with other stupid and loud clips to make a joke. I appreciate that I can watch it without constantly bringing the volume up and down. And most of all, I appreciate the knowledge and fantastic explanations. Man you’re awesome.
Agree 100%, there are other channels which are good but too many unhappy jokes, channels with a lot more subs. I don't know if that type of humour appeals to Americans, but to my knowledge that doesn't work in Europe. This guy is from Europe and so am I. I don't find those jokes that funny and there's a time and a place. Following an explanation and hearing puns and cheap sex jokes every 2 minutes makes me want to change video
The TL;DR is that if your brakes are capable of locking up with the tires you're using, they have more than enough force. You can't stop faster without increasing grip. Big brakes are primarily for fighting brake fade from overheating due to heavy, repeated use. There's one sort-of-exception: if you switch a car on stock brakes to racing tires, the stock brakes might no longer be enough to lock up with the increased grip, meaning you do need more force from the brakes themselves.
And brakes aren't the only cost. When you have giant brakes, you need to buy bigger rims and thinner tires. Weirdly shaped tires are automatically like 3x as expensive as mass produced normal size tires.
Great set of videos. I teach high performance driving to many new drivers and we always recommend they save their money by not upgrading to larger brakes (for a couple years at least while they are learning to drive). Pads? Yes. Fluid? Yes. Brake ducts? Yes. All for the same reason: heat management. Want to brake in shorter distance? Upgrade the tires.
Tires and damping control. Better tuned shock absorbers help control weight transfer and can absolutely help decrease stopping distance when tuned PROPERLY for the vehicle and paired with stickier/wider tires
Many years ago, I was told that THE best performance upgrade you could buy for cars or bikes was fuel, or to put it another way more time behind the wheel, or if you really need it breaking down, improving the driver. A better driver won't use the brakes as often or as much, without sacrificing speed, because they understand the capabilities of their chosen ride. Excellent video as always ... 🙂
@johnsantiago7836 is 100% correct. If your brakes are sufficient to lock up your tires (or engage the anti-lock) then the limiting factor is your tires. All the rest is about heat management. Another unpopular but true thing about brakes... drilled and slotted rotors are a marketing gimmick. With old pads that off-gassed a lot when they overheated drilled and/or slotted rotors helped but they are good for nothing except marketing today.
@@ukemike1well I had the same opinion, but upon further inspection, it is not the case. Drilled or slotted disks can and will improve braking distance on HARD breaking, just because they self clean better and they gain a tiny cross sectional area that helps them cool a bit faster (not by a lot of course, and this isn't the main reason as to why they are "better" than non drilled ones). You can see an experiment garage 54 did, but we also did some simulations in my engineering school, and yes, just because they can clean themselves better, the callipers can grab the rotors more efficiently without slipping. The gains while kinda small, they are noticeable. Are they worth the extra 80-xxx$ more than the regular ones? Absolutely not, and THAT makes them a marketing gimmick. Do they have some benefits tho? Yes
So in summary larger rotors and calipers can help shed off heat which will help delay or even prevent brake fade under extreme use such as a race track, but they do not decrease stopping distance. Also a video on master cylinder ratios would be nice.
Size matters for braking the disc itself, it's a question of leverage, but it's useless as brake power is always higher than the tyre ability to brake. So your car would skid anyway once you overpowered the tyres ability to stop the car. If you have ABS, it'll make no difference. I don't think he mentions that because it would need further explanation. So technically the disc stops better if it's bigger, it wouldn't give any advantage in stopping the car. That's why cars or motorcycles have different brakes at the front and at the rear, they're all calibrated according to weight distribution, tyres, suspensions, etc.. ABS interrupts and reactivates the brakes not to have you car skid, that means brakes are already too powerful, no point in making them more powerful. In racing condition is different, standard brakes are not calibrated to constantly be under pressure, therefore you need something that keeps them at the optimal temperature even if you brake hard all the the time. Whether you do that with bigger brakes or better ventilation, that depends on many factors. E.G.: on motorbikes the front is quite big and has holes for better cooling, on cars the front one can't go beyond a certain size, so it normally has two parts stuck together that lets air flow in between these two parts for cooling purposes.
I only view it as bigger disks means less fade. On my S4 And A4 using oem parts I can go from either 321 mm or the A4 288mm disks to the 360mm D3 and D3 W12 385mm rotors. All in the name of looks.
you are absolutely wrong cause stock brakes can still easily lock up your wheels even at a 200 km/h so it still makes no difference between stock and bigger brakes. Bigger brakes only have impact when you drive on race track where you have to brake every corner, so your brakes wont overheat as fast@@jakub.686
Brilliant video! Spot on! I’ve been an Automotive Engineer for the past 14years, most of that time being in Brakes Engineering, working for Renault, Ricardo UK, Bosch Engineering and recently I moved to Jaguar Land Rover and I can confirm that ‘bigger’ brakes will only do one think, in the vast majority of cases, they will disturb the brake feel and the modulation as the brakes will tend to lockup faster as you very well stated in this video. Also if they are aftermarket brakes don’t be surprised if they are ‘noisy’. Unless you are racing, I wouldn’t even touch the stock brakes. We spend years getting the system sized correctly and the adequate pedal feel. More importantly most of the stock brakes are quiet, because of a very good reason we literally spend over two years in Brakes Refinement testing by making sure that the brakes are quiet, many millions of pounds are spent in that respect. With aftermarket brakes you cannot have the same level of Brakes Refinement as the aftermarket doesn’t have access to the same level of dyno, CAE and vehicle testing as an OEM does. Most of the braking systems are oversized anyway, as most OEMs design the braking system around the AMS test, which is not even a legislative requirement. The AMS test is extremely severe (10 consecutive brake stops from 100kph to 0) and it’s not a realistic use case. Consequently we end up with very big brakes and more importantly very heavy brakes. Therefore do yourself a favour and unless you are racing and you need the thermal capacity, then do not waste your money on shinny new ‘big’ brakes.
I don't think AMS test is extremely severe. Imagine going down a mountain road. You might keep the brakes engaged for a lot of the trip going down. Would really suck if the brakes start to fade. Also imagine the brakes aren't brand new, but on a 20 year old car, that was maintained by an average person, and that doesn't really care about fanatic maintenance. Most people do maintenance on brakes only when weird sound appear, especially on older cars.
also a case that i have been peripherally involved with - you have a 18 year old daughter who loves horses and takes two horses in a fully loaded float to the local dressage show up a 1600 foot hill the return trip is a 4 mile windy descent the vehicle is an automatic and no one has taught her about low range in the 'box - she encountered a runaway situation towards the bottom of the hill and did not have the experience or presence of mind to save the situation @@antonio94
@@antonio94 why aren't you pushing that clutch in and selecting a lower gear? You shouldn't be driving down a mountain using only your brakes. Quite the opposite.
It is amazing to see how nervous and rude (to use polite terms) people can become when contradicted; but it is even more surprising to see your patience and kindness in re-explaining the arguments, despite all the insults given by uncivilized people
Totally agree. I was expecting something like "to everyone who called me an idiot, apparently you're all idiots" or else. But this coldblooded smart guy is incomparable to those "comment experts". Gentle, tactful, yet accurate and cogent. Love his vids
@@randomguyjustpassingby although,i bet some people would find it insulting to be told to seek help because they got worked up over a brake video. there are aways those kind of people that finds problems in any case or circumstance with another person,regardless of the topic.
It's like some of those people vastly overestimate their knowledge on a subject, and don't want to learn if the facts are contradictory. It's their loss though ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Nope, the people who lack knowledge of the laws of physics only look at the size of the brakes, say with full conviction that "bigger is always better" and then call other people dumb for "not understanding how brakes work."
Imo if you can lock your wheels and leave skidmarks then you need better tires. If you do experience brake fade however, only then do you upgrade your pads and rotors.
What harsh reality? You're drinking the click bait kool aid if you think your stock break system will be as good as a 3,000K big break kit because this guy says so.
@@Zeriel00 guy is really just trying to justify his purchase so he doesn't have buyers remorse anymore. only thing an expensive big brake system is gonna do is look better, have slightly longer lasting pads, and probably last longer for both rotors and calipers
@@Zeriel00 ok if you know everythjng, please explain how a bigger brake system will stop you quicker when the abs system is already reducing braking force in a panic stop with a stock braking system
Towards the end I can definitely say that the single best performance part I've ever bought for a car were lighter wheels. Lower unsprung weight dramatically improves handling and lower rotating mass has an exponential effect on acceleration and braking at higher speeds. At legal speeds though it doesn't make much difference.
This actually helps with fuel efficiency in urban areas a lot too. A lot of energy, therefore power and fuel, is spent on rotating the wheels instead of accelerating the car when you are accelerating. If you remove much of that weight you aren't going to use as much energy to spin the wheels up to speed. This has a compounding effect the faster you go.
That makes a lot of sense. Thats why magnesium wheels are more desireable? Is aluminum lighter than magnesium? I know magnesium ones are more expensive. Man this stuff is deep. I love learning about it. It helps with figuring out all my builds.
The main rotating masses on a car, apart from brake rotors, wheels & tyres. Is: The Engine, clutch, flywheel, transmission/gearbox, Propshaft, diff & driveshafts!
I've learned more amazing facts about engines and cars from this Man in the last 3-4 years than basic to sophisticated knowledge since I was in my teens. Things that, as an engineering physicist, I should have known. Or figured out on my own. But "motorhead lore" and what seemed to be complicated but "common sense" had polluted my mind. If he says something about motor vehicles, I believe him. And then go back and figure out why I've looked at it wrong for decades. As an aside. I drove big heavy American V-8s from my teens (1974 -1987). Many were used and cheaper models and had front disk brakes and rear drum brakes. Although I started with a disc/disc 1953 Ford Flathead. I don't know if differential brake wear caused me a problem. I lived and went to school in LA for 4 years (1980-1984). To numerous to count times, I would come to partially blind freeway corner at ~65 mph only to see traffic at a dead stop ahead. I would stomp the brakes in my 350 V-8 1973 Monte Carlo. The rear drums would immediately lock up. But not the front discs. The car would end up, what seemed like, 80 degrees sideways with me steering into the turn. Totally in control directionally. Lots of screeching. I could, literally, control the sideways angle of the car by modulating brake pressure. I'd keep it sideways, in total steering control until I was pretty certain I would stop and gradually let off on the brakes. First slowly, and then immediately, it would snap back to straight forward. I was never trained at all in this type of driving. I just happened a lot in LA back then. The horrors of the 55 mph days. Going 55 mph on a LA freeway would get you killed. Many of you trained drivers are probably saying, duh? It happened often enough and was so amazing to me that I developed skills in using that technique. My previous cars were also heavy only with drum/drum brakes. This never happened with them. Obviously before ABS systems, did this mean that the proportioning valve was not correct or out of adjustment? Could I have corrected it to make rear lockup less likely? My personal observation is that a front heavy V-8 car stopped faster when controllably traveling sideways? Am I incorrect about this? I've always been leery of front disc/rear drum brake cars since then. Comments and thoughts are welcome. After that, I bought a used 1973 350 Corvette Convertible with front and rear discs plus 4 wheel independant suspension. Life was Grand. When I was 25 years old. Just Graduated Med School. I learned what a "women magnet" car really was. It was "chick magnet" back then. But I didn't want to offend any Karen's who police TH-cam for micro aggressions. Only one more personal anecdote and a question. I promise. From 1982-1986, I also occasionally drove my girlfriends early 80s Toyota Tercel 4 cylinder low power and light weight 4 door. Narrow skinny tires on ~14" or less, steel rims. All factory parts. Not a "hotrod" car or one that inspired spirited driving ever. That car spun itself ( my interpretation) or I spun it >360 degrees on ~ 5 occasions. Always at normal driving speed. Every time, the road was coated with a wet watery mist on top of a normaly dry oily road surface. Never touched the brakes until it was out of control. I guess this is why F1 drivers get the Big Bucks? My first front wheel drive car, I realized that just letting off the throttle in a normal speed wide sweeping turn simulated only putting on the front brakes. The opposite of a RWD car. Instantly Initiating the out of control spin. I was lucky as no other traffic was ever around. An instant lesson in oversteer. I believe it was a dangerous vehicle. I've driven many later 1980s FWD cars without any problems. Any ideas on what was done to rectify this vehicle based design problem? Before ABS, traction control, etc.?
I put a larger master And it was excellent improvement. Even such that when the reservoir is bone dry there is enough fluid in the cylinder for full-braking.
@@cornishcat11 Please elaborate. Pressure is the same at Master cylinder and Brake Pistons. Thus force is proportional to inverse Area. Increase piston area increase brake force, increased Master cylinder area decreases brake force.
Thanks for spreading truth. It just shares how few people actually understand how cars actually work. They get so excited by modifying thier car, they stop using common sense.
I wouldn't really caulk this up to common sense. First thought of "how to stop faster" is "oh the brakes stop you, so bigger brakes must be better at stopping you".
@@Brandon_Tyr The time it takes to understand something and the thinking process to understand it are mutually exclusive. You can understand something new every day and take years to master the topic.
The first part and this video changed my perspective towards the ideas I had on what would improve the braking performance on a streetcar. Thank you. Appreciate your efforts on creating such high quality content
I have to say, you are giving by far THE BEST explanations on mechanic and physic topics on youtube! So easy to understand with real word comparisons. Keep up the good work, you have a new fan and subscriber from Ljubljana. Svaka čast jarane!
