Brake calipers are the most important components in the entire brake system, so the original factory will use products with extremely high stability and quality when designing the brake system, and it is necessary to ensure that the components of the calipers are not expensive, but the consequences of doing so are often Sacrificing braking performance. Therefore, the original calipers are the basic calipers with the simplest structure, and some original calipers are also small and pitiful. As for the modified brakes, what kind of brake calipers to choose and how to buy them right or not?
Generally speaking, we modify the brakes to change the calipers of the opposite piston type. The calipers are: four-piston, six-piston, eight-piston.
It is easy to tell how many pistons a caliper is. The round mouths on both sides of the caliper are the pistons. Count them, and there are several pistons that are several pistons.
The work process of the entire brake system is basically that when the brake pedal is stepped on, the linkage mechanism of the pedal will use the assistance of the brake master cylinder to pressurize the oil in the brake pump, push the brake oil, and transmit it through the brake hose. The pressure of the brake oil is transmitted to the brake calipers of the four wheels, and the calipers push the brake pads to rub the brake discs, and finally achieve the purpose of slowing down and braking.
The design of brake calipers can be mainly divided into single-piston calipers and multi-piston calipers. Most of the original calipers are a combination of one-way pistons, and the brake pads on the other side are pushed by the reaction force of the calipers. Hence the name "floating caliper". The main disadvantage of this design is that in the case of emergency braking, the original "gate-shaped" caliper will bend to both sides and deform, and the instantaneous force effect is extremely poor, and it is often necessary to apply pressure again to achieve the maximum braking effect.
For the opposite multi-piston caliper, the inner and outer sides of the entire caliper are fixed, and the clamping force of the inner and outer brake pads is respectively responsible for the pistons on both sides, so it is also called "fixed caliper". Compared with single-piston calipers and multi-piston calipers, there will be waste areas left on the single-piston calipers that cannot be filled. In order to avoid this waste of area, multi-piston fixed calipers appear.
This multi-piston fixed caliper not only has the advantages of good rigidity, strong clamping force, average force and quick response, but also has the advantage of material. Lightweight and heat dissipation advantages of cast iron. Therefore, most of these fixed opposing multi-piston calipers are configured on some performance cars, and they are also popular products in the market after modification.
For multi-piston calipers, they are actually divided into multiple grades due to their different designs and materials. Generally, there are several levels of "two-piece forging", "one-piece casting" and "one-piece forging". In fact, no matter what kind of caliper is manufactured, it is nothing more than to improve the strength of the caliper itself, because every time you step on the brake vigorously, the caliper will be impacted by a very large piston reaction force, and the caliper itself will be deformed to varying degrees. This is where brake judder, oil leaks, and uneven brake pad wear occur. Therefore, the more intense the driving conditions, the higher the requirements for the material strength of the calipers. At the same time, with different production processes, the cost of the calipers is also very different. The different brands and grades of caliper products we have seen are also There will be a huge price difference.
For different types of calipers, in addition to the differences in manufacturing process and materials, there are also street version and competitive version of the caliper. A question that many riders will ask, what is the difference between the street version and the competitive version? Is it better to use the brakes directly on the competitive version? Most of the riders here have such a misunderstanding. The competitive version of the caliper must be excellent in terms of braking effect, and its design itself is also designed for the track. It is lighter, has better ventilation and heat dissipation, and has a more direct braking effect. and many more. However, if it is just for intense driving, not for daily travel, it can be said that the competitive version of the caliper is definitely the first choice. However, if you want to take into account the daily driving, then I can say responsibly, please do not choose the competitive version of the caliper, its own lightweight design, higher strength, better heat dissipation, all have to sacrifice other performance, For example, abnormal brake noise, poor foot feel, poor brake linearity, etc., the most important thing, the competitive version of the caliper is generally not equipped with a piston boot. However, when we drive daily, the dust generated by the friction of the brake pads, the mud in rainy and snowy days, if there is no dust jacket, once the fine dust enters the piston slide, the piston will not be stuck and oil leakage will not be too far. . Therefore, if we are a daily driving street car, to upgrade the calipers, I always recommend choosing some street version calipers, which are absolutely suitable.
For modified brake calipers, there is also a crucial caliper component, which is the "bridge code". In fact, it is the transfer base that the caliper and the horn of the chassis are fixed. The installation of modified calipers, except for the original OEM version of the customized multi-piston calipers, cannot be directly installed and fixed on the car. It is necessary to customize a pair of bridge codes to install the calipers according to different models and modified calipers data. This requires the customization process of the bridge code, to accurately grasp the horn data of the model, the fixed position and screw data of the modified caliper, the thickness data of the brake disc, the shaft head data and so on. The processing accuracy is extremely high, and a little data error will cause the problem of brake jitter and abnormal noise, which will seriously affect the braking performance.
Moreover, under the strong braking force, there are also extremely high requirements for the strength of these bridge codes, and problems such as deformation cannot occur, otherwise the braking performance will be seriously affected. Generally, the materials for processing customized bridge codes on the market are high-strength aluminum alloys, which are processed by high-precision numerical control of windows.
Of course, there are some common mistakes;
1. First of all, to correct a wrong statement, it is not that the more pistons the caliper, the stronger the brake. Whether the braking effect of a car is good or not depends on too many things, such as oil circuit design, brake master cylinder, pedal design, brake oil selection, brake disc, brake pad and so on.
For example, some American big bikes have single-piston floating calipers, but the pressure of the calipers can crack the discs of ordinary family cars.
So the question is, what is the difference between multi-piston calipers and single-piston calipers? The answer is that the multi-piston caliper has more friction area, the caliper is smaller, and the brake feedback is more delicate.
2. Of course, some car owners will ask, after changing the multi-piston caliper, will the master cylinder of the original car not be able to carry it? This question depends on the fuel supply data of your car's master cylinder.
3. Also, some car owners bought a complete set of imported original car brake calipers, thinking that there will be no jitter problem after they are installed on the car. To explain here, it does not mean that the full set of imported brake calipers will not shake. Because every car is made of tolerances, and over time, the car itself will wear out. These small errors will affect the performance of the caliper. This problem is written in the manual of the brake caliper kit.