Quote:
Originally Posted by bigmoe
My thoughts exactly Astronaut. At a certain point the wheels will lock up. The limiting factor will be tire grip.
The OP might also want to consider wheel fitment with the bigger brakes.
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One good thing about bigger brakes is that they need bigger wheels which opens up the option of better tires with more modern designs and better tread compounds. Just having wide 15" wheels/tires doesn't help all that much if it's outdated and the compound is on the harder side, which is 95% of 15" tires I normally see on trucks. With 17"+ wheels you can get a variety of better tires in grippier compounds, especially so in 18-20".
My autocross car has completely stock brakes. They're tiny 8.6" non-vented disc with tiny 2" bore single piston calipers up front, and even smaller 6.7" drums in the rear.
With good semi-metallic pads it stops well with the usual sized street tires. There are a fair amount of people in the facebook group for these cars complaining that the stock brakes aren't very good, but they haven't been maintained or they're using ceramic pads, or haven't done proper bed-in, or all of the above.
With my 100tw track tires it will stop from 80 within 4-5 seconds. It's downright violent how hard it stops, and anyone that's rode in it has said its the hardest stopping car they've ever been in. Now, they will fade if I do 10-12 hard stops back to back from 80-20, so for track use with more power I'd need to get vented rotors and pads that work at higher temps, but for street and autocross stock is all it needs, and they're exceptionally easy to modulate because it isn't over-braked with too much braking power. It will still lock up track tires at 80 so it has more than enough braking power. The added tire grip is what makes it stop so much harder.
I don't see much ever mentioned on truck forums other than "you need a booster" or "you need better/bigger brakes". There's no need to waste big brakes on a street truck with the usual street tires, it just makes the wheels lock up and slide easier. Without abs you don't want an easy/light pedal, you want it to take some effort to lock up the brakes so you can modulate the brakes easier.