I started with the same counterpoint of larger = more leverage. But your explanation is one of a PhD haha thank you for sharing the truth and saving me money
I fitted larger brakes to my old, pre-ABS car and I can report improved feel and better braking - on the track! Vented and grooved rotors with newer style sliding calipers has made the car far better to drive on the track, but on the street, the difference in driving is negligible. Totally agree with the info in this video
That's basic physics/math. The difference in bore size vs piston sizes give leverage and multiply the force coming from the pedal. The pedal on its own do also multiply the force that's made by the foot
Big brake kits will typically improve your brake feel and ability to modulate the brakes. People confuse this with "better" or "stronger" brakes. Like you said, the tire stops the car, not the brakes. Stock brakes have enough grip to lock up the tires. That is all the brake you need. Anything beyond that is all about brake feel, or ability to dissipate heat for repeated high speed stops (like track use).
Think you nailed it. Bigger brakes allow for more brake durability during track use - because of brake fad. So you can still stop at the limits of your tyres when brakes pads are working at 50%.
Stronger brakes are overrated, all it does is lock up your wheels faster. But they are handy (they don’t overheat as fast) if you’re slowing down from very high speeds. :)
@@angelgjr1999 Completely backwards, weaker brakes tend to lock-up after reaching a certain point. Stronger brakes when set up properly allow better modulation and control.
It's pretty obvious, really. The forward weight transfer while braking means that the front tires have more traction and can take more braking force. The master cylinder applies more hydraulic force to the front. If all wheels got the same, the rear wheels would lock up (bad) while the fronts are not yet achieving maximum braking potential.
I bought a car with Brembos fitted from new, the sort of things people upgrade to. I managed to cook them on the track to the point of having no braking no matter how hard I pushed. Not just brake grade, but brake vanish!! Came home, threw out the rotors and pads and upgraded those. Same brakes, same fluid, but better heat dissipation from the rotor and oars that were more heat tolerant and I now have a car that feels no different to drive, but the more I brake, the better it stops as heat gets into the system. So upgrading the right components, not the whole braking system, is where you’ll get the most benefit. Great video once again, love your stuff!
My previous car I added a brake kit purely because after a few track sessions I'd have issues with the sliders. Even after rebuilding the calipers, this wasn't the issue with fixed multi pot calipers. I actually got to try the car with the same brake compound in good condition with and without big brakes. I definitely wasn't able to do as many laps before fade but pedal feel was better on the standard setup again like D4A said it messes up the MC ratio somewhat. With the BBK fitted the pedal was definitely slightly mushier, not terribly but enough for you to notice. The fix for it was to switch to a different MC, but while it was worse than the standard setup it wasn't outright dangerous. Funnily enough on the trackday with the standard calipers a lot of people left in the afternoon and the track was very quiet. This meant me doing way more laps than I normally would and out of all the braking components it was the fluid that went first as I had a long session and all of a sudden I went to brake and the pedal pretty much went to the floor. The car still did slow down enough so I let everything cool down and came in. Turns out I'd boiled the fluid (Fresh ATE Superblue when you could still get it) before I'd reached the limits of the pads/discs/calipers. One other benefit was a reduction in unsprung mass that actually improved general feel on the front end as the 4pot wilwoods were much lighter than the standard cast iron slider calipers. Stopping distance however was identical, on track the only thing that noticeably improved braking distances for me was going from a regular summer tyre to an actual track tyre. My current car has a factory Brembo option which I'm going to be fitting instead of an aftermarket kit, it's definitely worse on the unsprung mass side but there won't be any brake bias or MC issues. I may not need this but to be honest after you've had any sort of loss of braking during track driving I'd rather have more safety margin than not.
You don't need to upgrade to ride on the streets, that's the point. On track of course you need better heat dissipation, as you're constantly breaking to almost locking, and generating tons of heat in the way. But in the street, unless you're a public danger, you don't need bigger brakes. However, more leverage can lead to a better braking sensation so if that's your objetive, do it. If you just want to brake more, put on wider tires, as i've made in my car, which will also make your car steer better.
You are very good: 1) easy to listen to; 2) enthusiastic; 3) clear presentation of written and visual aids; 4) organized; and 5) 100 % factually correct. Thank you
The amount of times I've given up trying to explain to people that upgrading their brakes won't make their car stop any faster, it'll just make it easier to lock up their wheels when braking. People don't quite get it, even though everybody does understand tyres can only grip so much before they slip, it's like they know A and they know C but they can't quite work out how B figures into it.
If they don't have abs, it could even make their braking distance LONGER, since they'd be more likely to lock up and threshold braking would possibly be harder.
I would love to see a video on brake bias and other little brake system quirks like that :) It really sucks to see how negative people can get in the comments of your videos, you've been extremely informative, and I guess people sometimes take it personally when it turns out their mods were not that well thought out, this video was a very good response though.
I have an old Jeep Wrangler and all my added peripherals, not performance enhancers, jacks, tools, camping gear have made her heavier. So I figured , several months ago, I thought, bigger brakes, right ? I was fortunate enough to stumble on some old geezer who stated, as opposed to explained, bigger brakes, 4 piston per wheel instead of two = need more fluid = need new master cylinder = all kinds of things for minimal, nearly non existent gain. My spidey sense told me the old guy was on to something. After watching this gem, I NOW understand and am very happy I saved myself a couple of thousand bucks. Modifying my driving and being aware of your vehicle's capabilities is much more valuable. Speed without control is deadly
I definitely want to see a comprehensive video on upgrading a brake system the right way. Seeing the ratios and what would actually increase performance. I am looking to upgrade my brakes, but have no reason to as of yet. I intend to do light track driving and would upgrade instead of replacing my brakes which are running about 10k miles from their end of life.
Brake pads. Maybe slotted or vented rotors but not really worth it if you are doing light track days; just getting some track pads on new stock rotors will do wonders (if you need them properly).
what you want to do is dissapate heat from repeated high speed braking. So things that manage heat better are brake pad compound, rotors with higher vent count (maybe a bit thicker as well), brake ducting, high quality high temp brake fluid. Now to take advantage of ur clamping force you need more traction, I.e a well setup suspension and proper tires.
If your doing track days get some high heat dot 3-4 brake fluid in the system, put the stainless steel braided brake lines if you’d like, there not always needed, go get your self a set of pads meant to handle the heat and abuse for a race track when you get the right pad you will stop incredibly faster than you thought your stock brake system could handle. I recommend ether getting the brake rotors lathed so there fresh for a new pad, or get a set of nice slotted rotors to help give a better bite into the brakes,
Upgrade your stuff in stages, your car is like a science experiment on the track, if you go and upgrade the tires and the suspension and then everything else all at once how will you ever know if your modifications actually made you faster on that track, star off by upgrading your brakes, if you notice that your out performing the tires then upgrade the tires, then you might find your out performing the sway bars upgrade those, but don’t do everything at once.
Simple answer to that is: only do it if your running a vacuum much higher than stock, ooorrrrr you have a car that was gimped by legacy emissions systems like carb and such. Which is not the majority of cars produced in the last 10 years or so.
Personal experience, If you only do the open air intake without heat shielding you will lose power. If you make it into a cold air intake with heat shielding, you’ll probably still lose power. If you have a turbo or compressor which you have upgraded, then an cold air intake will work. Noticed it myself when the stock new intake was sucked into the box after upgrading a supercharged mini r53 and the car needed a lot more air. In my mind it gave it a bit more torque and made it faster. Never did real tests though but the sucked in airfilter was for me a give away that it’s better to upgrade after putting a lot more horsepower into a car.
@@Vincentf30 all it does is increase throttle response by 1% but if done with a good cold kit it "could" improve top end performance....for about a week. sucking air from the fender is not all bad unless it sucks air from the engine already like a miata
@@thatslegit Its also about smoothness of airflow into the intake - the more the flow is disrupted and bounces around, the more the temperature increases and the less dense it becomes. A differing factor could be the air filter itself and what the type of setup it is (air box/pod filter etc) From personal experience, i had better results with an OTR (over the rail) intake from the manufacturers performance brand (Holden/HSV) in comparison to an aftermarket "cold" intake coming from the fender.
Great Video! Track stuff is fun but the best reason brake upgrades is definitely TOWING. I upgraded our tow vehicle for just that reason. Quality vented/drilled rotors made a noticeable difference when trailering in the hills/mountains where you use your brakes a lot.
Yea but that's completely different and its exactly what he was explaining that bigger brakes are just larger heat sinks. Here you are not comparing stopping distance or power but the performance to reliably do that without fatigue. That's why you go for big brakes
You could consider an engine brake to prevent overheating your normal brakes (just like big trucks have) In hilly and mountainous terrain your engine is your primary brake source. Maybe a bit more difficult with an automatic tranmission.
Ive had brake fade down a steep hill, and its terrifying. Also a good reason to learn how to use gearing and engine braking. If you had to drop in to a lower gear to climb it, you need a lower gear to descend it on the other side.
@@str8xrippin It's actually directly related. Drilled and slotted rotors allow for gas venting and additional air flow to help with heat dissipation. Rather than adding more weight and brake equipment you can get better performance by going with better rotors. If you need a really serious brake upgrade for towing you probably want to examine your tow vehicle and probably go bigger. I was towing at max capacity for my Ford Freestar so the rotor upgrade was the most I needed, the next step would be getting a truck.
Yeah, there are so many people who don't understand even the basics of everyday life physics, that we literally experience every day. Great work as always D4A.
Anytime anyone is able to brake hard enough to cause the ABS to kick in, that means the car's theoretical limit of braking ability (for a given tyre size & particular road surface) has been achieved. ;) 15:45 at this video sends a very good warning as well. Fully second this. Always choose a good aftermarket BBK from a reputable mfg that makes a specific kit for your chassis. Universal mix-n-match brake system are best reserved for ground-up track car builds.
Fantastically clear and articulate explanations of these phenomena. It's a joy to watch a video that doesn't require figuring out the intended meaning in real time, even if that might be an excellent brain exercise, likely quite useful for fending off dementia! Thank yo so much for this fine work.
You are absolutely right about this, your brakes don't stop your car, they stop your wheels from spinning. What stops the car is the friction between the wheels and the road, and the maximum friction you will get to the road is when you are using barely not enough force to lock up the wheels. Once the wheels lock up, they start to slip, and friction is drastically reduced, so once your brakes are strong enough to lock up your wheels, making them stronger will not increase the friction to the road, and hence will not improve stopping distance. Just a nitpick however, Gs are a measure of acceleration, not force. One G means 9,81m/s^2, which means you accelerate/decelerate at the same rate as gravity.
A video describing an argument I've had it dozen times. And everyone telling you the bigger breaks are better have bald tires. You're the man liked and subscribed.
Some people live on a different earth with different physics I see, thanks for your 100% spot on explanation I really enjoy all your videos, I was binge watching your whole channel so looking forward to more content
64 barracuda From all-wheel drum brakes to All around disk brakes Front From 74 dodge swinger Rear From 74 Chrysler imperial What a huge difference to say the least but your video makes so much sense !!! 😎👍
You are correct. Bigger brakes will not make you stop faster. The limiting factor is the traction your tires give you. It's pretty simple. However, at the track, you only need bigger brakes because small brakes will heat up faster and then become dangerous as they lose their braking power, and other things can happen too, like boiled fuild and such...
Not only will they be more reliable on track, they will also allow for less exhausting braking, due to the increased leverage and clamping force. But down the line every brake setup is capable of overcoming tyre traction.
@@Phrew Well to be fair this video touched up more about stuff not presented in the original. My question was that wouldn't upgrading brakes matter once you upgrade the tires to have enough grip to not be able to lock up on stock brakes, and the answer is yes.
Man it made me so man every time a car reviewer slams the brakes on a nice car and goes "man these are nice brakes" then goes to talk about the brake rotor size. THANK YOU for helping put the right information out there even if some people are actively arguing with you.
Loved the video. What most people probably experience is that their new brakes bite harder after "upgrading", which hopefully feels nice, but does nothing to reduce braking distance at the tire limit. I also wanted to add that even for track day use, all you need is brake pads and fluid designed for track use. Because they work at higher temperatures, and maintain brake force even after repeated stops. Brake caliper and rotor upgrades may look nice, but sometimes actually alter the brake bias front to rear. This may or may not be beneficial depending on what tires you use, and how you prefer to drive into corners. And BTW, upgrading brake calipers and rotors and then still mounting street-type brake pads gets you nowhere for track use. It is really the pads, fluid and cooling that makes a big difference, not calipers and rotors. Unfortunately most brake pads designed for track use do not work well on the street, so you end up having to swap back and forth. Carbon ceramic brakes may be an exception to this.
Carbon ceramics are bad for track use, they fail quickly when exposed to excessive heat. But they're perfect for street driving, no brake dust and last forever
you hit on something there. a more intense bite is a negative on breaking performance, as it reduces ability to modulate the brakes. those who find that increased bite to be an advantage likely are terrible at using brakes in any performance situation
@@stevesamuel263 Don't forget they are ridiculously expensive. No one is tracking carbon ceramic rotors without having a trust fund or rich sponsor. Replacements are thousands of dollars.
if you have a japanese car dixcel makes some really good pads rated for both street and track use, but they are definitely not cheap even when not including shipping. dixcel z-type pads, bought them for my car after i had a bit of brake fade after some fairly hard mountain runs. these things can brake all day, but they do emit a lot of dust.
New breaks decrease braking distance. You start going into nuances which author of the video did not went. He talked about ABS, but omitted to tell you how ABS INCREASE braking distance. That is only natural, because they keep on releasing brakes during braking. And why you are concerned about emergency braking distance? Better brakes will no doubt decrease distance it takes to brake due to tire lockout, but it will come at a severe trade off of braking control. Either way, a skillful driver can replace ABS by just being good by simply disengaging brakes himself when he need to shift directions.
Good explanation on clearing things up. I think a lot of people were thinking about the theoretical model of just increasing braking force instead of the application of bringing an actual vehicle to a stop faster.
