Chevy c10 truck wilwood d52 aluminum calipers

[Andy4639]

Has anyone swapped to these? If so can you give some feed back on them. For this price Price: $374.00
I'm wondering if they are worth it.






http://www.azproperformance.com/Wilw...140-11290.html

[JointTech]

they look sweet on my truck. I dont know if they work any better but my brakes were crap before i swapped them in.

[71meangreenc10]

^^^^^^X2

I am looking to know also.

Smitty

[skorpioskorpio]

Not sure what size wheels those are in the picture in the link, but those brakes look almost comically tiny behind them. They look like go cart brakes, are these for stock size rotors?

[JointTech]

yea they are direct replacement for OE calipers. but are dual piston. and powder coated really nicely

[Andy4639]

Yes they say for direct replacements for stock spindles are the 2" dropped ones. Either 1" are 1 1/4" rotor size.
I have the stock ones now that I painted red. I'm just wondering if these will be any better at stopping the truck. I'm torn between adding disc to the rear are just updating the fronts and back brakes I have now.

[70SBC10BOB]

Check the piston size on your old calipers versus the pretty shiny ones. Piston area is what dictates clamping force and braking ability. (you only count the piston area on half of a 4 piston caliper. That is one those laws of physics we cannot break.)

as an example. The zo6 corvette 6 piston calipers that weigh about 20 lbs. Have 20% less clamping force than a 4 piston caliper with 1 3/4 pistons that only weighs about 4.5 lbs.

The four piston or in our case the large single piston calipers may not look as cool but may actually stop better.

Bob

[Andy4639]

Originally Posted by 70SBC10BOB

Check the piston size on your old calipers versus the pretty shiny ones. Piston area is what dictates clamping force and braking ability. (you only count the piston area on half of a 4 piston caliper. That is one those laws of physics we cannot break.)

as an example. The zo6 corvette 6 piston calipers that weigh about 20 lbs. Have 20% less clamping force than a 4 piston caliper with 1 3/4 pistons that only weighs about 4.5 lbs.

The four piston or in our case the large single piston calipers may not look as cool but may actually stop better.

Bob

My point exactly, that's why I'm asking. Just because it's has 2 pistons doesn't mean it's a upgrade.
Here is what the add states.
Would you love to have the braking power of dual piston calipers, but don't have the room on your 1968 or later GM car or truck? Now you do with Wilwood D52 dual piston caliper kits. These 2-piston calipers offer the high performance halting power you want and are built to mount in the stock location with stock-sized rotors! The D52 dual piston calipers are crafted with forged billet aluminum bodies, stainless steel pistons, and competition-style high-temperature seals. They provide low-maintenance performance and a huge weight savings with high-temperature reliability for the street and track. You'll have no more of the rust, bore pitting, or seal failures that plague the OEM caliper design. These much-improved red powdercoated D52 caliper kits are available for the front and rear and include pads and slide bolts.

[brakenit]

I don't know if these improve braking performance or not, but clamping force isn't the only factor to consider for caliper performance. Caliper rigidity and how evenly it distributes that force over the entire surface of the pad affect performance as well.

[slowcpe]

I'm interested in real world experience on these myself.

[lolife99]

I think you have to remember you are buying a QUALITY brake part from Wilwood.
Not a $19.95 caliper from your parts store.

[Custom 68]

I had a chance to get a set of these off the boards from a member at a decent price. They were new. They look good and fit nice but I am not sure for normal day to day use that it made a huge difference. I don't know in a "race" situation if they will be different. I think in that situation the pads will play more of a role than the calipers. They are lighter and a very nicely made part.
I am running 6 lug disks and my rotor is solid I dont think a slotted or drilled was an option at the time. I did the swap years ago (added the new calipers more recent).
I cant justify the cost upgrade on the rotors right now but I assume they help with brake fade and cooling and they look darn cool...
Oh I am still running drums on the rear.

[slowcpe]

That's what I was wondering. My truck already has the disc conversion using stock '72 calipers and rotors. Truck seems to stop just fine, but I only have about 130 hp. I'm about to triple that this winter. Didn't know if they are worth purchasing now or saving for a bigger brake kit.

They definitely look cooler than the stock calipers

[SeTx67]

CPP store on ebay has them cheaper. As long as they actually have the item and ship them in a decent time frame

http://www.ebay.com/itm/68-69-70-CHE...df9ec5&vxp=mtr

[Jayschevy]

Originally Posted by SeTx67

CPP store on ebay has them cheaper. As long as they actually have the item and ship them in a decent time frame

http://www.ebay.com/itm/68-69-70-CHE...df9ec5&vxp=mtr

I just ordered this set from CPP and they shipped them out within 48hrs.

