Im arguing with a friend of mine regarding brakes and handling. His car is pretty heavy and plows into turns on the track. When he mashes on the brakes the front end drops significantly lifting the back end causing it to get a little squirrelly. He feels a big brake kit in the front end will help solve the problem by giving him better stopping power. Changing the driving techniques is not an option as he is hard into the turns, hard on the brakes, and hard out of the turns. He has been tracking heavily for numerous years with a lot of track time under his belt.

I said bigger brakes will magnify the problem. What he should do is change the front suspension to reduce the nose drop a bit and install some sort of bias control to move some of his braking power to the rear.

He already has a very modified car/suspension...I wont say what it is as I am fairly certain it would change the nature of this discussion/question. He also has a fully race prepped brake system... race pads/ high temp fluid/ stainless lines etc...

what do you think?

BTW why did I put this discussion here? Well the fd is a very balanced car brake wise. There have been numerous discussions about changing the brakes on a seven that all end in- the seven has great brakes already. I figured you guys were the most qualified to discuss as similar questions have come around from time to time.

 

Installing larger front brakes will magnify the problem if the bias is too forward. Bigger rear brakes to go with the fronts balances things out again. I installed big front brakes on my car and found the balance to be too forward. I ended up installing larger front brakes to balance things out again, and the car felt much better under braking after the large rear brakes were installed. As an easy step toward better balance, he could install some higher friction pads in the rear.

-Max

 

Its called weight transfer, if he insists on that driving style the car is going to fall on its face no matter what size brakes he puts on it. The other extreme is the rears will lock up first and he won't get all the weight transfer, he'll just flatspot tires in the back. Squeeeeeeezzzee the brake pedal and the chassis will be happier, it will let you go faster because it won't be so scared

 

I am in total agreement with jgrewe, due to his driving style the car will always respond in the same manner. Technology can't make up for bad driving technique. Adjusting the suspension could help, however I can't tell you how to go about an entire setup.