I can say this guy is absolutely right and I speak from "experience". I play Automation the car company game and a misconception I used to have was "stronger, bigger brakes = shortest stopping distance". My cars used to have 6 piston brakes with high quality sports tires and every time I drove my cars, it felt like the car wasn't stopping properly compared to the BeamNG cars. Then I looked at one of the graphs in Automation and realized that my brakes for example had 12000 newtons of force compared to a 8000 newton grip limit of the tires. I had to reduce the braking power so it was closer to the tires' grip limit and guess what? My cars were actually braking properly. The tires dictate how much power you send to the ground and how well you stop (of course, depending on the surface you're on). Use slick tires on ice? You're not going anywhere because your tires have no grip. And the guy at 0:42 who commented that F1 cars and trucks have huge brakes forgot two details: 1) F1 cars have slick tires, you know, the tires with the insanest amount of grip on dry roads. Of course those can be used along with carbon ceramic brakes because those slicks have the grip to handle the carbon brakes. And since F1 cars don't have ABS, we see the tires locking up sometimes, because the brake force was higher than the tire grip. 2) Friction force = µ • N. Y'all remember this equation. The higher the normal force, the higher the friction force. Trucks are heavy, so they have high normal force and thus, higher friction force on the tires, which justifies them having huge brakes. And they need those brakes because you want those 50 tons of cargo to stop quickly in an emergency, don't you agree?
Really love your way of explaining, I was shocked when you said people in your comments thought bigger brakes helped stopping distance "under normal road use"
Nowadays I just service my motorbikes by myself, yet I am still a petrol head. Your channel is definitely one of the best in taking time and delving very 'rationally' into the details. Learning or refreshing knowledge. Thanks for your great work!
Too much braking force in the rear may cause locking of only rear wheels and loss of vehicle control (Oversteer.) Typical bias is front because of vehicle momentum shifting forward whilst braking.
@@vaerxxx3231 Yes there is weight transfer under braking but how much weight transfer is dependent on some vehicle physical attributes (such as the height of the CoG above the ground, weight distribution etc) but crucially weight transfer is also dependent on the rate of deceleration. Higher rate of decel will result in more weight transfer. And now it gets tricky because there are countless factors that can effect grip and thus peak deceleration (tyres, wet/dry road, weight etc). So in reality it is impossible for any passive brake system to achieve an optimum brake bias for all conditions. The result is vehicle manufacturers tend to opt for a 'safe' brake bias (i.e. forwards bias) because as you say, a overly rearwards bias would be like pulling up the handbrake every time you brake hard and that is definitely NOT the way to make a car fast.... However, since all manufacturers go for a very 'safe' brake balance, there is often performance to be found by shifting the brake bias marginally rearwards (e.g. by installing rear pads that have a slightly higher friction coefficient than the front pads). This will shift the brake bias rearwards towards a more 'neutral' brake balance which will reduce stopping distances. The tradeoff being the rear of the car will become slightly more unstable during braking.... A 5-10% shift REARWARDS in brake bias however is still very controllable for even a moderately skilled driver and could even further improve lap times by helping the car rotate on the brakes during corner entry.
@@adamfreeman3000 small corrections/notes factory brakes can also lock the rear wheels so no gain in stopping distance. Lap times might be improved as usually 'racers' like more oversteering behaviour. (Which is not really 'neutral' :) ) abs also does brake force distribution so it is not only hardware
I agree with what you are saying. Once i increased the power of my stock engine to nearly double, on day to day driving around town i did not need a big brake updated. However once i started driving on track, i found out that after the 3/4th lap my stock brakes gave up and. my next investment was bigger brakes and disks which helped on track, but yet again on day to day driving i cannot see i massive increase in stopping in town with the bigger brakes.
The only possible argument that larger brake discs reduce stopping distance is that it reduces TTL (time to lock) so you gain that area under the curve. That said big brake kits don't just change the disc diameter but also caliper volume consumption so you may have to displace more fluid to achieve that brake force increasing TTL. Also depending on the suspension applying brake force too rapidly may paradoxically increase stopping distance due to dynamic weight transfer oscillations. All this to say it's "possible" a big brake kit may reduce braking distance in a single emergency event but it's highly dependent on the overall system and the overall impact will be small.
One thing that many miss is that massive, ultra powerful brakes also increase the unsprung mass of the car, possibly leading to worse suspension. (tyre+rim weight will, of course, have a bigger effect, but this is something many people don't think about) I was going to mention the brake feel aspect, but of course the video went into that! And yes please: videos on brake bias and all that other good stuff
Usually the stock single piston floating calipers on most vehicles are made of cast iron, while the fixed caliper multi-piston setups that most enthusiasts use for brake upgrades are made of aluminum, so usually brake upgrade mods get you unsprung mass weight savings. I have upgraded the brakes on my Mk7 GTI because it's my track car, and the stock floating calipers are perfect for street driving, but would overheat and fade after a couple of laps on a short track where the lack of long straights cannot cool them down between corners, especially when running on sticky track tires. The upgraded calipers (Audi TTS, fixed 4-piston aluminum calipers) even with the larger discs are about 40% lighter than the stock calipers & discs setup, plus the fixed calipers give a much better brake feel than floating calipers ever could, especially at the limit. Again, this is a track car setup, for street driving it would 100% be a waste, just like D4A says.
This.. I'm part of a car club for a specific vehicle model and in the early days of the club (early 00's) everyone was doing the "big brake upgrade" of pulling the bigger rotors and callipers from the sedan model and putting them onto the coupe model, but over the years it's become common knowledge that new oem coupe setups out-brake the sedan setups in every scenario, they were just made well enough that the heat dissipation advantages of the bigger rotors and callipers were completely negligible compared to the disadvantages of the unsprung mass increase even in track situations. So the only way to get better brake performance is to splash out on track specific systems that are lighter, which are few and far between for 25 year old Mitsubishis.. This really clicked for me when I went from 6.5" alloy to 8" steel wheels as a teenager.. I figured wider = wider tyres = more grip = better performance but in reality on a car that weighs less than 900kg (1900ish lbs) the 8" wheels were *that* much heavier that there was basically 0 performance increase. Currently sitting on a much lighter set of 8" alloys and the difference is crazy. Now the limiting factor is that the stock seats dont hold me straight enough to corner any harder lmao
Not only would larger breaks negatively effect the sprung/unsprung ratio, giving worse teaction, & actually negatively effecting breaking distance.. and everything else your suspension does, then there's also the spinning mass consideration. Anything spinning on a car has to be accelerated twice. Once to turn it, & again to move it forward. Twice as much energy is expended in moving a spinning part. Meaning that 1lbs of weight reduction on a spinning part is worth 2 lbs anywhere else on the car. Between that & the unsprung ratio, this is why lighter wheels is such an important modification in sports applications. This is true, of course, not only for accelerating the part, but also for decelerating it. More force is required to stop a spinning part than a fixed one.
@@mr.e8282 It's even worse than that! The angular moment of inertia for the brake rotors will increase with the square of diameter, i.e. doubling the diameter will quadruple the momentum needed to spin it to the same RPM. So a rotating part takes 2 times the energy to move as a non-rotating part, TIMES the square of the diameter!
Good video. Another thing to consider is that bigger brakes will often increase unsprung weight. And that has a negative impact on handling. Because of that, I would only use bigger brakes if absolutely necessary.
This is true and it often times is offset by much lighter aftermarket wheels. The overall weight though may still increase depending on the size of said wheel tire combo.
I do not know how to call it proffesionally because English is not my 1st language, but the good thing you can do is to change your rotors to the ventilated ones of the same size as you had before. They will overheat less easily and weigh the same.
Whoever argued stock breaks can't stop had a faulty break system lol. A 2002 Focus Wagon with 5 ppl and luggage inside could go through a 20 minutes almost-rally conditions run with multiple speedup and break at the line of ABS engagement before it even started to fade. True, at the end it could barely stop easing at the parking spot, but it took so much punishment that no amount of regular use breaking could possibly come into effect of over-doing the break limits. If you are a regular Joe who doesn't drive an up-armored and overloaded truck and in a worry that will need to go into a highway chase with bandits or having a way upgraded diesel engine and afraid of runaway condition with malfunctioning transmission, you definitely don't need a new break system.
If your current brake setup can lock the wheels up or induce ABS, you have reached the maximum capability for that vehicle. You cannot exceed maximum. It doesn't matter if your discs are 4 ft. in diameter, you can't clamp down harder than maximum.
The only missed common exception I can think of is when oversized aftermarket tires are added. Many 4x4 guys are familiar with this. Going from, for example, stock 30" diameter tires on a jeep to 37" tires CAN be a large enough change to exceed the stock caliper's capability. It also is HIGHLY noticeable on acceleration! In this case the additional power of bigger brakes may be necessary, as well as a re-gear to regain some semblance of acceleration, because you have far exceeded the original design parameters.
That's again because you've added cross sectional area on the tire, but yes I think due to the added rotational mass the "factory" requirement for the size would be larger
My 4WD has upsized tyres (diameter, width, and heavier duty construction) and additional weight in modifications (bar work, batteries, drawers etc). I definitely found it hard to lock up the brakes on high traction surfaces until I upgraded the brakes to a larger diameter (318-338mm).
That's wrong... Even if you oversize like that your tires... Brakes have enough torque to lock rotation. Don't forget that what's in contact with the road is like a little line... Bigger tires doesn't mean bigger grip in the road. So... At the same speed... Bigger tires mean that the rotation of the tire is smaller. So... The brake's still capable of locking completely the tires... 🎉
@@carlos11111926 Wrong. Tire radius is directly correlated to the amount of torque needed to lock the tyre. Torque necessary to lock wheel = Tyre radius * Weight on tyre under dynamic condition Increasing the tyre radius makes it harder to lock the wheels because of the increased leverage (therefore increased inertia). It has nothing to do with the grip of your tyre.
@@leorousselet2910 Yes, but the factor is not enough to create a real problem. The brakes on a car are designed to block the rotation really very easily...It's almost impossible to mount wheels on a car that will cause the brakes to no longer block the rotation... It would be to say that the brakes have been badly developed.
Great vid! I 100% agree that big brakes do not mean better stopping. However, I will say that in my specific case they were better. I recently put a big brake kit on my toyota corrolla. I can say, with testing, they do their job better. This vehicle is a track car and while the brakes stopped just fine with performance brake pads, it was a squishy pedal and hard to feel lockups. Not because the brakes were too small, but because the calipers had flex. Through extensive tesing and diagnosis, the caliper flex was the issue. Lots of Bleeding the brakes, replacement master cylinder, caliper rebuilding, still did not reduce the feeling. Then I noticed the calipers had just a bit of flex, less than a milimeter, when brakes were applied. Willwood front 4 piston brakes, BOOM, pedal feels like a normal car. However, they are bigger and now have a differnt piston to master cyl ratio, so I hope I wont be locking up the fronts... Anyways, story over, I'll be testing them at auto X this weekend.
Good luck! Let us know how it goes. Yes, definitely caliper flex can mess up braking. At the end of the day that's the key issue, brake feel. Because feel and modulation are beyond important for brakes.
You’ve probably discovered this by now, but fun fact; if your ABS is still operational on your track car, it will still kick in to prevent lock up on your front brakes. This might happen faster than it did with the stock brakes, so be careful and have fun.
When a driver jams on the brakes and it immediately activates the ABS, does not necessary mean the brakes are adequate. Automobile manufacturers have taken in account vehicles that tow trailers, or are fully loaded for breaking and sufficient to prevent overheating on long downhill grades. As you are aware recently the motorcycle industry has responded to poor breaking by installing dual rotors on front wheels, 70 percent of the braking, after ABS became more standard. ABS has reduced accidents because it easier for the rider to control the bike by not locking up the wheels during an emergency stop resulting in a shorter distance. However, even with ABS a motorcycle can be stopped in a shorter distance, when the rider loads the front wheel with the rear brake.. If a rider is experienced in emergency braking with standard brakes,, they can actually stop the bike in shorter distance than a bike with ABS.
I came across youyr channel a few weeks ago and i have to say, it is just what i need. Someone who obviously knows what he is talking about and presents it logically. we really need more people who think like this, look at the world and dont feel, but try and contrast. I love it, keep it up. It makes me really think. I love it. I love you, and its amaizing. Thanks Im a fan!!
I ended up on this video trying to figure out how my 37“ mudding tires work on pavement 😹 I learned so much and this was wonderfully done! Thank you for touching on the importance of learning your car stock first 😭 it makes everything so much easier!
I seriously can not thank you enough for how much you have helped me with understanding cars over the years. You alongside with Engineering Explained have incredibly informative videos, that are short, brief and straight to the point, I'll be it with some skits here and there but that's always fine :). If you were to read this, I would recommend doing some videos on race/street suspension, how it works and how it could be improved. Also, maybe more videos on rotary engine dynamics? Could be both interesting choices, just a recommendation though! Have a great day/night!
EE is incorrect so often that I unsubbed. He uses "math" to 'prove' incorrect positions. Take the hydrogen fuel video from a while ago. "Oh, the fuel tank volume of a GTR gives the car 50mi range" GREAT its designed for a DIFFRENT FUEL. No shit its not optimized for hydrogen, its designed for gasoline. The hell does that prove? Li-ion is 0.08kwh/L and hydrogen is 1.1kwh/L(@500bar, not unheard of. Can go up to 2.3kwh/L) So all battery cars are invalid? He argues that hydrogen cars are mathematically impossible, and while BEVs are less than hydrogen. What a shill and a clown.
Tires and then suspension are generally going to be your biggest inprovements to braking time. Once youve improved the tires though, you add more traction, and thus it CAN help to improve the brakes (more pistons or more leverage or both). It CAN help. It probably wont in many cases, but hell, it wont generally hurt much of anything to my recollection, and a lot of the better quality brake kits, and pads, and such have better brake fade characteristics under heated conditions. (See also racing) Another thing you should take into account, if you throw on 20s or something ridiculous onto your small car youre adding a lot of extra rotational energy to those tires, and thus it is often worth it to throw in better brakes to handle it.