[skorpioskorpio]

Originally Posted by Custom 68

I had a chance to get a set of these off the boards from a member at a decent price. They were new. They look good and fit nice but I am not sure for normal day to day use that it made a huge difference. I don't know in a "race" situation if they will be different. I think in that situation the pads will play more of a role than the calipers. They are lighter and a very nicely made part.
I am running 6 lug disks and my rotor is solid I dont think a slotted or drilled was an option at the time. I did the swap years ago (added the new calipers more recent).
I cant justify the cost upgrade on the rotors right now but I assume they help with brake fade and cooling and they look darn cool...
Oh I am still running drums on the rear.

Those tiny rotors, along with a typically 27"+ diameter tire, aren't suitable for "race" anything. There simply isn't enough rotor surface area to dissipate the heat. Brake fade is caused by 2 factors, boiling brake fluid and surface temperatures of your pad and rotor becoming hot enough that surface starts to act almost fluid in nature. Pad material can make a huge difference and that said I haven't used an OEM pad in over 20 years on any vehicle I own.

Increasing rotor surface area and diameter makes a huge difference in the brakes being able to cool themselves but come at the cost of often needing larger diameter rims to clear them, my Z51 Corvette brakes for example are huge but an 18" wheel only clears by 1/8th of an inch, obviously anything less would not be possible. This causes the additional problem however that metal will weigh a lot more than rubber and increasing wheel sizes increases rotational mass that needs to be stopped.

Piston area and number of pistons will help some in keeping the pad from flexing at the leading and trailing edge and increase the effective contact area of the pad to a small degree. If you do not increase the pad area or the rotor diameter or the rotor mass or the rotor circumference the net gain will be minimal. Higher clamping forces are only useful to the point you lock the wheel up which isn't that difficult to do.

Aluminum vs. iron is a good thing to reduce unsprung weight, but again with a vehicle with a large diameter tire like a C-10 it's like taking a bucket of gravel out of a gravel truck, you probably won't notice a difference.

My theory on this is that if you feel you need better stopping power you probably also will go through brakes, so make sure the wear parts you use are something you can get easily from more than one source, you can get them in a timely fashion, and are within what *you* consider a reasonable cost for a maintenance item.

Logoed red calipers are cool, I have logoed red calipers but if you have tiny rotors it's kind of like a guy wearing bright red shoes that has tiny feet, you probably aren't going to draw the kind of attention you want.

[Andy4639]

The question is about stopping power with these calipers compared to the old ones. Mine work fine for a driver, I never had any problems stopping but for the price I figured I asked. I want to change out the rear to the bigger drums to at some point. The visual aspect is secondary. I already have the visual aspect now since I put the drilled and slotted rotors on it with the orignal calipers painted red.
All I wanted was for anyone who has swapped them to give me a idea of if they thought they helped. I have 20" wheels so space isn't a problem just wondering if they are worth the time to swap is all.

[skorpioskorpio]

Yea Andy, I don't think they'd really make a noticable difference, what does make a noticable difference however is stainless braided lines. You'd be surprised how much pedal mush your rubber brake lines cause, and that is all the lines ballooning up, once you go with stainless braided lines that end of the pedal mush goes away simply becuase the volume of the lines stays consistant.

I also have been really happy with the Hawk HPS pads, far less fading and more bitey. They also last longer than OEM pads. With stainless lines and a good pad compound the brakes become more linear. With everything there is a trade off and with the HPS pads it's dirtiness, while they are great to drive with they will also dirty your wheels faster, just so you know.

I will say though with 20" wheels you should look into bigger disks, your center of mass is way out there with 20s and that's a tough job for a rotor half that diameter, those are big flywheels you got spinning there.

[Andy4639]

Originally Posted by skorpioskorpio

Yea Andy, I don't think they'd really make a noticable difference, what does make a noticable difference however is stainless braided lines. You'd be surprised how much pedal mush your rubber brake lines cause, and that is all the lines ballooning up, once you go with stainless braided lines that end of the pedal mush goes away simply becuase the volume of the lines stays consistant.

I also have been really happy with the Hawk HPS pads, far less fading and more bitey. They also last longer than OEM pads. With stainless lines and a good pad compound the brakes become more linear. With everything there is a trade off and with the HPS pads it's dirtiness, while they are great to drive with they will also dirty your wheels faster, just so you know.

I will say though with 20" wheels you should look into bigger disks, your center of mass is way out there with 20s and that's a tough job for a rotor half that diameter, those are big flywheels you got spinning there.

