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Wilwoods on a 700

Ian's Q compound pads make no noise. I haven't driven with the BP-10's yet but they're made for street use ...

http://brakepads.wilwood.com/01-selection/bp10.html

<table border="0" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" width="655"><tbody><tr><td colspan="2" bgcolor="#d3d3d3">"Smart-Pad" BP-10:</td> </tr> <tr> <td bgcolor="silver" width="50%">
Characteristics​
</td> <td bgcolor="silver" width="50%">
Applications​
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  • Medium friction compound with the low noise and low dust of a street performance compound and the increased friction characteristics of a semi-metallic race compound.
  • Smooth engagement with consistent response from a flat torque curve throughout its entire effective temperature range.
  • Good low to middle temperature wear rates.
  • Beds quickly and provides fast response without excessive abrasion on vented iron rotors.
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  • High performance street / strip, drag race, and track day categories using vented iron rotors.
  • Light to medium braking on dirt tracks including late models, modifieds, sportsman, and street stocks.
  • Disc brake conversions on street rods and muscle cars.
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Q compound applications

* Sprint cars with aluminum rotors.
* Disc brake conversions on street rods, muscle cars, custom show cars, and all moderate performance applications where low noise and dust are important. :-(
 
phillazenby740t said:
Q compound applications

* Sprint cars with aluminum rotors.
* Disc brake conversions on street rods, muscle cars, custom show cars, and all moderate performance applications where low noise and dust are important. :-(
Click to expand...

Don't let that fool you. They are far better performing pads than any Volvo pads. I have not tried the plethora of replacement pads available and have no doubt Raybestos makes a good one as does Porterfield and Hawk. At ~$100 for a set (2 calipers worth), I think they're a good option. The BP-10 pads are even cheaper. I don't have any real life experience with them but the 122 will be running them this summer, possibly front and rear. I can tell you the Q compounds on Ian's V8 car haul it down in a huge hurry from any speed...repeatedly...
 
pgrey said:
The "Q" pads are what I have on my car. They squeek and make dust. I wonder if the new pads are somehow better. Mine have been on for a while now...

Peter
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Interesting Peter

As Dale & Matt can attest, the Wilwood "Q" pad I have on my car are very clean, very little to no brake dust on my wheels after many miles of "spirited" driving. They have also been completely silent.
 
Volvord said:
Interesting Peter

As Dale & Matt can attest, the Wilwood "Q" pad I have on my car are very clean, very little to no brake dust on my wheels after many miles of "spirited" driving. They have also been completely silent.
Click to expand...


Well, it may be the spirited driving that's keeping them quiet. I drive around San Francisco and it's tough to get them warm. After I heat them up a bit, the squeek goes away for a while. This doesn't address the dust issue though. Mind you, they're not hugely dusty, but the difference between the front and rear wheels is obvious.

Peter
 
Here are the pictures I've been promising.

Front caliper bracket mounted properly:

100_3107%20small.jpg


Note the amount of backing plate removed for caliper clearance.

The caliper may need some small clearancing on your car. It did on mine. I could have ground a little bit off the balljoint flange, but I just touched up the caliper like so:

100_3110%20small.jpg


The rotor mounted to the back of the hat, and (poorly, my very first attempt) safety wired:

100_3113%20small.jpg


Test fitted with my nasty old spacers. You'll notice a lack of cleanliness throughout my car. I like it that way.

100_3115%20small.jpg


A small amount of grinding to the inside of the factory bracket is necessary to mount the Earl's brake hose to the body of the car.

100_3117%20small.jpg


Elbow and hose thus:

100_3120%20small.jpg


Voila!

100_3141%20small.jpg


Rears in similar fashion - the untouched backing plate (yes that is a hose clamp keeping my rear spring in place):

100_3122%20small.jpg


Relieved for caliper & bracket clearance:
100_3124%20small.jpg


100_3123%20small.jpg


100_3125%20small.jpg


Due to an error somewhere, one of the bolt holes is too darn small. Open it up with the appropriate drill bit.
100_3128%20small.jpg


Properly mounted on the axle lugs. Take note that the axle lugs fit within the reliefs in the bracket, and the caliper lugs fit into their own reliefs.
100_3131%20small.jpg


Test fit caliper to prove clearance to backing plate:
100_3132%20small.jpg

Test fit rotor on the hub & try to give it a spin. You'll see marks on the backing plate where the parking brake drum rubs. Again, sorry - I could have made the drum about 3/16" narrower & it wouldn't have hit. I'll fix it in the next issue.
100_3133%20small.jpg


100_3134%20small.jpg


But now you get to have fun with a hammer! Tap all around the edge thusly, paying particular attention to the area near the parking brake actuator boss. Everything will probably self-machine if you leave it alone, but it's probably better to clearance things now.
100_3135%20small.jpg


100_3136%20small.jpg


Don't stop until it fits without rubbing. Watch for the very furthest outer edges of the backing plate rubbing on the rotor - it bends easily to clear the rotor. Note, you COULD remove most of the backing plate if you want maximum cooling, same goes for the fronts, however I wouldn't remove the rear backing plate outright, due to it being sandwiched between the axle and rear wheel bearing retainer, and if you remove it you'll alter the preload on that bearing.
100_3138%20small.jpg


Again, a small amount of grinding necessary to the bracket, and the Earl's lines slide right in place.
100_3140%20small.jpg


Rear brakes done.
100_3142%20small.jpg
 
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Now, for performance: Since the majority of folks here bought only front brakes, and since I installed both front and rear at the same time, I can't comment on how well the front-only swap works. I *think* it will work just fine.