I put urethane control arm bushings on my 1998 Camry, upgraded the steel 14-inch wheels to 16-inch Lexus ES330 wheels, and put wider, lower profile tires on the car. The tire size was carefully calculated to maintain the same outer diameter and circumference to about half a percent, IIRC. With that, I also kept the stock front brake calipers and rotor diameter, but upgraded to drilled & slotted discs sandwiched between ceramic brake pads. Later I ditched the rear drum brakes (5S-FE 4-cylinder) and installed the rear disc brakes from a V6 Camry of the same model year. Acceleration with that 130 HP 4-banger was "meh", but the car cornered and stopped quite well (even with a loaded trailer).
Those commenters are trying to justify spending thousands on their big brake kit they bought lol The only time big brake kits can actually help over stock sized brakes is if: 1. You had sub-OEM quality brakes to start off with 2. You're running racing slicks, which do actually have more grip than most stock brakes can handle 3. You're driving on track days. Bigger brakes = better heat dissipation = less brake fade. On a standard road car that's only going to be driven on the road with road legal tyres, big brake kits aren't going to do anything and they're more of an aesthetic thing.
This is a great video! I've had this conversation with so many people. Tires are more important to stopping than brakes, especially on a sports car. I only upgraded my brakes on my RX-7 once I improved my driving skills to surpass what my tire/brake set-up could handle. I upped the tires to a track tire, and then upgraded the brakes to match the upped grip. I didn't go BBK though, I only upgraded pads and discs to slotted.
A major point you missed here is that upgraded brakes look cool, hence, better stopping distances.😉 Good job, D4A. Looking forward to your next video.❤
One of the things I learned from Forza is that increasing brake pressure does *not* necessarily decrease braking distance. Even in older cars with outdated braking systems, I only really upgrade the brakes when I feel that the brake bias is wrong, not so much the brake pressure (or if I just want some weight reduction). This is easy to feel when ABS is turned off like on my current setup. Thanks for providing us with this quality content!
@@nicholasagnew2792 I'd suggest the commenter may have been thinking about drum brakes, and also cars that have no brake booster, what was once called 'Power Brakes', and once upon a time was an optional extra. In the grand scheme of things, it wasn't that long ago that all cars had drum brakes. In fact, for many years, disc brakes were optional extras. So yeah, there are 'outdated' braking systems. In the days of drum brakes, you had to use your gearbox to assist in braking down mountain ranges because if you didn't, you'd lose your brakes through overheating before you reached the bottom of said mountain range or hill.
I'm amazed that people disagreed with this. I've had various old cars with over the years and none lacked brake force (although some required a lot more pedal force to lock up the wheels). Example, a 1956 Morris Minor with tiny 6" drums all around and no brake booster... They were regarded as very average brakes even in their day, but you could lock up all 4 wheels no problem even with modern tires. The problem with the small drum brakes was overheating due to poor heat dissipation, and also uneven lockup and poor control in panic braking situations, not lack of brake force.
V good video putting the myth of big brake upgrades to rest. What is often ignored is the fact that most upgraders will also use more aggressive pads with their big brake kit. Aggressive pads bites quicker compared to stock pads. Also upgrade kits tend to come with steel braided lines compared to rubber brake hose and these with the aggressive pads will reduce compliance in the system and give a more immediate feel to the brake plus seemingly less foot pressure required to lock the wheels so they conclude that bigger brakes will stop you faster.
Very well said! I still use the stock STi brakes and they are very very good even after 10 emergency brakes (stopped from about 160 km/h). They actually getting even better when they are warmed up. No fading at all. I heard a lot of times that I should upgrade my brakes. I think the most people just want big discs with holes in it.
@@randellgribben9772 The holes help to prevent the buildup of gas and debris between the brake pads and the disc, which can reduce the effectiveness of the brakes. It's like a cleaning function. Also the temperature regulation should be better. But it's important that the material of the brake disc is good. Otherwise it looks only cool but perfom maybe even worse as the original.
@@benjaminwatson7868 Yes, heat dissipation is also one another reason. Weight reduction, disc deformation, higher friction force are another... so there many reasons. But if you have bad/cheap disc material the holes will let the brake just crack because of the thermal stress concentrated around the holes.
Ahhhh, refreshing. Someone else to try to get this point through to people that just can't grasp it. I'll take a brake... (Break. I did it intentionally...)
I think once you go with wider, stickier tires, the stock brakes become overworked and become the bottleneck. The main reason for BBK on road cars is to increase heat sink capability and reduce fade. Particularly for heavy track driving where stock brakes tend to get mushy after a few laps. So when you do increase grip and power, BBKs become more relevent.
Both videos address what larger brake kits do and point out that almost every person that puts larger brakes on their vehicles lacks the required skill to overwork even their factory brakes during track driving without ending up in the wall.
@@davereeves1967 I think it's a bit presumptious to think that almost every person that puts larger brakes do not know how to drive theier car at the limit. There are many viewers out here that have a great deal of ecperience. While I believe the poster's comments are scientifically correct, I think it's missing some real world, practical track knowledge.. As you increase the performance of the car through hp, traction, lateral grip, aerodynamics, etc.. it's crucial to upgrade the brakes to handle the increase in power and grip.
@@speeeding It's not presumptuous at all. And he already said what you said. He said it in both videos, in fact. Try watching them. Pretty informative.
@@speeeding The vast majority of drivers never go to a track. Even the vast majority of people who modify their cars never go to a track. And even then, it takes a great amount of track experience for most to start using their braking system to its full potential. 95% of drivers do not have the driving ability to take their car anywhere near its limit. They run out of talent and ability far before they run out of car.
^ this, if your car has a few years on it - the best thing you can do to improve brake feel, assuming of course that you are changing the fluid at the recommended intervals, is to put new hoses on or even upgrade to a certified set of braided lines. And if your car is 20 years or more with the original rubber brake hoses - check them now, especially near the ends, the cracking can be an eye opener.
A lot of drivers do not realise that the brake pedal is the pedal that wastes the most fuel by converting the energy given to the vehicle into heat.... thank you- another good analysis.
Awesome video yet again! I’m taking a physics course atm, and it is really cool to to see what I’m learning explained (and be really understandable). I think more people should pay attention in physics class 😁
I'm glad you went further in depth with explaining stock brakes and big brake upgrades. Any vehicle is limited by the tire size and type as far as stopping distance. The ice was a great example. Even the best brakes can't stop you if you don't have traction(coefficient of friction). I'll even go further and say the $2m McLaren has stock brakes. I'd love to see if that has a brake upgrade.
@@merkel2750 doesn't that mean stock? If it came with the vehicle originally? If it was $100 million. A lot of cars have high performance brakes with brake upgrades available.
@@housepumpinpc3983 yeah, now name a toyota car with the same quality/performance/reliability/anti brake fade as that mclaren…. Just because it came factory doesn’t mean it’s the best or the worst, the slowest or the fastest. “Stock” isn’t something that translates across the board. It’s a fluid meaning.
@@merkel2750 Lexus LFA comes to mind. A high performance Toyota. Stock isn't fluid. Stock is what comes with the vehicle base. The minimum. Some of these vehicles you can get upgrades from the factory/dealer. Now that wouldn't be stock. Now a $2m McLaren would have better brakes for a vehicle of that caliber but a VW may have a better stopping distance 60-0 but that same VW may only go 80mph. I'm certainly, in agreement. A $2m vehicle has brakes probably more expensive than whole vehicles. But a $10m 1956 Aston Martin has crappy brakes in comparison to the McLaren. Both stock even with the more expensive car.
Can confirm this. I only upgraded because I use to tow a lot around hills. Without any weight or trailer attached, my stopping distance is the same as if it were stock because... I have stock sized tires.
This man is a gift to the car community.
He's a proper car enthusiast with an engineering mind. Great that he can make nice videos too!
He's saving me so much money! 😂
oh yea definitely he is
For sure
As a professional race car driver NASCAR breaks are just as critical as acceleration on a paved short track .
Remember y'all - this is the man who described what is happening with each "stu-tu-tu" noise in your turbo. You will never beat this final boss
which video was that? I'm very intrigued now.
@@ytdood i second that notion
@@ytdood it was in boost school
Has this dude ever tried brembos? They stop more
@@griffon2-6
th-cam.com/video/BFXIgME_5UA/w-d-xo.html
The dude didn't insult the people who treat him "idiot" while proving his point. Real humility
I think the best insult is proving your point to them while not saying any insult because maturity wins harder
He even gave them them all the possible benefits of the doubt
more maturity than humility imo
Even though he's still wrong. His reasoning sounds legit, in theory. But in real life he leaves out a lot of factors that have a much bigger effect than the slight mechanical advantage of larger diameter rotors.
@@awo1fman Note how you didn't name a single one, or demonstrate how that's going to outperform a device that's already limited by the tires. Since they're all capable of locking the tires and triggering ABS. In real life, he gave you several factor that might make you think bigger brakes are helping. He even left out the psychological effect that people expecting something are more likely to feel something, even if it isn't there.
You've learned that it's simply impossible to tell others with "deeply held beliefs" that they're wrong without causing extreme pain to their butts.
This is literally humanity's biggest flaw 😂. We've all been guilty of doing it at least once in our lives, but sadly not everyone becomes self aware of this as they get older. When it comes to politics, it's truly astounding how many people refuse to even consider the possibility of them being wrong. They've built their entire life around their ideology, so to admit they are wrong is like realising they've been living a lie.
God is real
@@-Eternal-Damnation- I'd rather learn why something is true than be accidentally right about something.
@@-Eternal-Damnation-politics cant be wrong or right . Its not a physical thing quantified by numbers in repeatable experiments.
Its just opinion on morality. Completely subjective .
@@avancalledrupert5130Huh, not entirely. Lots of policy does a measurable quantifiable thing, before and after. A simple example would be if I tried to pass a policy of “no more repairing the roads”, where people claim that the roads will stay perfect for 100 years because of this policy. That just isn’t the case. You can also look at a policy like that and state as a fact that “the roads won’t be repaired”. None of that is opinion. What’s opinion is whether repairing the roads is good or not, but the input and historical data, and the result of the policy, and not debatable…and yet people argue about it.
Big respect not only for posting a follow up, but for maintaining your professionalism when others couldn't. This is a huge reason why this channel is my #1 when it comes to understanding automotive engineering with the intent of educating others - your commitment to providing content of exceptional quality shows in every video! Keep up the excellent work, and I can't wait for the next one! 👍
He made another video because he had a serious mistake in the first video @ th-cam.com/video/CyH5xOcsXxs/w-d-xo.html He showed a cross-section of the tires without considering the other dimension. Skinny and wider tires have the same 2D contact patch area!
Google: "discount tire contact patch" for an illustration.
Performance vehicles often use wider tires. This does not necessarily increase the size of the contact patch but rather changes its surface shape. Reshaping the contact patch makes it more efficient for accelerating, braking and handling.
@@johngalt1199 Most people do not realize this. Of course tire pressure and tire sizes do have some effect. But for proper inflation pressures and similar tire construction it is only the shape, not the actual contact area, which really changes.
Personally, I appreciate the effort you put into explaining things and enjoy your videos.
Thank you!
👍👍
Totally agree
@@d4a the brakes will stop you faster than the tires?
@Trevor Brannon because the would get to hot and fail
I appreciate that you don’t waste our time with jokes, or with constantly interrupting the video with other stupid and loud clips to make a joke. I appreciate that I can watch it without constantly bringing the volume up and down. And most of all, I appreciate the knowledge and fantastic explanations. Man you’re awesome.
Did you miss the hilarious people sliding on ice??? ;-)
Agree 100%, there are other channels which are good but too many unhappy jokes, channels with a lot more subs. I don't know if that type of humour appeals to Americans, but to my knowledge that doesn't work in Europe. This guy is from Europe and so am I. I don't find those jokes that funny and there's a time and a place. Following an explanation and hearing puns and cheap sex jokes every 2 minutes makes me want to change video
@@23max232323232323 absolutely! Once or twice per video is more than enough for an internationally accepted joke
This seems oddly specific 💀💀💀💀
Thats cuz its directed towards old Donut style videos
The TL;DR is that if your brakes are capable of locking up with the tires you're using, they have more than enough force. You can't stop faster without increasing grip. Big brakes are primarily for fighting brake fade from overheating due to heavy, repeated use.
There's one sort-of-exception: if you switch a car on stock brakes to racing tires, the stock brakes might no longer be enough to lock up with the increased grip, meaning you do need more force from the brakes themselves.
Yeah honestly should have been highlighted more. I have experienced brake fade before running semi slicks on a stock economy car. Quite scary.
The people who got upset had just spent thousands on a big brake kit.
And the brake kit suppliers and manufacturers.
And brakes aren't the only cost. When you have giant brakes, you need to buy bigger rims and thinner tires. Weirdly shaped tires are automatically like 3x as expensive as mass produced normal size tires.
About to say that, usually that's the case. They overspend n need to vent out. He was the perfect blacksheep.
About to say that, usually that's the case. They overspend n need to vent out. He was the perfect blacksheep.
The sunk-cost fallacy was strong on those individuals
Great set of videos. I teach high performance driving to many new drivers and we always recommend they save their money by not upgrading to larger brakes (for a couple years at least while they are learning to drive). Pads? Yes. Fluid? Yes. Brake ducts? Yes. All for the same reason: heat management. Want to brake in shorter distance? Upgrade the tires.
Tires and damping control. Better tuned shock absorbers help control weight transfer and can absolutely help decrease stopping distance when tuned PROPERLY for the vehicle and paired with stickier/wider tires
Many years ago, I was told that THE best performance upgrade you could buy for cars or bikes was fuel, or to put it another way more time behind the wheel, or if you really need it breaking down, improving the driver.
