No matter how much time and effort you put into a build, modifying a car and racing it always has a possibility of wrecking. Even driving down the road you have a possibility of wrecking, but when you get your hands in the car and start tinkering with things it literally opens the Pandora's Box of possibilities. Most people get lucky when they rebuild cars for racing, and they are fine. However, there is a small statistical bunch that always gets the shaft. The following footage shows a Mitsubishi Eclipse that is wrecked during a street race thanks to locked up brakes. When the brakes lock up, there isn't much you can do but hold on for the ride. There is a reason we have anti-lock braking systems as a standard feature on modern vehicles! Discuss this article with
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When the brakes lock up, all traction and control is lost. The grip of the tire against the surface of the tarmac becomes non-existent. During the lock up, the driver has no control over the direction and speed of the vehicle. The only choice one has is to hit the brake pedal repeatedly very hard, as fast as possible. Sometimes you can get the brakes to unlock by doing this, but it's rare that it works. Another possibility to curing the brake lock blues is to make use of the emergency brake. If you are lucky, your front brakes will be the only ones that are completely locked because all vehicles are built to have front biased braking. If that's the case in this event, we will assume the driver looked into upgrading brakes to prevent this from occurring again.
Upgrading brakes is a very expensive task but totally worth the result. There is two ways to upgrade your braking system; the cheap way, and the expensive way. The cheap way allows drivers to gain optimal braking performance out of their factory calipers by adding ceramic pads in combination with drilled and slotted rotors. Many times, builders will also swap to braided steel brake lines as well. The ceramic doesn't heat up as fast as metal, and also doesn't leave that nasty black dust associated with standard metallic pads. Upgrading the rotors to drilled and slotted reduces the stopping surface area, but even though there is less of a surface the cooling effect of thermal veins keeps the braking system cooler during high speed use and thus improving brake response. The braided lines don't have the flex of a rubber brake line, and aid in improving the brake line pressure and increasing response.
The expensive way is really the way to go and includes upgrading the caliper, rotor, brake pad, and brake line. By using a caliper with more pistons, ceramic pads, over sized drilled and slotted rotor, and metal brake lines one can effectively improve brake response and braking distances at all speeds. More caliper pistons provide a quicker, even, and more powerful force to the pads during a hard braking event; and this is the real improvement over the "cheap" way of improving brake systems. Whatever you choose to do, just remember if you upgrade speed and power don't forget about brakes. It's a common mistake that is always overlooked until the last second, and by then it's usually too late.
Video content: Mitsubishi Eclipse wrecks during parking lot drag race
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Source:
Tampa Sports Car Examiner
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