Double-A Dale's
Tech Tip

By Dale Wilson
11/7/03

topping a 160-mph bracket dragster is just as important as its starting line leave, and for our new front-engine dragster built by Tommy Harris/Fabrication Concepts (Douglassville, GA), we chose a new brake kit from Wilwood Engineering. It is ultra-trick.

Why? Wilwood's Carl Bush explains the ins and outs of the company's new Dynamic Mount dual caliper rear axle drag brake system. (Also available but sold separately is Wilwood's dual tandem-outlet master cylinder that operates two separate and isolated brake systems on the rear axle.) "We've added the additional brake-clamping force of the second calipers, and it therefore becomes a redundant system in case half of the braking system should fail; if it does, you still have two more brake calipers to stop the car," Bush said.

That means that Wilwood's Dynamic Mount braking system has four calipers, two per wheel, that act as two separate and independent pair. Two of the calipers are in front of the axles and two are behind them. "You essentially have front and rear brakes, two in front and two in the rear of the axles," he said.

What a dragster sees is very high brake torque loading and very high temperature spikes into the brake system, Bush said, even though it's only for a short period of time. "The key to the system is how the steel rotors are attached to the mounting hats," he said. "The rotor is able to expand and contract or 'float,' and that's where the 'Dynamic Mount' comes in, as opposed to static mount, where the rotor is mounted directly to the hat. Our rotor is mounted in a T-hut and slot system that allows the rotor to move independently of the aluminum mounting hat. It completely eliminates all the stresses and strains that would otherwise be imposed on the mounting bolt circle trying to also expand and contract." Meaning this Wilwood Dynamic Mount kit dissipates heat a lot quicker and better than other disc systems.

The assembly, made of steel and aluminum, is also lighter than other systems, thus not only cutting down on overall weight, but rotating weight or rotating mass as well. "It stops rotor warpage, the rotors run more true and it eliminates all that stress in braking," Bush said. "You'll get a long longer service life out of these rotors and of the hats," he said. Plus I'll be stopping a lot quicker --- very important in top end bracket or "Super/Rod" racing.

Photos courtesy of Wilwood Engineering

Be sure to check out this month's column by Dale Wilson.

Source

Wilwood Engineering
4700 Calle Bolero
Camarillo, CA 93012
805-388-1188