Wilwood Drag Brakes

driller

El Presidente
Staff member
Finally started to install new brakes on the front of the Blue Flame.



This is the Wilwood Front Brake Kit P/N 140-10015 with light weight 4 piston calipers and 3/8" rotors meant for drag racing only. Weight savings was the primary goal as it will drop 40 pounds off the front of the car. This will also allow the front 15 inch Weld wheels to mount without a spacer needing to clear the brakes.



The install wasn't too bad but it took a few trial fits to get the offset just right for the fixed caliper mount. The other side should install significantly quicker now that I know the approximate shims required. Once the new hardware is in place, we will install the required new brake hoses/fittings and then bleed the brakes prior to testing.
 

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Have you taken it around the block yet? They might say "race only," but it can't be that much worse than stock.. :)
 
Will the Blue Flame make it to Carlisle? It's been too long since I've seen that car..
 
"Thin" is a relative term. The rotor is 0.39" thick. LOL :cool:

I got the hardware installed and shimmed on the opposite side. Since the calipers are fixed and not 'floating', you have to shim the bracket to center up the rotor in the caliper then shim the caliper to get the proper sweep radius of the pads on the rotor. With that done, I just need to disassemble, lock-tite the fasteners and torque them to spec. Then it's time to install the hoses/fittings before bleeding the system. Once done, I do plan to drive around the block in the neighborhood to test the setup.

I'm confident the brakes will be fine for their "intended purpose". The final weigh-in of the parts show that I have reduced the total weight by just over 44 pounds, a fair bit more than the calculated weight loss from the published component weights. :eek:
 
44 pounds off the front is actually really impressive. They've taken some interesting shortcuts in the name of weight savings. The lack of slider pins, for example. There's definitely some "out of the box" thinking going on with that kit.
 
So far, they've been good.

My only complaint was some brake shudder at the beginning. I blamed that on the pads/rotors not being bedded in properly. I took the car right to the track so there was no bedding in the brakes.
 
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