slitzell
Boats n hoes
Info from Dave himself on floating vs fixed calipers
"Really you do not need more then the single piston that you have now, it will stop you.
When you go to a dual piston setup like ZZP is using on their kit, the goal is to place more even pressure across the pad to keep pad taper to a minimum. This is an improvement over the stock single piston setup, but it is still using a floating caliper design, plus heavier cast calipers.
With the floating caliper setup, the pistons for the caliper are only on one side of the caliper. This means that as the pressure builds in the caliper when the brakes are applied, the pistons are pushed out causing force on one side of the rotor. Because an equal and opposite force is applied to the caliper, it slides away from the inside of the rotor, applying force to the pad on the outside of the rotor. OE's mainly use this setup because it is very inexpensive to manufacture. Since there is a slide that the caliper has to move on, there will be some play in the mounting of the caliper, which leads to a little softer pedal, and brake modulation is not as good. This is all fine with a standard street car, but there is a reason that no race car that can use fixed calipers does not do so.
Switching over to the 4 piston fixed caliper setup does several things that are an improvement over the floating caliper setup. With a fixed caliper, the caliper is rigidly mounted to the upright of the vehicle. This means that when the brakes are applied, there are passages inside of the caliper that allow the pressure to build and push on the pistons and place that force directly against the pads and the rotor. There is no wasted energy required to slide the caliper, all of the force is used at the pads. This allows for a much firmer brake pedal and also much better modulation of the brakes (easier to threshold brake).
As with everything there is a trade off, the floating caliper setup is much less expensive, but has less feed back, a softer pedal and has more unspung mass. The fixed calipers offer better pedal feel, a firmer pedal and usually drop a lot of unsprung mass, but are more expensive.
As for the number of pistons, that is a myth. The larger the pad area you have the more pistons you start to need to keep equal pressure across the pad to decrease the chance of pad taper. (although the 16 piston chinese calipers are a little much )
Honestly, there is going to be no way that a fixed caliper setup is going to compete with a floating caliper setup on price, that is just the way it is. So fortunately it looks like there will be 2 options atleast out there that you will be able to decide on."(Dave from ddmw)
"Really you do not need more then the single piston that you have now, it will stop you.
When you go to a dual piston setup like ZZP is using on their kit, the goal is to place more even pressure across the pad to keep pad taper to a minimum. This is an improvement over the stock single piston setup, but it is still using a floating caliper design, plus heavier cast calipers.
With the floating caliper setup, the pistons for the caliper are only on one side of the caliper. This means that as the pressure builds in the caliper when the brakes are applied, the pistons are pushed out causing force on one side of the rotor. Because an equal and opposite force is applied to the caliper, it slides away from the inside of the rotor, applying force to the pad on the outside of the rotor. OE's mainly use this setup because it is very inexpensive to manufacture. Since there is a slide that the caliper has to move on, there will be some play in the mounting of the caliper, which leads to a little softer pedal, and brake modulation is not as good. This is all fine with a standard street car, but there is a reason that no race car that can use fixed calipers does not do so.
Switching over to the 4 piston fixed caliper setup does several things that are an improvement over the floating caliper setup. With a fixed caliper, the caliper is rigidly mounted to the upright of the vehicle. This means that when the brakes are applied, there are passages inside of the caliper that allow the pressure to build and push on the pistons and place that force directly against the pads and the rotor. There is no wasted energy required to slide the caliper, all of the force is used at the pads. This allows for a much firmer brake pedal and also much better modulation of the brakes (easier to threshold brake).
As with everything there is a trade off, the floating caliper setup is much less expensive, but has less feed back, a softer pedal and has more unspung mass. The fixed calipers offer better pedal feel, a firmer pedal and usually drop a lot of unsprung mass, but are more expensive.
As for the number of pistons, that is a myth. The larger the pad area you have the more pistons you start to need to keep equal pressure across the pad to decrease the chance of pad taper. (although the 16 piston chinese calipers are a little much )
Honestly, there is going to be no way that a fixed caliper setup is going to compete with a floating caliper setup on price, that is just the way it is. So fortunately it looks like there will be 2 options atleast out there that you will be able to decide on."(Dave from ddmw)
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