DownTheAvenue wrote:
Turtle n Peeps wrote:
0 reason now days to get drilled or slotted rotors. That's from the people who are in the brake business that hire big buck engineers and not from me.
They won't hold as many BTU's because there is less material. They look cool though! :B
Can you cite a source for your first statement?
Your second statement is misleading. With the slotted rotors, there is more surface area than conventional rotors, thus the ability to better dissipate the heat. Same principle as all the fins on the head of an air cooled lawnmower engine.
With rotors, holding the heat, as you assert in your second statement, is the problem. Dissipating (or getting rid of the heat) is desirable.
Wilwood Tech answers.Wilwood wrote:
So in the final analysis, drilling and slotting rotors has become popular in street applications for their pure aesthetic value.
In other words; slotted or drilled rotors "look" cool.
I will say one thing. There was one advantage to having drilled or slotted rotors when I was racing circle track. We wanted to least amount of un-sprung weight we could have on each axel and A arm. Drilled rotors were a way of doing this. The trade off was the brakes could not take as much BTU's. Depending on the track this may or may not be a problem.
As far as my second statement goes; it's not misleading at all. The simple fact is this. The more material (cast iron) you have the more heat it can hold. There is a reason drag cars like mine have small thin brakes on them. They don't have to hold much heat. They just stop you at the end of the track and you're done.
Tow vehicles are a different story. They slow down or stop a lot of weight over a long period of time. They have to hold a lot of heat and dissipate a lot of heat. It's a big job!
I know you "think" that if you have some little slots in the rotors this will make the heat dissipate much faster. The articles I have read from the experts say no; it just doesn't work that way. They say "vented" rotors work but not slotted rotors.
And what do we see on big TV from an F250 to a class 8 truck? Yep, a big chunk of cast iron; whether a disk or a drum. No fancy weight saving slots or drill holes. Why? Because it works the best? Why? Because the engineers studied it and say so that why! :)