A better driver won't use the brakes as often or as much, without sacrificing speed, because they understand the capabilities of their chosen ride.
Excellent video as always ... 🙂
@johnsantiago7836 is 100% correct. If your brakes are sufficient to lock up your tires (or engage the anti-lock) then the limiting factor is your tires. All the rest is about heat management.
Another unpopular but true thing about brakes... drilled and slotted rotors are a marketing gimmick. With old pads that off-gassed a lot when they overheated drilled and/or slotted rotors helped but they are good for nothing except marketing today.
@@ukemike1well I had the same opinion, but upon further inspection, it is not the case. Drilled or slotted disks can and will improve braking distance on HARD breaking, just because they self clean better and they gain a tiny cross sectional area that helps them cool a bit faster (not by a lot of course, and this isn't the main reason as to why they are "better" than non drilled ones). You can see an experiment garage 54 did, but we also did some simulations in my engineering school, and yes, just because they can clean themselves better, the callipers can grab the rotors more efficiently without slipping. The gains while kinda small, they are noticeable. Are they worth the extra 80-xxx$ more than the regular ones? Absolutely not, and THAT makes them a marketing gimmick. Do they have some benefits tho? Yes
@@JellyBean-ed2uq But they give cool points. As such, I too fell for slotted rotors.
So in summary larger rotors and calipers can help shed off heat which will help delay or even prevent brake fade under extreme use such as a race track, but they do not decrease stopping distance.
Also a video on master cylinder ratios would be nice.
Yes, the tires are the most important thing, but the brakes come right after that.
Size matters for braking the disc itself, it's a question of leverage, but it's useless as brake power is always higher than the tyre ability to brake. So your car would skid anyway once you overpowered the tyres ability to stop the car. If you have ABS, it'll make no difference. I don't think he mentions that because it would need further explanation. So technically the disc stops better if it's bigger, it wouldn't give any advantage in stopping the car. That's why cars or motorcycles have different brakes at the front and at the rear, they're all calibrated according to weight distribution, tyres, suspensions, etc.. ABS interrupts and reactivates the brakes not to have you car skid, that means brakes are already too powerful, no point in making them more powerful. In racing condition is different, standard brakes are not calibrated to constantly be under pressure, therefore you need something that keeps them at the optimal temperature even if you brake hard all the the time. Whether you do that with bigger brakes or better ventilation, that depends on many factors. E.G.: on motorbikes the front is quite big and has holes for better cooling, on cars the front one can't go beyond a certain size, so it normally has two parts stuck together that lets air flow in between these two parts for cooling purposes.
I only view it as bigger disks means less fade. On my S4 And A4 using oem parts I can go from either 321 mm or the A4 288mm disks to the 360mm D3 and D3 W12 385mm rotors. All in the name of looks.
Yes, bigger brakes will not you stop faster, but make you slow down faster for example from 200-150 km/h where ABS is not involved
you are absolutely wrong cause stock brakes can still easily lock up your wheels even at a 200 km/h so it still makes no difference between stock and bigger brakes. Bigger brakes only have impact when you drive on race track where you have to brake every corner, so your brakes wont overheat as fast@@jakub.686
Brilliant video! Spot on!
I’ve been an Automotive Engineer for the past 14years, most of that time being in Brakes Engineering, working for Renault, Ricardo UK, Bosch Engineering and recently I moved to Jaguar Land Rover and I can confirm that ‘bigger’ brakes will only do one think, in the vast majority of cases, they will disturb the brake feel and the modulation as the brakes will tend to lockup faster as you very well stated in this video.
Also if they are aftermarket brakes don’t be surprised if they are ‘noisy’.
Unless you are racing, I wouldn’t even touch the stock brakes.
We spend years getting the system sized correctly and the adequate pedal feel.
More importantly most of the stock brakes are quiet, because of a very good reason we literally spend over two years in Brakes Refinement testing by making sure that the brakes are quiet, many millions of pounds are spent in that respect.
With aftermarket brakes you cannot have the same level of Brakes Refinement as the aftermarket doesn’t have access to the same level of dyno, CAE and vehicle testing as an OEM does.
Most of the braking systems are oversized anyway, as most OEMs design the braking system around the AMS test, which is not even a legislative requirement.
The AMS test is extremely severe (10 consecutive brake stops from 100kph to 0) and it’s not a realistic use case.
Consequently we end up with very big brakes and more importantly very heavy brakes.
Therefore do yourself a favour and unless you are racing and you need the thermal capacity, then do not waste your money on shinny new ‘big’ brakes.
I don't think AMS test is extremely severe. Imagine going down a mountain road. You might keep the brakes engaged for a lot of the trip going down. Would really suck if the brakes start to fade.
Also imagine the brakes aren't brand new, but on a 20 year old car, that was maintained by an average person, and that doesn't really care about fanatic maintenance.
Most people do maintenance on brakes only when weird sound appear, especially on older cars.
also a case that i have been peripherally involved with - you have a 18 year old daughter who loves horses and takes two horses in a fully loaded float to the local dressage show up a 1600 foot hill the return trip is a 4 mile windy descent the vehicle is an automatic and no one has taught her about low range in the 'box - she encountered a runaway situation towards the bottom of the hill and did not have the experience or presence of mind to save the situation @@antonio94
100 -0 is extremely severe? 😂😂😂🤡
@@antonio94 If you keep brakes engaged on a downhill road you need to go back to driving school.
@@antonio94 why aren't you pushing that clutch in and selecting a lower gear? You shouldn't be driving down a mountain using only your brakes. Quite the opposite.
That was the most genuine “seek help” I’ve seen😂 he really does seem like a cool dude.
It is amazing to see how nervous and rude (to use polite terms) people can become when contradicted; but it is even more surprising to see your patience and kindness in re-explaining the arguments, despite all the insults given by uncivilized people
Totally agree. I was expecting something like "to everyone who called me an idiot, apparently you're all idiots" or else. But this coldblooded smart guy is incomparable to those "comment experts". Gentle, tactful, yet accurate and cogent. Love his vids
@@randomguyjustpassingby although,i bet some people would find it insulting to be told to seek help because they got worked up over a brake video.
there are aways those kind of people that finds problems in any case or circumstance with another person,regardless of the topic.
Threat responses are never pretty
It's like some of those people vastly overestimate their knowledge on a subject, and don't want to learn if the facts are contradictory. It's their loss though ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I thought everyone knew braking distances were determined by the tyres? Oh well, excellent explanation for the physics though! 👍🏼
Nope, the people who lack knowledge of the laws of physics only look at the size of the brakes, say with full conviction that "bigger is always better" and then call other people dumb for "not understanding how brakes work."
Also determined by the driver.
And the brakes, as I discovered when the left rear brake line on my 73 Datsun burst like an old garden hose.
Imo if you can lock your wheels and leave skidmarks then you need better tires. If you do experience brake fade however, only then do you upgrade your pads and rotors.
@@tjroelsma put so 10” wide race tyres on a 1300kg car and you’ll likely see a lack of braking power due to increased tyre grip.
I painted my calipers red.
You now have a race car.
I painted my calipers yellow.
+20hp
+5 stoping power
see now that will shorten brake distance.
@@thehorsefromhorsinaboutwhat if i paint them half black half red? Since black is the color of tarmac? Will it be beneficial?
Love your work. Love how you deal with people who have no idea.
Please keep doing what you do. I really enjoy your videos.
Sometimes people can't accept the harsh reality 🤣🤣
Btw a brake system series is a great one
What harsh reality? You're drinking the click bait kool aid if you think your stock break system will be as good as a 3,000K big break kit because this guy says so.
@@Zeriel00 it will for the first 5 minutes on track, next!
@@Zeriel00 guy is really just trying to justify his purchase so he doesn't have buyers remorse anymore. only thing an expensive big brake system is gonna do is look better, have slightly longer lasting pads, and probably last longer for both rotors and calipers
@@Zeriel00 ok if you know everythjng, please explain how a bigger brake system will stop you quicker when the abs system is already reducing braking force in a panic stop with a stock braking system
@@Zeriel00 so we should ignore statistics and believe you, got it
Towards the end I can definitely say that the single best performance part I've ever bought for a car were lighter wheels. Lower unsprung weight dramatically improves handling and lower rotating mass has an exponential effect on acceleration and braking at higher speeds. At legal speeds though it doesn't make much difference.
Should help with comfort too over high frequency bumps provided one doesn't have overly stiff springs and dampers.
This actually helps with fuel efficiency in urban areas a lot too. A lot of energy, therefore power and fuel, is spent on rotating the wheels instead of accelerating the car when you are accelerating. If you remove much of that weight you aren't going to use as much energy to spin the wheels up to speed. This has a compounding effect the faster you go.
That makes a lot of sense. Thats why magnesium wheels are more desireable? Is aluminum lighter than magnesium? I know magnesium ones are more expensive.
Man this stuff is deep. I love learning about it. It helps with figuring out all my builds.
Best car mod I done is switch from 195mm wheels to 215mm. It does not sould like big change but improvement in handling is hudge.
The main rotating masses on a car, apart from brake rotors, wheels & tyres. Is: The Engine, clutch, flywheel, transmission/gearbox, Propshaft, diff & driveshafts!
I've learned more amazing facts about engines and cars from this Man in the last 3-4 years than basic to sophisticated knowledge since I was in my teens. Things that, as an engineering physicist, I should have known. Or figured out on my own. But "motorhead lore" and what seemed to be complicated but "common sense" had polluted my mind. If he says something about motor vehicles, I believe him. And then go back and figure out why I've looked at it wrong for decades.
As an aside. I drove big heavy American V-8s from my teens (1974 -1987). Many were used and cheaper models and had front disk brakes and rear drum brakes. Although I started with a disc/disc 1953 Ford Flathead. I don't know if differential brake wear caused me a problem.
I lived and went to school in LA for 4 years (1980-1984). To numerous to count times, I would come to partially blind freeway corner at ~65 mph only to see traffic at a dead stop ahead. I would stomp the brakes in my 350 V-8 1973 Monte Carlo. The rear drums would immediately lock up. But not the front discs. The car would end up, what seemed like, 80 degrees sideways with me steering into the turn. Totally in control directionally.
Lots of screeching. I could, literally, control the sideways angle of the car by modulating brake pressure. I'd keep it sideways, in total steering control until I was pretty certain I would stop and gradually let off on the brakes. First slowly, and then immediately, it would snap back to straight forward. I was never trained at all in this type of driving. I just happened a lot in LA back then.
The horrors of the 55 mph days. Going 55 mph on a LA freeway would get you killed.
Many of you trained drivers are probably saying, duh? It happened often enough and was so amazing to me that I developed skills in using that technique. My previous cars were also heavy only with drum/drum brakes. This never happened with them. Obviously before ABS systems, did this mean that the proportioning valve was not correct or out of adjustment? Could I have corrected it to make rear lockup less likely?
My personal observation is that a front heavy V-8 car stopped faster when controllably traveling sideways? Am I incorrect about this? I've always been leery of front disc/rear drum brake cars since then. Comments and thoughts are welcome.
After that, I bought a used 1973 350 Corvette Convertible with front and rear discs plus 4 wheel independant suspension. Life was Grand. When I was 25 years old. Just Graduated Med School. I learned what a "women magnet" car really was. It was "chick magnet" back then.
But I didn't want to offend any Karen's who police TH-cam for micro aggressions.
Only one more personal anecdote and a question. I promise.
From 1982-1986, I also occasionally drove my girlfriends early 80s Toyota Tercel 4 cylinder low power and light weight 4 door. Narrow skinny tires on ~14" or less, steel rims. All factory parts. Not a "hotrod" car or one that inspired spirited driving ever.
That car spun itself ( my interpretation) or I spun it >360 degrees on ~ 5 occasions. Always at normal driving speed. Every time, the road was coated with a wet watery mist on top of a normaly dry oily road surface. Never touched the brakes until it was out of control. I guess this is why F1 drivers get the Big Bucks?
My first front wheel drive car, I realized that just letting off the throttle in a normal speed wide sweeping turn simulated only putting on the front brakes. The opposite of a RWD car.
Instantly Initiating the out of control spin. I was lucky as no other traffic was ever around. An instant lesson in oversteer. I believe it was a dangerous vehicle. I've driven many later 1980s FWD cars without any problems. Any ideas on what was done to rectify this vehicle based design problem? Before ABS, traction control, etc.?
Definitely make the video of piston size vs master size ratios.
I put a larger master
And it was excellent improvement.
Even such that when the reservoir is bone dry there is enough fluid in the cylinder for full-braking.
@@fastinradfordable I hope you have also increased the area of your pistons accordingly.
Otherwise you now have less brake pressure than before.
@@kilianortmann9979 wrong
@@cornishcat11 Please elaborate. Pressure is the same at Master cylinder and Brake Pistons. Thus force is proportional to inverse Area. Increase piston area increase brake force, increased Master cylinder area decreases brake force.
@@kilianortmann9979 no the master is SMALLER then the caliper
A video about brake bias, master cylinders, etc. would be great 😊
Agreed!
Seconded.
Thirded lol
+1
Yes!
Thanks for spreading truth. It just shares how few people actually understand how cars actually work.
They get so excited by modifying thier car, they stop using common sense.
I wouldn't really caulk this up to common sense. First thought of "how to stop faster" is "oh the brakes stop you, so bigger brakes must be better at stopping you".
Using "common sense" is usually the first, best way to get something (you know nothing about) all wrong.
@@apex107lrp Not if you know how to look at something critically.
Shows most folks can't use critical thinking skills.
@@ApexwithDavin If that were true engineering degrees wouldnt take years.
@@Brandon_Tyr The time it takes to understand something and the thinking process to understand it are mutually exclusive.
You can understand something new every day and take years to master the topic.
You are absolutely correct and it always blows my mind how often people argue otherwise.
