cbs latest on handbrakes?

[Ron Finney]

Let me answer for Jeff. You would plumb one set to the front half of the cylinder and the second set to the back half of the cylinder. The dual master IS for safety that is why it is federally mandated on all US vehicles since the mid 1960's. If you have hydraulic failure, the pedal will drop some, but a rod inside the piston assembly will manually push the other pistion in the cylinder to apply the brakes on the other line. I guess I agree with Jeff, that the hand brake is more of a finish line enhancement than safety. If we are going to go the safety route, then that means every car needs a hand brake.

If you only have one set of rear calipers and no front brakes, then even a handbrake isn't going to help you, so where is the safety again?

[darkside]

The handbrakes we are talking about does have 2 seperate sets of rear calipers.

Can anyone tell me anyone who drives the finish line with the hand brake? I have yet to find anyone.

It is a great safty feature that SHOULD be mandatory on all cars over 150...in my opinion.
And it is an awesome addition to getting the car out of the trailer easily by yourself, lol.

Don't forget to bring your tux to Indy, Royal Wedding Friday morning!

[Maverick]

The question was raised do you know anyone who drives the finish line with the hand brake. I was not in the car with him at the time, but I talked to the west coast champ, with the roadster, with the surf boards, that was racing everywhere that year. I believe 2009. And he stated that what he does, and I was just amazed that anyone would pull the brake that hard. He stated it won't lock the brakes up, but he felt it was safe effective method, if you can't catch the guy. That was the first time I heard of it, and I believe the group was five or six racers, that were waiting for the time to move there trailers at the US Nationals. There is one, and I believe that he was not the only one in the group, but I got to know talk to the guy a few times and that is what he stated. Steve Willie Williams Super gas 351N

[Chris Williams]

I am finishing up our SC/TD car and decided to put on a dual rear brake system. Using Wilwood's dual MC system, two separate lines to the rear and dual calipers. My thinking being that 3/4ths of the system is redundant. Protects against several common failure scenarios: leaking fitting, line rupture, FOD or failure at the caliper, etc. Yes, you can envision another set of failures that it still doesn't help: pedal disconnect, catastrophic MC failure, bracket failure, and since the lines run down the same frame rail, frame tube destruction. But it still seems worth the expense/effort.

As for the "too easy to lock it up", I'm just baffled. With sufficient pressure, you can lock up any brake system and get in trouble. The trick is to not push that hard... like you always do? In short, I'm at a loss as to where in the book of life it says "there's such a thing as too much brake capability". Especially at 180+.

[Bill Koski]

My theory is if you're going to use a dual caliper system use a dual master cylinder and connect both calipers on one side to the same brake line. I broke a hat and fortunately the rotor stayed in place enough so the pistons stayed in the caliper, if the rotor had come out of the caliper I would have had zero brakes, single or dual calipers!
I've also seen the ring gear come off and saw off the lower right frame rail a couple of times so both lbrakes lines should run down the left side.

[darkside]

Chris, your are 100% right, you can lock up any brakes. With your brake system you don't have to push as hard to do it...around here it's really in "vouge" to dump hard, I am guilty sometimes too and after driving a car with brakes like yours before, I would have trouble with it.

I am not saying you can't have your system, even though I feel they are not as safe as a foot brake, hand brake set up. I know my car is not as safe as it was when I had to take the hand brake out before tech at Charlotte, and a helluva lot harder to get out of the trailer.

Bottom line, and something I think everyone will agree with, if they would enforce the excessive braking rule this would not be an issue.

[Rich Biebel]

I agree again 100% with all the reasons a seperate handbrake operated system is safer.

Enforce the rules....unsafe braking gets DQ'ed on the spot......Event director makes the decision.....end of story......Spotters are at the 1000' mark.....They call it...your out.....Don't care who you are, what number is on your car......you skid the back end or put smoke out on a door car and your out.....

Look at the numbers some guys are running vs a red.....and there are more and more people singing the praises of holding rediculous amounts of ET.....This tactic is being promoted in schools conducted by xxxxxx ........Well you can fill that in for yourself....and if you don't know who I am not going to say.....


If everybody holds a tenth.....what the hell do you think happens....

I have used the left pedal to win many, many rounds.....never once got out of control and never was holding the amount thats being done in todays racing.....rediculous...

[Jason Oldfield]

Originally Posted by darkside

Bottom line, and something I think everyone will agree with, if they would enforce the excessive braking rule this would not be an issue.

Bingo!

[Chris Williams]

Originally Posted by Bill Koski

My theory is if you're going to use a dual caliper system use a dual master cylinder and connect both calipers on one side to the same brake line. I broke a hat and fortunately the rotor stayed in place enough so the pistons stayed in the caliper, if the rotor had come out of the caliper I would have had zero brakes, single or dual calipers!

Problem is that most MCs are not identical side to side. Even the Wilwood dual system designed for drag racing applications has different size fittings for the two outlets. I worry that if you were to run both calipers one side to one outlet, I'd always have more braking on one side than the other. Now there's a recipe for disaster...

[Bill Koski]

Do you run an open rear or a posi-trac?
With a spool?