Disc brake upgrade

[0xDEADBEEF]

The weight balance and suspension travel of a truck makes it so that you can easily get 90-100% of the weight on the nose. I personally have the LSM rear disk brakes and they work fine, but they won't do anything the dinky drums don't do though.

Believe it or not, the best brake upgrade you can make is tires.

 

[1998_K1500_Sub]

Where did you get your engineering degree from?

And you?

I'm with @Schurkey on this one.

 

[Schurkey]

Less a matter of college degrees, more a matter of having eyeballs and some logical thinking.

When the real engineers arrange caliper supports centered between the pads, and the doofus "engineers" put the support way off to one side...it's not hard to figure out where the problem is, and who caused it.

 

[1998_K1500_Sub]

Less a matter of college degrees, more a matter of having eyeballs and some logical thinking.

When the real engineers arrange caliper supports centered between the pads, and the doofus "engineers" put the support way off to one side...it's not hard to figure out where the problem is.

Agreed. In an OEM design the pads (or pad/caliper, depending on the design) bear against bosses fore and aft to carry the braking forces. Lacking them, the aftermarket system evidently rely primarily on the rotor to manage the couple created by the force of the pads 'forward' and the reaction of the caliper bracket in the opposite direction.

Funny how the OEMs don't AFAIK have any design that is so obviously lacking.

 

[Supercharged111]

I'm in the pro drums club myself, but then again I don't own a garbage 8.5" drum axle. Anything 8 lug from GM will lock the rears before the fronts. If it won't, it's because of neglect not a crappy design. My 9.5" 6 lug locks the fronts first, unless on dry pavement in an abrupt panic stop. Then the rears lock first. I promise nobody here rips on their truck hard enough for their inferior heat dissipation to become a factor. I just get the feeling that many people who do a rear disc swap do so because of improperly functioning rear drums, and their assumption that that is as good as those drums will ever operate. Yes properly engineered discs are superior, but good factory drums are also more than capable enough (aside from the POS 10" drum brakes that don't hold an adjustment). From a dollars/cents and time invested aspect, the juice isn't worth the squeeze. This is coming from an active W2W road racer.

 

[Frank Enstein]

I want to do the Lugnut4x4.com conversion to Frank for ease of maintenance, pedal feel, and the fact that they told me what the rotors and calipers were from so I could purchase their brackets from them and get the other stuff from work.

I just like how 4 wheel disc feels. I don't expect better braking because there won't be.

 

[2drXmobb]

I seen nbs guys upgrade to Corvette brake calipers/rotors they seem pretty stout

 

[Erik the Awful]

Drum brakes are underrated in performance. The main benefit of discs is simplicity and less maintenance.

 

[0xDEADBEEF]

Discs are a lot lighter than an equivalent drum. That's also a benefit.

 

[stutaeng]

IIRC, the Tacoma is STILL being produced with rear drums, LOL. I don't think those engineers over there ever got the memo!