The first part and this video changed my perspective towards the ideas I had on what would improve the braking performance on a streetcar. Thank you. Appreciate your efforts on creating such high quality content
they wont stop you faster once.... but on the track, bigger brakes will stop you faster more than once.
@@reddyfreddy like after brake application number 5 from 200 kph to 0 kph in a row in 3 minutes
I have to say, you are giving by far THE BEST explanations on mechanic and physic topics on youtube! So easy to understand with real word comparisons. Keep up the good work, you have a new fan and subscriber from Ljubljana. Svaka čast jarane!
Hard work you've gotten into trying to explain not so simple concepts to uneducated crowd... one of the best channels around for sure!!
That's literally what education is for. Problems start when some people are immune to knowledge.
I started with the same counterpoint of larger = more leverage. But your explanation is one of a PhD haha thank you for sharing the truth and saving me money
I fitted larger brakes to my old, pre-ABS car and I can report improved feel and better braking - on the track! Vented and grooved rotors with newer style sliding calipers has made the car far better to drive on the track, but on the street, the difference in driving is negligible.
Totally agree with the info in this video
And his explanation is wrong in the real world for a lot of reasons that he absolutely overlooks - or possibly deliberately ignores.
@@awo1fman well I'm glad you let us now how he was wrong with your informative comment.
I would love to hear about the master cylinder to brake caliper ratios. Love these videos.
yes plsss
Yes
That's basic physics/math. The difference in bore size vs piston sizes give leverage and multiply the force coming from the pedal. The pedal on its own do also multiply the force that's made by the foot
Yeah, bring it on!
yeah that would be an interesting topic.
Big brake kits will typically improve your brake feel and ability to modulate the brakes. People confuse this with "better" or "stronger" brakes. Like you said, the tire stops the car, not the brakes. Stock brakes have enough grip to lock up the tires. That is all the brake you need. Anything beyond that is all about brake feel, or ability to dissipate heat for repeated high speed stops (like track use).
Think you nailed it. Bigger brakes allow for more brake durability during track use - because of brake fad. So you can still stop at the limits of your tyres when brakes pads are working at 50%.
Stronger brakes are overrated, all it does is lock up your wheels faster. But they are handy (they don’t overheat as fast) if you’re slowing down from very high speeds. :)
@@angelgjr1999 Completely backwards, weaker brakes tend to lock-up after reaching a certain point. Stronger brakes when set up properly allow better modulation and control.
And they last longer due to bigger pieces of materials, force put through bigger area.
Like for my brake pads I pay 10$ and they last damn a lot.
@@xorbe2 no, Angel is completely correct! As is this video.
Do the brake bias video please! That would be fun to learn about
It's pretty obvious, really. The forward weight transfer while braking means that the front tires have more traction and can take more braking force. The master cylinder applies more hydraulic force to the front. If all wheels got the same, the rear wheels would lock up (bad) while the fronts are not yet achieving maximum braking potential.
Screw that! He should do a video on why my brakes get "Ring around the rotor" on spanking new pads/rotors on stock 4 pot Bremboa
I bought a car with Brembos fitted from new, the sort of things people upgrade to. I managed to cook them on the track to the point of having no braking no matter how hard I pushed. Not just brake grade, but brake vanish!!
Came home, threw out the rotors and pads and upgraded those. Same brakes, same fluid, but better heat dissipation from the rotor and oars that were more heat tolerant and I now have a car that feels no different to drive, but the more I brake, the better it stops as heat gets into the system.
So upgrading the right components, not the whole braking system, is where you’ll get the most benefit.
Great video once again, love your stuff!
My previous car I added a brake kit purely because after a few track sessions I'd have issues with the sliders. Even after rebuilding the calipers, this wasn't the issue with fixed multi pot calipers.
I actually got to try the car with the same brake compound in good condition with and without big brakes. I definitely wasn't able to do as many laps before fade but pedal feel was better on the standard setup again like D4A said it messes up the MC ratio somewhat. With the BBK fitted the pedal was definitely slightly mushier, not terribly but enough for you to notice. The fix for it was to switch to a different MC, but while it was worse than the standard setup it wasn't outright dangerous.
Funnily enough on the trackday with the standard calipers a lot of people left in the afternoon and the track was very quiet. This meant me doing way more laps than I normally would and out of all the braking components it was the fluid that went first as I had a long session and all of a sudden I went to brake and the pedal pretty much went to the floor. The car still did slow down enough so I let everything cool down and came in. Turns out I'd boiled the fluid (Fresh ATE Superblue when you could still get it) before I'd reached the limits of the pads/discs/calipers.
One other benefit was a reduction in unsprung mass that actually improved general feel on the front end as the 4pot wilwoods were much lighter than the standard cast iron slider calipers.
Stopping distance however was identical, on track the only thing that noticeably improved braking distances for me was going from a regular summer tyre to an actual track tyre.
My current car has a factory Brembo option which I'm going to be fitting instead of an aftermarket kit, it's definitely worse on the unsprung mass side but there won't be any brake bias or MC issues. I may not need this but to be honest after you've had any sort of loss of braking during track driving I'd rather have more safety margin than not.
You don't need to upgrade to ride on the streets, that's the point. On track of course you need better heat dissipation, as you're constantly breaking to almost locking, and generating tons of heat in the way. But in the street, unless you're a public danger, you don't need bigger brakes.
However, more leverage can lead to a better braking sensation so if that's your objetive, do it. If you just want to brake more, put on wider tires, as i've made in my car, which will also make your car steer better.
You are very good: 1) easy to listen to; 2) enthusiastic; 3) clear presentation of written and visual aids; 4) organized; and 5) 100 % factually correct. Thank you
I thought your last video was very well done. This one is superb.
The amount of times I've given up trying to explain to people that upgrading their brakes won't make their car stop any faster, it'll just make it easier to lock up their wheels when braking. People don't quite get it, even though everybody does understand tyres can only grip so much before they slip, it's like they know A and they know C but they can't quite work out how B figures into it.
Oh my, it's as though you understand physics!!!😮😂 Don't waste your time educating those who are so dedicated to ignorance.
If they don't have abs, it could even make their braking distance LONGER, since they'd be more likely to lock up and threshold braking would possibly be harder.
I am stunned by this video. I always had this curiosity but never searched for an answer. Thank you for doing this clip. Wow
I learn a lot of new stuff every time I watch your videos. Thanks for the time and effort!
Thank you for the support, I sincerely appreciate it
I would love to see a video on brake bias and other little brake system quirks like that :)
It really sucks to see how negative people can get in the comments of your videos, you've been extremely informative, and I guess people sometimes take it personally when it turns out their mods were not that well thought out, this video was a very good response though.
But damn they look good stopping the same! 😉
Seriously good job on this. You managed to turn a contentious and quite hostile topic into something constructive and informative.
I have an old Jeep Wrangler and all my added peripherals, not performance enhancers, jacks, tools, camping gear have made her heavier. So I figured , several months ago, I thought, bigger brakes, right ? I was fortunate enough to stumble on some old geezer who stated, as opposed to explained, bigger brakes, 4 piston per wheel instead of two = need more fluid = need new master cylinder = all kinds of things for minimal, nearly non existent gain. My spidey sense told me the old guy was on to something. After watching this gem, I NOW understand and am very happy I saved myself a couple of thousand bucks. Modifying my driving and being aware of your vehicle's capabilities is much more valuable. Speed without control is deadly
I definitely want to see a comprehensive video on upgrading a brake system the right way. Seeing the ratios and what would actually increase performance. I am looking to upgrade my brakes, but have no reason to as of yet. I intend to do light track driving and would upgrade instead of replacing my brakes which are running about 10k miles from their end of life.
Brake pads. Maybe slotted or vented rotors but not really worth it if you are doing light track days; just getting some track pads on new stock rotors will do wonders (if you need them properly).
what you want to do is dissapate heat from repeated high speed braking. So things that manage heat better are brake pad compound, rotors with higher vent count (maybe a bit thicker as well), brake ducting, high quality high temp brake fluid. Now to take advantage of ur clamping force you need more traction, I.e a well setup suspension and proper tires.
If you do track driving bigger brakes might be beneficial to counteract brake fade by achieving better heat decapitation, also they look cool 🤷🏻♂️
If your doing track days get some high heat dot 3-4 brake fluid in the system, put the stainless steel braided brake lines if you’d like, there not always needed, go get your self a set of pads meant to handle the heat and abuse for a race track when you get the right pad you will stop incredibly faster than you thought your stock brake system could handle. I recommend ether getting the brake rotors lathed so there fresh for a new pad, or get a set of nice slotted rotors to help give a better bite into the brakes,
Upgrade your stuff in stages, your car is like a science experiment on the track, if you go and upgrade the tires and the suspension and then everything else all at once how will you ever know if your modifications actually made you faster on that track, star off by upgrading your brakes, if you notice that your out performing the tires then upgrade the tires, then you might find your out performing the sway bars upgrade those, but don’t do everything at once.
Now I kind of want a video about aftermarket air intakes! That would probably break the internet.
Simple answer to that is: only do it if your running a vacuum much higher than stock, ooorrrrr you have a car that was gimped by legacy emissions systems like carb and such.
Which is not the majority of cars produced in the last 10 years or so.
Personal experience,
If you only do the open air intake without heat shielding you will lose power.
If you make it into a cold air intake with heat shielding, you’ll probably still lose power.
If you have a turbo or compressor which you have upgraded, then an cold air intake will work. Noticed it myself when the stock new intake was sucked into the box after upgrading a supercharged mini r53 and the car needed a lot more air.
In my mind it gave it a bit more torque and made it faster. Never did real tests though but the sucked in airfilter was for me a give away that it’s better to upgrade after putting a lot more horsepower into a car.
@@Vincentf30 all it does is increase throttle response by 1% but if done with a good cold kit it "could" improve top end performance....for about a week. sucking air from the fender is not all bad unless it sucks air from the engine already like a miata
Try Engineering Explained. He did a video on it like a decade ago.
@@thatslegit
Its also about smoothness of airflow into the intake - the more the flow is disrupted and bounces around, the more the temperature increases and the less dense it becomes.
A differing factor could be the air filter itself and what the type of setup it is (air box/pod filter etc)
From personal experience, i had better results with an OTR (over the rail) intake from the manufacturers performance brand (Holden/HSV) in comparison to an aftermarket "cold" intake coming from the fender.
Great Video! Track stuff is fun but the best reason brake upgrades is definitely TOWING. I upgraded our tow vehicle for just that reason. Quality vented/drilled rotors made a noticeable difference when trailering in the hills/mountains where you use your brakes a lot.
Very true. There you really see what heat does to the ability to brake
Yea but that's completely different and its exactly what he was explaining that bigger brakes are just larger heat sinks. Here you are not comparing stopping distance or power but the performance to reliably do that without fatigue. That's why you go for big brakes
You could consider an engine brake to prevent overheating your normal brakes (just like big trucks have) In hilly and mountainous terrain your engine is your primary brake source. Maybe a bit more difficult with an automatic tranmission.
Ive had brake fade down a steep hill, and its terrifying. Also a good reason to learn how to use gearing and engine braking. If you had to drop in to a lower gear to climb it, you need a lower gear to descend it on the other side.
@@str8xrippin It's actually directly related. Drilled and slotted rotors allow for gas venting and additional air flow to help with heat dissipation. Rather than adding more weight and brake equipment you can get better performance by going with better rotors.
If you need a really serious brake upgrade for towing you probably want to examine your tow vehicle and probably go bigger. I was towing at max capacity for my Ford Freestar so the rotor upgrade was the most I needed, the next step would be getting a truck.
Yeah, there are so many people who don't understand even the basics of everyday life physics, that we literally experience every day. Great work as always D4A.
Anytime anyone is able to brake hard enough to cause the ABS to kick in, that means the car's theoretical limit of braking ability (for a given tyre size & particular road surface) has been achieved. ;)
15:45 at this video sends a very good warning as well. Fully second this. Always choose a good aftermarket BBK from a reputable mfg that makes a specific kit for your chassis. Universal mix-n-match brake system are best reserved for ground-up track car builds.
Would love to see more videos in how braking systems work and how to calculate brake bias/ hydraulics etc!
100
Yes please!!!
+1
Fantastically clear and articulate explanations of these phenomena. It's a joy to watch a video that doesn't require figuring out the intended meaning in real time, even if that might be an excellent brain exercise, likely quite useful for fending off dementia! Thank yo so much for this fine work.
You are absolutely right about this, your brakes don't stop your car, they stop your wheels from spinning.
What stops the car is the friction between the wheels and the road, and the maximum friction you will get to the road is when you are using barely not enough force to lock up the wheels. Once the wheels lock up, they start to slip, and friction is drastically reduced, so once your brakes are strong enough to lock up your wheels, making them stronger will not increase the friction to the road, and hence will not improve stopping distance.
Just a nitpick however, Gs are a measure of acceleration, not force. One G means 9,81m/s^2, which means you accelerate/decelerate at the same rate as gravity.
yes! we want those videos about brake master cyls and brake balance plz!!
A video describing an argument I've had it dozen times. And everyone telling you the bigger breaks are better have bald tires. You're the man liked and subscribed.
Some people live on a different earth with different physics I see, thanks for your 100% spot on explanation I really enjoy all your videos, I was binge watching your whole channel so looking forward to more content
64 barracuda From all-wheel drum brakes to All around disk brakes
Front From 74 dodge swinger
Rear From 74 Chrysler imperial
What a huge difference to say the least
but your video makes so much sense !!!
😎👍
You are correct. Bigger brakes will not make you stop faster. The limiting factor is the traction your tires give you. It's pretty simple. However, at the track, you only need bigger brakes because small brakes will heat up faster and then become dangerous as they lose their braking power, and other things can happen too, like boiled fuild and such...
Not only will they be more reliable on track, they will also allow for less exhausting braking, due to the increased leverage and clamping force.