I would love to put bigger spindles and rotors on it but just don't have the funds for that.
Already got the stainless lines.



I got part of the brake upgrade done today before work. 7" chrome booster with mount is almost mounted. I didn't have any metric nuts for the new booster studs, they where all metric. Had to run to the hardware store and pick some up so I didn't get it finished. Hope to have it done by tomorrow night though. I'll have to bench bleed the master cylinder and then swap it out also. Got the mount back on with the brake pedal rod adusted and ready to install but ran out of time.

[Andy4639]

Better pictures of the rotors and caliper. I knew I had them just had to find them!

[skorpioskorpio]

My guess is that those rotors are about the same size as what is on my Sonoma. I had needed to do brakes on it right after I ordered the Z-51 Corvette DBA rotors for the Jimmy project so I snapped this pic as a comparison between the 2:



Top is the Sonoma rotor (Stoptech, slotted cryo), left bottom is 13 1/2" Z-51 front (DBA, Disk Brakes Australia, unidirectional slotted) and the bottom right is the rear 13" rotor (also DBA, has integrated parking drum under the hat).

The downside to big brakes is clearance, this is what those Z-51 brakes look like assembled in an 18" wheel:



The weights needed to be removed because they actually hit the caliper and the wheel will need to be rebalanced out on the back edge. The Z-51 calipers are 2 piston sliders, bigger but similar in design to the Wilwoods in the begining of this thread.

[skorpioskorpio]

So Andy is that a CPP master?

[70SBC10BOB]

Beware of "Snake Oil" items. Slotted or cross-drilled or cryo rotors

Slotted rotors look cool but provide no benefits as far as improved braking. The slots were originally called "gas slots". Asbestos brake pads would develop a gas barrier between the pad and the rotor, there fore braking was greatly reduced. Adding the slots, back then, allowed for gas venting and improved braking. The modern brake pads no longer suffer from gas because of the type of resins used to make the pads. (The slots also cause a point to start rotors cracking due to thermal shear.)

Cross-drilled rotors are of the same era. Original disc pads had such a low coefficient of friction, they need a "cheese grater" effect just to make the brakes work. They normally junked the rotors after one race.

Today's cross-drilled rotors look great if you just drive to the park to polish your truck. If you drive hard, they don't work.

A vented rotor is a perfect centrifugal pump. It draws in cool air at the center of the rotor and discharges the hot air at the outside edge, efficiently cooling the rotors.

If you drill holes in your centrifugal pump (rotor), you just killed it's ability to move air and cool the rotors. Wilwood even states in their catalog to cross-drilled rotors will run hotter and not last as long as non-cross-drilled rotors.

"Cryo" rotors are also in the "snake oil" column. Cryo treatment merely hardens a few micros at the surface of the rotor leaving the rotor with a tendency to warping. The proper way to reduce the tendency to warping is through a process of thermal stabilization over about a 4 day controlled heat cycling.

Ok, I know I have stepped on some toes. Sorry! I just wanted the facts out there.

Bob

[skorpioskorpio]

Originally Posted by 70SBC10BOB

Beware of "Snake Oil" items. Slotted or cross-drilled or cryo rotors

Slotted rotors look cool but provide no benefits as far as improved braking. The slots were originally called "gas slots". Asbestos brake pads would develop a gas barrier between the pad and the rotor, there fore braking was greatly reduced. Adding the slots, back then, allowed for gas venting and improved braking. The modern brake pads no longer suffer from gas because of the type of resins used to make the pads. (The slots also cause a point to start rotors cracking due to thermal shear.)

Cross-drilled rotors are of the same era. Original disc pads had such a low coefficient of friction, they need a "cheese grater" effect just to make the brakes work. They normally junked the rotors after one race.

Today's cross-drilled rotors look great if you just drive to the park to polish your truck. If you drive hard, they don't work.

A vented rotor is a perfect centrifugal pump. It draws in cool air at the center of the rotor and discharges the hot air at the outside edge, efficiently cooling the rotors.

If you drill holes in your centrifugal pump (rotor), you just killed it's ability to move air and cool the rotors. Wilwood even states in their catalog to cross-drilled rotors will run hotter and not last as long as non-cross-drilled rotors.

"Cryo" rotors are also in the "snake oil" column. Cryo treatment merely hardens a few micros at the surface of the rotor leaving the rotor with a tendency to warping. The proper way to reduce the tendency to warping is through a process of thermal stabilization over about a 4 day controlled heat cycling.

Ok, I know I have stepped on some toes. Sorry! I just wanted the facts out there.

