Cup cars use the exact same brackets on all of their cars including super speedway cars.
Fatigue life isn't really a problem on "Cup cars", since everything gets examined or replaced after five hundred miles.
The calipers do function different being fixed but that’s a pretty solid testament to that designs durability
The Little Shop caliper brackets don't have fixed calipers. I bet the Lugnuts brackets don't have fixed calipers, either. The calipers float on the pins/sleeves/O-rings.
The GM brackets support the caliper so that the thrust of the caliper is taken
between the pads--balanced, so no twisting force. The pins and sleeves allow side-to-side movement only. The Little Shop brackets rely on the pins/sleeves to retain the caliper entirely, and caliper thrust is taken way off-center, so the pins bend with brake application. The pins were never intended to accept thrust loading or bending forces.
Again, I don't know about the Lugnutz conversion--but I suspect it's the same as the Little Shop.
I’ll run my Lugnut setup with no worries at all
Okee-dokee. Make sure you don't collide with me.
Suggestion: Draw inspiration from applications similar to the task at hand. Look at other designs on other truck rear brakes (GM, Ford, Toyota...) and auto front brakes with comparable GAWR.
Race cars and other vehicles have a different design objective... budget, materials, longevity, reliability, serviceability, to name just a few.
Thank you. Great wisdom there. And to reinforce the first part--make sure the disc conversion kit is AT LEAST as powerful as the drums you're replacing. Doesn't do any good to replace huge drums with small rotors.
One thing is certain I’ll never run garbage drum brakes on anything longer than it takes me to convert one to disk.
Another thing, of all vehicles I’ve owned over the years that did have drums the gmt400’s were by far the worst functioning of all of them.
Drum brakes PROPERLY SIZED stop just as well as discs, once. Drums do have issues with retaining heat.
The biggest problem with brakes on GMT400s is the leading/trailing shoe system on half tons, followed by ABS issues, and (I suspect) low-drag caliper issues. Are you blaming the drum brakes for problems that actually happen because GM undersized the rear brakes, or occur somewhere else due to lack of maintenance; specifically lack of PROPER brake fluid flushing?
GM had no damn business installing the crappy and too-small 254mm leading/trailing drums on American vehicles, knowing that Americans don't use the park brake any more.
Yeah. Acknowledged. And the "5" was no better at the rear, but considerably more powerful up front.
Rear discs are only an improvement in that you don't need to keep adjusting your drums. Past that, most conversion kits are just racer-wannabe garbage.
IF everything is working right, and if the customer knows how the self-adjuster works, the drums stay in adjustment.
Discs don't self-adjust if the caliper piston and square-cut seal aren't in good condition; and some calipers need the park brake worked to stay in adjustment. There's problems with everything. Anything can fail. The bigger questions are "how often in normal use", and "how often in severe use".