But down the line every brake setup is capable of overcoming tyre traction.
This all was covered in the first video about this he made.
@@itsnetts Yes I know, yet people missed the point :(
@@itsnetts And yet, here we are, in a second video that had to explain the same thing again.
@@Phrew Well to be fair this video touched up more about stuff not presented in the original. My question was that wouldn't upgrading brakes matter once you upgrade the tires to have enough grip to not be able to lock up on stock brakes, and the answer is yes.
Man it made me so man every time a car reviewer slams the brakes on a nice car and goes "man these are nice brakes" then goes to talk about the brake rotor size. THANK YOU for helping put the right information out there even if some people are actively arguing with you.
You sir have consistently been my favorite automotive TH-camr for like 5 years. I seriously think you’re the best. Thank you
I love this guy, doesn't bullshit, and doesn't take it either. Or more politely, he knows his stuff in all aspects I can detect.
Loved the video. What most people probably experience is that their new brakes bite harder after "upgrading", which hopefully feels nice, but does nothing to reduce braking distance at the tire limit. I also wanted to add that even for track day use, all you need is brake pads and fluid designed for track use. Because they work at higher temperatures, and maintain brake force even after repeated stops. Brake caliper and rotor upgrades may look nice, but sometimes actually alter the brake bias front to rear. This may or may not be beneficial depending on what tires you use, and how you prefer to drive into corners. And BTW, upgrading brake calipers and rotors and then still mounting street-type brake pads gets you nowhere for track use. It is really the pads, fluid and cooling that makes a big difference, not calipers and rotors. Unfortunately most brake pads designed for track use do not work well on the street, so you end up having to swap back and forth. Carbon ceramic brakes may be an exception to this.
Carbon ceramics are bad for track use, they fail quickly when exposed to excessive heat. But they're perfect for street driving, no brake dust and last forever
you hit on something there. a more intense bite is a negative on breaking performance, as it reduces ability to modulate the brakes. those who find that increased bite to be an advantage likely are terrible at using brakes in any performance situation
@@stevesamuel263 Don't forget they are ridiculously expensive. No one is tracking carbon ceramic rotors without having a trust fund or rich sponsor. Replacements are thousands of dollars.
if you have a japanese car dixcel makes some really good pads rated for both street and track use, but they are definitely not cheap even when not including shipping. dixcel z-type pads, bought them for my car after i had a bit of brake fade after some fairly hard mountain runs. these things can brake all day, but they do emit a lot of dust.
New breaks decrease braking distance. You start going into nuances which author of the video did not went. He talked about ABS, but omitted to tell you how ABS INCREASE braking distance. That is only natural, because they keep on releasing brakes during braking. And why you are concerned about emergency braking distance? Better brakes will no doubt decrease distance it takes to brake due to tire lockout, but it will come at a severe trade off of braking control. Either way, a skillful driver can replace ABS by just being good by simply disengaging brakes himself when he need to shift directions.
Good explanation on clearing things up. I think a lot of people were thinking about the theoretical model of just increasing braking force instead of the application of bringing an actual vehicle to a stop faster.
I can say this guy is absolutely right and I speak from "experience". I play Automation the car company game and a misconception I used to have was "stronger, bigger brakes = shortest stopping distance". My cars used to have 6 piston brakes with high quality sports tires and every time I drove my cars, it felt like the car wasn't stopping properly compared to the BeamNG cars. Then I looked at one of the graphs in Automation and realized that my brakes for example had 12000 newtons of force compared to a 8000 newton grip limit of the tires. I had to reduce the braking power so it was closer to the tires' grip limit and guess what? My cars were actually braking properly.
The tires dictate how much power you send to the ground and how well you stop (of course, depending on the surface you're on). Use slick tires on ice? You're not going anywhere because your tires have no grip. And the guy at 0:42 who commented that F1 cars and trucks have huge brakes forgot two details:
1) F1 cars have slick tires, you know, the tires with the insanest amount of grip on dry roads. Of course those can be used along with carbon ceramic brakes because those slicks have the grip to handle the carbon brakes. And since F1 cars don't have ABS, we see the tires locking up sometimes, because the brake force was higher than the tire grip.
2) Friction force = µ • N. Y'all remember this equation. The higher the normal force, the higher the friction force. Trucks are heavy, so they have high normal force and thus, higher friction force on the tires, which justifies them having huge brakes. And they need those brakes because you want those 50 tons of cargo to stop quickly in an emergency, don't you agree?
Really love your way of explaining, I was shocked when you said people in your comments thought bigger brakes helped stopping distance "under normal road use"
Nowadays I just service my motorbikes by myself, yet I am still a petrol head. Your channel is definitely one of the best in taking time and delving very 'rationally' into the details. Learning or refreshing knowledge. Thanks for your great work!
Would be nice to have a video about brake bias depending on the weight distribution on the car
Too much braking force in the rear may cause locking of only rear wheels and loss of vehicle control (Oversteer.) Typical bias is front because of vehicle momentum shifting forward whilst braking.
almost all front engine cars are 70-30%
the ABS module can vary this to zero rear and 100 front depending on many factors.
The issue about a video on brake bias is that it can never be objective.
@@vaerxxx3231 Yes there is weight transfer under braking but how much weight transfer is dependent on some vehicle physical attributes (such as the height of the CoG above the ground, weight distribution etc) but crucially weight transfer is also dependent on the rate of deceleration. Higher rate of decel will result in more weight transfer. And now it gets tricky because there are countless factors that can effect grip and thus peak deceleration (tyres, wet/dry road, weight etc). So in reality it is impossible for any passive brake system to achieve an optimum brake bias for all conditions. The result is vehicle manufacturers tend to opt for a 'safe' brake bias (i.e. forwards bias) because as you say, a overly rearwards bias would be like pulling up the handbrake every time you brake hard and that is definitely NOT the way to make a car fast.... However, since all manufacturers go for a very 'safe' brake balance, there is often performance to be found by shifting the brake bias marginally rearwards (e.g. by installing rear pads that have a slightly higher friction coefficient than the front pads). This will shift the brake bias rearwards towards a more 'neutral' brake balance which will reduce stopping distances. The tradeoff being the rear of the car will become slightly more unstable during braking.... A 5-10% shift REARWARDS in brake bias however is still very controllable for even a moderately skilled driver and could even further improve lap times by helping the car rotate on the brakes during corner entry.
@@adamfreeman3000 small corrections/notes factory brakes can also lock the rear wheels so no gain in stopping distance. Lap times might be improved as usually 'racers' like more oversteering behaviour. (Which is not really 'neutral' :) )
abs also does brake force distribution so it is not only hardware
I agree with what you are saying. Once i increased the power of my stock engine to nearly double, on day to day driving around town i did not need a big brake updated. However once i started driving on track, i found out that after the 3/4th lap my stock brakes gave up and. my next investment was bigger brakes and disks which helped on track, but yet again on day to day driving i cannot see i massive increase in stopping in town with the bigger brakes.
The only possible argument that larger brake discs reduce stopping distance is that it reduces TTL (time to lock) so you gain that area under the curve.
That said big brake kits don't just change the disc diameter but also caliper volume consumption so you may have to displace more fluid to achieve that brake force increasing TTL.
Also depending on the suspension applying brake force too rapidly may paradoxically increase stopping distance due to dynamic weight transfer oscillations.
All this to say it's "possible" a big brake kit may reduce braking distance in a single emergency event but it's highly dependent on the overall system and the overall impact will be small.
One thing that many miss is that massive, ultra powerful brakes also increase the unsprung mass of the car, possibly leading to worse suspension. (tyre+rim weight will, of course, have a bigger effect, but this is something many people don't think about)
I was going to mention the brake feel aspect, but of course the video went into that!
And yes please: videos on brake bias and all that other good stuff
Usually the stock single piston floating calipers on most vehicles are made of cast iron, while the fixed caliper multi-piston setups that most enthusiasts use for brake upgrades are made of aluminum, so usually brake upgrade mods get you unsprung mass weight savings.
I have upgraded the brakes on my Mk7 GTI because it's my track car, and the stock floating calipers are perfect for street driving, but would overheat and fade after a couple of laps on a short track where the lack of long straights cannot cool them down between corners, especially when running on sticky track tires. The upgraded calipers (Audi TTS, fixed 4-piston aluminum calipers) even with the larger discs are about 40% lighter than the stock calipers & discs setup, plus the fixed calipers give a much better brake feel than floating calipers ever could, especially at the limit.
Again, this is a track car setup, for street driving it would 100% be a waste, just like D4A says.
This..
I'm part of a car club for a specific vehicle model and in the early days of the club (early 00's) everyone was doing the "big brake upgrade" of pulling the bigger rotors and callipers from the sedan model and putting them onto the coupe model, but over the years it's become common knowledge that new oem coupe setups out-brake the sedan setups in every scenario, they were just made well enough that the heat dissipation advantages of the bigger rotors and callipers were completely negligible compared to the disadvantages of the unsprung mass increase even in track situations. So the only way to get better brake performance is to splash out on track specific systems that are lighter, which are few and far between for 25 year old Mitsubishis..
This really clicked for me when I went from 6.5" alloy to 8" steel wheels as a teenager.. I figured wider = wider tyres = more grip = better performance but in reality on a car that weighs less than 900kg (1900ish lbs) the 8" wheels were *that* much heavier that there was basically 0 performance increase. Currently sitting on a much lighter set of 8" alloys and the difference is crazy. Now the limiting factor is that the stock seats dont hold me straight enough to corner any harder lmao
Not only would larger breaks negatively effect the sprung/unsprung ratio, giving worse teaction, & actually negatively effecting breaking distance.. and everything else your suspension does, then there's also the spinning mass consideration.
Anything spinning on a car has to be accelerated twice. Once to turn it, & again to move it forward. Twice as much energy is expended in moving a spinning part. Meaning that 1lbs of weight reduction on a spinning part is worth 2 lbs anywhere else on the car. Between that & the unsprung ratio, this is why lighter wheels is such an important modification in sports applications.
This is true, of course, not only for accelerating the part, but also for decelerating it.
More force is required to stop a spinning part than a fixed one.
Unsprung, ROTATIONAL mass. Which is the worst kind of weight on a vehicle.
@@mr.e8282 It's even worse than that! The angular moment of inertia for the brake rotors will increase with the square of diameter, i.e. doubling the diameter will quadruple the momentum needed to spin it to the same RPM. So a rotating part takes 2 times the energy to move as a non-rotating part, TIMES the square of the diameter!
Id love a detailed vid on Brake Bias, Master Cylinders etc. Keep on going
Good video. Another thing to consider is that bigger brakes will often increase unsprung weight. And that has a negative impact on handling. Because of that, I would only use bigger brakes if absolutely necessary.
This is true and it often times is offset by much lighter aftermarket wheels. The overall weight though may still increase depending on the size of said wheel tire combo.
Very good point!
@@spartancrown I'll take adequate, lighter brakes *and* lighter wheels FTW.
I do not know how to call it proffesionally because English is not my 1st language, but the good thing you can do is to change your rotors to the ventilated ones of the same size as you had before. They will overheat less easily and weigh the same.
@@johngalt97 Agree, just look at the F1 in 2021 or 2020 vs now. Bigger wheels are slower.
Whoever argued stock breaks can't stop had a faulty break system lol. A 2002 Focus Wagon with 5 ppl and luggage inside could go through a 20 minutes almost-rally conditions run with multiple speedup and break at the line of ABS engagement before it even started to fade. True, at the end it could barely stop easing at the parking spot, but it took so much punishment that no amount of regular use breaking could possibly come into effect of over-doing the break limits. If you are a regular Joe who doesn't drive an up-armored and overloaded truck and in a worry that will need to go into a highway chase with bandits or having a way upgraded diesel engine and afraid of runaway condition with malfunctioning transmission, you definitely don't need a new break system.
If your current brake setup can lock the wheels up or induce ABS, you have reached the maximum capability for that vehicle. You cannot exceed maximum. It doesn't matter if your discs are 4 ft. in diameter, you can't clamp down harder than maximum.
Great point! Max is max - can't go beyond that!
Once you reach max level, you stop leveling up
No
@@potatopobobot4231 Perfect screen name for you.
The only missed common exception I can think of is when oversized aftermarket tires are added. Many 4x4 guys are familiar with this. Going from, for example, stock 30" diameter tires on a jeep to 37" tires CAN be a large enough change to exceed the stock caliper's capability. It also is HIGHLY noticeable on acceleration! In this case the additional power of bigger brakes may be necessary, as well as a re-gear to regain some semblance of acceleration, because you have far exceeded the original design parameters.
That's again because you've added cross sectional area on the tire, but yes I think due to the added rotational mass the "factory" requirement for the size would be larger
My 4WD has upsized tyres (diameter, width, and heavier duty construction) and additional weight in modifications (bar work, batteries, drawers etc).
I definitely found it hard to lock up the brakes on high traction surfaces until I upgraded the brakes to a larger diameter (318-338mm).
That's wrong... Even if you oversize like that your tires... Brakes have enough torque to lock rotation. Don't forget that what's in contact with the road is like a little line... Bigger tires doesn't mean bigger grip in the road. So... At the same speed... Bigger tires mean that the rotation of the tire is smaller. So... The brake's still capable of locking completely the tires... 🎉
@@carlos11111926 Wrong. Tire radius is directly correlated to the amount of torque needed to lock the tyre.
Torque necessary to lock wheel = Tyre radius * Weight on tyre under dynamic condition
Increasing the tyre radius makes it harder to lock the wheels because of the increased leverage (therefore increased inertia). It has nothing to do with the grip of your tyre.
@@leorousselet2910 Yes, but the factor is not enough to create a real problem. The brakes on a car are designed to block the rotation really very easily...It's almost impossible to mount wheels on a car that will cause the brakes to no longer block the rotation... It would be to say that the brakes have been badly developed.