Bob

Cryogenic tempering is not “snake oil” nor is it a surface treatment, it is a metal tempering technique that increases the wear characteristics of steel and steel alloys and is resistant to further untempering by heating and cooling cycling. It effects in a real world and numerically quantifiable way, the yield strength, ultimate strength, and Rockwell hardness values of the alloy. It is no more “snake oil” than heat hardening, forging or any other process that intends to align and lock the crystalline structure of metals. It is not a process invented by brake rotor manufactures as a marketing ploy, it’s a process born out of machining industry and metallurgy sciences that happens to be being applied to brake rotors. Heat cycling produces a tempering that is easy lost by subsequent use that in turn produces unregulated heat cycling undoing the effects of the controlled process. That said my most recent set of rotors for my current daily driver, it cost like $20 more for cryo rotor vs non, so I figured I’d try them and honestly I don’t feel they have made a positive performance difference, and maybe slightly negative though not enough to have much noticeable effect. They are noticeably noisier, specifically squeaky. I’m not sure a harder rotor is necessarily better if the way brakes work is via a process of abrasion. I don’t keep rotors for more than the life of 2 sets of pads anyway so increased wear resistance at the expense of rotor life I’ll never encounter doesn’t really gain *me* much.

McLaren, Lola, and March and many others have all routinely used both slotted and drilled rotors in multi-million dollar efforts in Indy, Formula 1 and Le Mans LMP long after asbestos pads were long gone but obviously they did so to look cool. C’mon Bob really? These are teams that spend hundreds of thousands to cut a tenth of a second off a lap time. Most of these applications are using carbon brakes now, though there are still slots and holes frequently seen it's less so as the gains are less apparent.

Have you ever compared the performance of slotted rotors vs non-slotted rotors, I have and time to the onset of fade is reduced, damp and wet performance produces less pad chatter and linear performance is more predictable. On the negative side they are noisier (though I kind of like the wooshing sound they make), are dirtier, and wear pads faster. They also progressively lose gains through wear as the leading edge of the slots rounds down and the slots themselves become shallower. Because of that I personally do not use them more than 2 pad wear cycles. The difference in performance on varying grade, turn intense canyon roads is quite noticeable as is the prolonged onset of fade. Slots reduce the tendency of the leading edge of the pad to lift and the backing plate and in turn the friction material to cup and reduce the contact area with the rotor. Yes the total rotor area is effectively reduced because of the area of the slots themselves, however the performance is more predictable over a longer use cycle. Also I’ve gone through many sets of slotted rotors and have never seen a crack in one I’ve taken off.

Drilled rotors have very little positive effect when the rotor that is drilled is an internally vane cooled rotor. It causes material checking and cracking of the rotors though rarely catastrophic failures of the rotor. The drilled holes in a vane cooled rotor do not help cooling since the holes are counter to the dominant airflow and create a trapped air condition similar to laying a box fan face down on the floor where the fan just spins a donut of air and cannot actually move any air in any sort of useful way. Drilled rotors are useful to reduce rotating mass and unsprung weight in applications where rotor surface area to mass ratios are low, this is not the case in typical OE applications but is true in motorcycle and very light weight vehicle applications. In typical street automotive applications you’d save more weight by cutting your rotors down to minimal spec than you’ll ever save by drilling. They are however not without their useful and effective application. As far as looks, to each his own, drilled rotors tend to crack and the holes tend to rust and I personally don’t see where the visual appeal is.

What you state is more opinion than fact and I’m not sure it’s even an opinion from direct experience. My statements may very well also be viewed more as opinion, though I will say that in my experience there are many instances where under the same conditions non-slotted rotors using the same friction material have resulted in virtually nothing left in the brakes and after show obvious signs of surface breakdown, the slots hold and show normal wear characteristics.

[Andy4639]

Originally Posted by skorpioskorpio

So Andy is that a CPP master?

I don't know for sure. I bought it as it sat in the box. No paper work. I can ask Howard though he should know. He is who I bought it from.

I spent all day getting the booster and master cylinder mounted and bleed! I ended up having to make new lines from the front a arm up to the master cylinder valve because the dang fittings where different and I couldn't for the life of me get my flare tool to work are the one I barrowed from O Riellys. The new proportioning valve wouldn't take the brake switch either. So I ended up using the old one.


I bought new lines and bent them and the smaller line had the wrong fittings. I'll get the right one tomorrow and hope its done by nightfall! I'm almost ready to just buy the dang 13" kit.

70SBC10BOB,
I don't know if the slots and holes help are not but they look cool and I like that enough to run them and it didn't hurt the stopping power for sure. The rotors have been on the truck since back in early winter this year and look as good today as they did when I installed them. They haven't rusted yet!