Nerd’s Eye View: SEMA Edition 2012, Part I

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StopTech has a new Enduro caliper designed specifically for very long endurance races.  The bridge going across the caliper is really beefy.

To minimize the number of pad changes required, really thick 1″ pads are fitted.  I’m pretty sure those flat discs covering the ends of the pistons are titanium to minimize heat transfer.  Should a pad change be required, the calipers can be fitted with dry break lines allowing the caliper and pads to be swapped out as a unit.  This greatly reduces the time required to change out and refresh the brake system during a race.  As endurance races have basically become 24 hour sprints with the races often coming down to the last lap, every second counts and the dry break system can shave minutes.

Maybe the coolest thing I saw at SEMA, StopTech came up with this caliper stiffness comparison test rig.  A motorcycle brake lever and master cylinder assembly are used to provide the pressure.  The valve in the middle is used to choose which caliper to actuate.  A pressure gauge and dial indicator are mounted on each side to measure the applied pressure and deflection in the caliper.  The blue caliper is a 6-piston off a new BMW M5.

With 600psi of line pressure (two fingers worth on the lever), the caliper from the M5 deflected 0.007″ while the StopTech caliper deflected 0.006″.

StopTech has performed quite a bit of benchmarking.