Great vid! I 100% agree that big brakes do not mean better stopping. However, I will say that in my specific case they were better. I recently put a big brake kit on my toyota corrolla. I can say, with testing, they do their job better.
This vehicle is a track car and while the brakes stopped just fine with performance brake pads, it was a squishy pedal and hard to feel lockups. Not because the brakes were too small, but because the calipers had flex. Through extensive tesing and diagnosis, the caliper flex was the issue. Lots of Bleeding the brakes, replacement master cylinder, caliper rebuilding, still did not reduce the feeling. Then I noticed the calipers had just a bit of flex, less than a milimeter, when brakes were applied.
Willwood front 4 piston brakes, BOOM, pedal feels like a normal car. However, they are bigger and now have a differnt piston to master cyl ratio, so I hope I wont be locking up the fronts... Anyways, story over, I'll be testing them at auto X this weekend.
Good luck! Let us know how it goes. Yes, definitely caliper flex can mess up braking. At the end of the day that's the key issue, brake feel. Because feel and modulation are beyond important for brakes.
You’ve probably discovered this by now, but fun fact; if your ABS is still operational on your track car, it will still kick in to prevent lock up on your front brakes. This might happen faster than it did with the stock brakes, so be careful and have fun.
@@d4a What about a video about lighter wheels? 🤔
When a driver jams on the brakes and it immediately activates the ABS, does not necessary mean the brakes are adequate. Automobile manufacturers have taken in account vehicles that tow trailers, or are fully loaded for breaking and sufficient to prevent overheating on long downhill grades. As you are aware recently the motorcycle industry has responded to poor breaking by installing dual rotors on front wheels, 70 percent of the braking, after ABS became more standard. ABS has reduced accidents because it easier for the rider to control the bike by not locking up the wheels during an emergency stop resulting in a shorter distance. However, even with ABS a motorcycle can be stopped in a shorter distance, when the rider loads the front wheel with the rear brake.. If a rider is experienced in emergency braking with standard brakes,, they can actually stop the bike in shorter distance than a bike with ABS.
I came across youyr channel a few weeks ago and i have to say, it is just what i need. Someone who obviously knows what he is talking about and presents it logically. we really need more people who think like this, look at the world and dont feel, but try and contrast.
I love it, keep it up. It makes me really think. I love it. I love you, and its amaizing. Thanks Im a fan!!
I ended up on this video trying to figure out how my 37“ mudding tires work on pavement 😹 I learned so much and this was wonderfully done! Thank you for touching on the importance of learning your car stock first 😭 it makes everything so much easier!
I seriously can not thank you enough for how much you have helped me with understanding cars over the years. You alongside with Engineering Explained have incredibly informative videos, that are short, brief and straight to the point, I'll be it with some skits here and there but that's always fine :). If you were to read this, I would recommend doing some videos on race/street suspension, how it works and how it could be improved. Also, maybe more videos on rotary engine dynamics? Could be both interesting choices, just a recommendation though! Have a great day/night!
he's store brand jason from EE. great guys, both of them!
This is so true d4a and ee ate the best
EE is incorrect so often that I unsubbed. He uses "math" to 'prove' incorrect positions. Take the hydrogen fuel video from a while ago. "Oh, the fuel tank volume of a GTR gives the car 50mi range" GREAT its designed for a DIFFRENT FUEL. No shit its not optimized for hydrogen, its designed for gasoline. The hell does that prove? Li-ion is 0.08kwh/L and hydrogen is 1.1kwh/L(@500bar, not unheard of. Can go up to 2.3kwh/L) So all battery cars are invalid? He argues that hydrogen cars are mathematically impossible, and while BEVs are less than hydrogen. What a shill and a clown.
@@thenewhalogod Glad i'm not alone. Guy annoys the fuck out of me.
And Unlike EE, this guy doesn't have the voice of Kermit The Frog, which makes his points much easier to follow.
I learned it today and I will never forget it. Brake discs become larger simply to dissipate more heat from increased speed. Thanks for the class.
Tires and then suspension are generally going to be your biggest inprovements to braking time. Once youve improved the tires though, you add more traction, and thus it CAN help to improve the brakes (more pistons or more leverage or both). It CAN help. It probably wont in many cases, but hell, it wont generally hurt much of anything to my recollection, and a lot of the better quality brake kits, and pads, and such have better brake fade characteristics under heated conditions. (See also racing)
Another thing you should take into account, if you throw on 20s or something ridiculous onto your small car youre adding a lot of extra rotational energy to those tires, and thus it is often worth it to throw in better brakes to handle it.
It makes perfect sense.
I'd like to see a video where you teach us how tire width changes the braking distances and how they affect cornering.
I would add "and a grip on the snow etc"
we definitely need a video on tyre width and it`s effects on grip, especially. There seem to be many missconceptions floating around.
I put urethane control arm bushings on my 1998 Camry, upgraded the steel 14-inch wheels to 16-inch Lexus ES330 wheels, and put wider, lower profile tires on the car. The tire size was carefully calculated to maintain the same outer diameter and circumference to about half a percent, IIRC. With that, I also kept the stock front brake calipers and rotor diameter, but upgraded to drilled & slotted discs sandwiched between ceramic brake pads. Later I ditched the rear drum brakes (5S-FE 4-cylinder) and installed the rear disc brakes from a V6 Camry of the same model year.
Acceleration with that 130 HP 4-banger was "meh", but the car cornered and stopped quite well (even with a loaded trailer).
Being a biker, too much tyre width on the front just screws up the steering. Which leads me to also favouring a softer compound for the front tyre.
yes please, more brakes, more everything, I love this channel
Those commenters are trying to justify spending thousands on their big brake kit they bought lol
The only time big brake kits can actually help over stock sized brakes is if:
1. You had sub-OEM quality brakes to start off with
2. You're running racing slicks, which do actually have more grip than most stock brakes can handle
3. You're driving on track days. Bigger brakes = better heat dissipation = less brake fade.
On a standard road car that's only going to be driven on the road with road legal tyres, big brake kits aren't going to do anything and they're more of an aesthetic thing.
Everyone knows that the single most important thing to improve braking is the paint in the callipers.
This is a great video! I've had this conversation with so many people. Tires are more important to stopping than brakes, especially on a sports car. I only upgraded my brakes on my RX-7 once I improved my driving skills to surpass what my tire/brake set-up could handle. I upped the tires to a track tire, and then upgraded the brakes to match the upped grip. I didn't go BBK though, I only upgraded pads and discs to slotted.
A major point you missed here is that upgraded brakes look cool, hence, better stopping distances.😉
Good job, D4A. Looking forward to your next video.❤
Plus how much better it runs and handles.........after a wash 😁
Adds more horsepower than a turbo.
Red ones stop better.
Don't forget, every JDM sticker added to the rear window is an extra +25hp
🤣
Someone who talks common sense ! Excellant !
One of the things I learned from Forza is that increasing brake pressure does *not* necessarily decrease braking distance. Even in older cars with outdated braking systems, I only really upgrade the brakes when I feel that the brake bias is wrong, not so much the brake pressure (or if I just want some weight reduction). This is easy to feel when ABS is turned off like on my current setup. Thanks for providing us with this quality content!
Most "outdated braking systems" perform as well as modern ones. They're basically the same.
@@nicholasagnew2792 I'd suggest the commenter may have been thinking about drum brakes, and also cars that have no brake booster, what was once called 'Power Brakes', and once upon a time was an optional extra.
In the grand scheme of things, it wasn't that long ago that all cars had drum brakes. In fact, for many years, disc brakes were optional extras. So yeah, there are 'outdated' braking systems. In the days of drum brakes, you had to use your gearbox to assist in braking down mountain ranges because if you didn't, you'd lose your brakes through overheating before you reached the bottom of said mountain range or hill.
I absolutely need more of this on brake ratios, master cylinders, and everything you know about it
I would definitely like to see more brake videos. Thank you for the awesome content!
I'm amazed that people disagreed with this. I've had various old cars with over the years and none lacked brake force (although some required a lot more pedal force to lock up the wheels). Example, a 1956 Morris Minor with tiny 6" drums all around and no brake booster... They were regarded as very average brakes even in their day, but you could lock up all 4 wheels no problem even with modern tires. The problem with the small drum brakes was overheating due to poor heat dissipation, and also uneven lockup and poor control in panic braking situations, not lack of brake force.
V good video putting the myth of big brake upgrades to rest. What is often ignored is the fact that most upgraders will also use more aggressive pads with their big brake kit. Aggressive pads bites quicker compared to stock pads. Also upgrade kits tend to come with steel braided lines compared to rubber brake hose and these with the aggressive pads will reduce compliance in the system and give a more immediate feel to the brake plus seemingly less foot pressure required to lock the wheels so they conclude that bigger brakes will stop you faster.
the "oil" part of the braking system is so often overlooked, it would be interesting to see a video about that!
Very well said! I still use the stock STi brakes and they are very very good even after 10 emergency brakes (stopped from about 160 km/h). They actually getting even better when they are warmed up. No fading at all. I heard a lot of times that I should upgrade my brakes. I think the most people just want big discs with holes in it.
do you know why they drill holes in the rotors,in the first place?
@@randellgribben9772 The holes help to prevent the buildup of gas and debris between the brake pads and the disc, which can reduce the effectiveness of the brakes. It's like a cleaning function. Also the temperature regulation should be better. But it's important that the material of the brake disc is good. Otherwise it looks only cool but perfom maybe even worse as the original.
@@SubiCarLousit’s for cooling
@@benjaminwatson7868 Yes, heat dissipation is also one another reason. Weight reduction, disc deformation, higher friction force are another... so there many reasons. But if you have bad/cheap disc material the holes will let the brake just crack because of the thermal stress concentrated around the holes.
@@benjaminwatson7868no. Any proper race rotor is slotted only. Drilling is cheaper than slotting
Ahhhh, refreshing. Someone else to try to get this point through to people that just can't grasp it. I'll take a brake... (Break. I did it intentionally...)
Brakes get me super emotional !!😂
I think once you go with wider, stickier tires, the stock brakes become overworked and become the bottleneck. The main reason for BBK on road cars is to increase heat sink capability and reduce fade. Particularly for heavy track driving where stock brakes tend to get mushy after a few laps. So when you do increase grip and power, BBKs become more relevent.
Both videos address what larger brake kits do and point out that almost every person that puts larger brakes on their vehicles lacks the required skill to overwork even their factory brakes during track driving without ending up in the wall.
@@davereeves1967 I think it's a bit presumptious to think that almost every person that puts larger brakes do not know how to drive theier car at the limit. There are many viewers out here that have a great deal of ecperience. While I believe the poster's comments are scientifically correct, I think it's missing some real world, practical track knowledge.. As you increase the performance of the car through hp, traction, lateral grip, aerodynamics, etc.. it's crucial to upgrade the brakes to handle the increase in power and grip.
@@speeeding It's not presumptuous at all. And he already said what you said. He said it in both videos, in fact. Try watching them. Pretty informative.
@@davereeves1967 Thanks, I'll try that. You're also very infromative.
@@speeeding The vast majority of drivers never go to a track. Even the vast majority of people who modify their cars never go to a track. And even then, it takes a great amount of track experience for most to start using their braking system to its full potential. 95% of drivers do not have the driving ability to take their car anywhere near its limit. They run out of talent and ability far before they run out of car.
This was good info. You should talk about how it’s much more important to upgrade brake lines over calipers/rotors.
^ this, if your car has a few years on it - the best thing you can do to improve brake feel, assuming of course that you are changing the fluid at the recommended intervals, is to put new hoses on or even upgrade to a certified set of braided lines.
And if your car is 20 years or more with the original rubber brake hoses - check them now, especially near the ends, the cracking can be an eye opener.
A lot of drivers do not realise that the brake pedal is the pedal that wastes the most fuel by converting the energy given to the vehicle into heat....
thank you- another good analysis.
Man... You are awesome. Thanks for this vid. Total 100% truth and fizics. Love how you go into detail.
Awesome video yet again! I’m taking a physics course atm, and it is really cool to to see what I’m learning explained (and be really understandable). I think more people should pay attention in physics class 😁
I'm glad you went further in depth with explaining stock brakes and big brake upgrades. Any vehicle is limited by the tire size and type as far as stopping distance. The ice was a great example. Even the best brakes can't stop you if you don't have traction(coefficient of friction). I'll even go further and say the $2m McLaren has stock brakes. I'd love to see if that has a brake upgrade.
You realise part of that 2million dollars went into high performance brakes from the factory, right?
@@merkel2750 doesn't that mean stock? If it came with the vehicle originally? If it was $100 million. A lot of cars have high performance brakes with brake upgrades available.
@@housepumpinpc3983 yeah, now name a toyota car with the same quality/performance/reliability/anti brake fade as that mclaren…. Just because it came factory doesn’t mean it’s the best or the worst, the slowest or the fastest. “Stock” isn’t something that translates across the board. It’s a fluid meaning.
@@merkel2750 Lexus LFA comes to mind. A high performance Toyota. Stock isn't fluid. Stock is what comes with the vehicle base. The minimum. Some of these vehicles you can get upgrades from the factory/dealer. Now that wouldn't be stock. Now a $2m McLaren would have better brakes for a vehicle of that caliber but a VW may have a better stopping distance 60-0 but that same VW may only go 80mph. I'm certainly, in agreement. A $2m vehicle has brakes probably more expensive than whole vehicles. But a $10m 1956 Aston Martin has crappy brakes in comparison to the McLaren. Both stock even with the more expensive car.
@@housepumpinpc3983 stock is fluid when it comes to , performance, reliability, costs, stock doesn’t mean it’s interchangeable.
Can confirm this. I only upgraded because I use to tow a lot around hills. Without any weight or trailer attached, my stopping distance is the same as if it were stock because... I have stock sized tires.