What did i do to cause this ? The calipers were installed in December... i did 3 hpde's on it and one pad change . ALL seals are like that . I believe they are dust seals, and i have no leaks, but this clearly does not look good.

Help


Also, dear vendors - i need the replacement seal kit.

 

are you hard on your brakes?

 

^ yes - track that i go to is very difficult on them.

 

Overheated them and cooled them quickly. It happens.

 

so you think that it's a 100% heat related issue ?

 

It could be heat, it could be a chemical wear issue. What brake fluid are you using? What brake pad? Are you on race tires?

Do you have dust boots over the pistons?

 

Those are dust boots and they will deteriorate like that when they see high temperatures. Most race cars will just remove them altogether to reduce maintenance work and costs. The dust boots are only there to reduce the amount of contamination that makes its way dow into the piston seal which is further down in the caliper bores. Replacement dust boots are not expensive if you wish to continue running them and it likely that the parts we use in our calipers will fit right in. You can install titanium backing plates behind the pads to reduce heat transfer into the rest of the caliper to increase component life and reduce the chance of boiling your brake fluid.

 

^do you guys sell backing plates?

 

Wilwood calipers don't even come with dust boots. They suggest cleaning off the piston with a brush every time u take the wheels off in order to prevent dust from contaminating the seal.

You can buy titanium backing plates from many online companies. They make them for the AP calipers.

 

We have backing plates avaialble for our calipers and a few other popular applications. Not sure if the OP can get them from us though since I dont know what pad shape his particular calipers use.

 

Erik, I get my pads from Carbotech, and one of the first things that i got from them about ti shims was this -

DON'T USE THIS PRODUCT!
That's my official warning against the titanium shims. No "true racing" brake system in the world comes with these shims, as they claim. The truth of the matter is, these create more heat, not less. The titanium shims don't allow the heat to dissipate as it should from the pads and that creates more heat. It can and will overheat your rotors, causing them to warp, and the boots on the caliper can melt as well. If you want to reduce the temp of the caliper, spindle and thus the fluid, run air ducts to the brakes, caliper and rotor. A good 3" or 4" line from the front of the car back would be adequate, there are kits available for about what the shims would cost you.
Put in a high performance fluid like the ATE Super Blue or Gold, the Brembo LCF600, Motul RBF600 or the Castrol SRF (best stuff in the world) and run the ducts and you will be fine. Have you added stainless flexible lines? I would highly suggest doing that as well. We have the Goodridge Racing lines, not the street lines (like you see at Tire Rack) in stock for the 350Z right now, we have all of the fluid in stock as well.

 

Ive never heard that before. I doubt you want to disipate heat from pads onto the pistons. That doesn't make much sense.
Its obvious that adding titanium backing plates will prevent the pistons from getting too hot, and therefore the boots, seals, caliper and fluid. I don't see how your rotors would overheat.

Addings brake ducts however is a great idea regardless. I want to do that once I put my BBK in.

 

The ti backing plate is right against the steel backing plate for the pad. This allows heat to transfer right through it. It is as if you used a thicker steel for pad backing plate.

I know that the stock brembo pads came with a shim that covered about 2/3 of the backing plate. It has some sort of coating, possibly to reduce vibration (anti squeel). I have reused these on a set of aftermarket pads, but i think i will ditch them next pad swap. They are starting to look a little crispy

 

The Ti shims will cause the pads to run hotter, which is the point of the plates to begin with. The caliper should not be used as a heatsink, that is what the rotor is for. If the pads are wearing excessively or depositing material onto the rotors and causing vibrations, then the pads are not suitable for the application and parts with a higher temperature range should be used. I also do not know of any brake kits that ship with Ti plates, however, many race teams do use plates or other variations of parts that do the same thing like titanium buttons in the pistons or even all titanium pistons. The benefit of Titanium is its porosity which means there are lots of voids that reduce the transfer of heat. This is the same reason titanium is so lightweight and why it is used in the medical feild for bone grafting, the bone cells will actually move through the metal pores making the repair a permanent integrated addition.

Ducting however is always a good idea and is the best way to manage heat with a brake system