Overall, the brakes are much more powerful once they're warmer than cold. At dead cold, they require a slight bit more pedal effort, but once they warm up the pedal effort required drops dramatically. Since the stock pedal effort is too light, it shouldn't be a surprise that a bigger master cylinder bore is needed, or the removal of the brake booster could be tried.

My install has some issues: I've got a bit of a vibration at high speed application (more severe when warm) and at low speeds (approaching a stop) you can feel them pulse - not through the brake pedal. It may be that one of my rotors is slightly warped, or that I bedded them incorrectly and I need to clean off the rear rotors and try again. Either way, I'll be surfacing the rotors the next time I've got the car off the road for a few days.

Wilwood says that .005-.008" of runout is allowable. I measured .003" on both my front rotors, and .010" on one of my rears with .016" on the other. Both axles were bent, and I also had about .010" of endfloat on the axle bearings. All of this combined to "knock back" the pads so that my brake pedal was quite low. I installed new bearings on much straighter axles, and now have zero endfloat with .003 and .004" runout, and the pedal is MUCH higher and more consistent. The reduced runout lowered the brake pulsation quite a bit, but it's not completely gone.

I used the BP-10 pads. I expected them to be very linear in torque production, suggested by the graphic Wilwood offers, but in reality I find them to be a bit wooden when cold and very grabby when hot. Might be that they're not completely bedded in yet, or were never bedded in correctly... Once they're hot, they work and work and work. I can't get up to speed fast enough and frequently enough to get them to fade. Repeated maximum effort stops from 70 MPH (10-12 in a row) did nothing to damage braking performance. They're not totally dust-free pads, though, and my Tethys' are a bit of a bear to clean, but I don't think you can expect a good pad to be TOTALLY clean.

Oh, and I haven't tried disabling ABS yet to see how the brake balance is, but I plan to do this test in the future.

One other thing I should note: The two-piece rotors like these are almost never assembled so the rotor is totally concentric with the hub. The rotor WILL be a little bit offset, and combined with the fact that they're not balanced from the factory, you may experience a little bit of a vibration at speed unless the rotors are taken in for balancing after they're assembled. As these were the "alpha" version of my BBK, I now realise that I could have added a step for the rotor to pilot onto the hat, hopefully eliminating any eccentricity (though that's truly a "hopefully", not a guarantee.)

Again, remember that these are racing bits, and because of that a little bit of extra prep is required for each installation: one race team might want to drill or slot their rotors in a particular pattern, one race team might want to thin down the rotors as much as possible to lighten them up, one race team might want a dead smooth braking surface so will dress them on a grinder table and lap them with stone, and all rotating pieces are checked for balance.
 
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wilwood_hydra.jpg


Everything went together, no problems. I don't have ABS, so I used the procedure here: http://www.brickboard.com/FAQ/700-900/Brakes.htm#UpgradingOlder7XXBrakestoLater9XXJumboBrakes
No shake, shimmy, and not too much noise.

I'm using BP-20 pads, which match Matt's description of the BP-10s, except they're easily modulated when hot; I'm relieved that it's not dangerous when cold.
I let the smoke out of the pads yesterday on my favorite brake test hill with the 'ol lady riding shotgun; didn't stink too much at all. I have stock ATe rear brakes with MM pads; the balance is quite good.
Overall, I'm tickled.
Now for the track!
 
An update to my own brake performance (and earlier issues): Initially, I had a ton of vibration that was making me worry about caliper stability, but the frequencies were all wrong and the vibration was directly related to wheel speed - even approaching a stop. I tried "surfacing" the rear rotors first with a roloc disk and then with my blasting cabinet, to get rid of any potential uneven pad material buildup, but the pulsation returned. I tried the same treatment on the front rotors without success. Eventually I got to a weekday where I could take my car apart & bring the rotors into a shop, where they trued them up on their lathe. The result is that there is now zero pulsation, hot or cold. Either I torqued one of my rotors up poorly (quite likely, since I didn't actually torque them), or they were stored incorrectly (on edge, where they'll creep and warp on the shelf). Bottom line is that if you've got pulsation, you'll need to get the rotors machined.

Now that they're machined, I can hammer on them at any time, and with the BP-10 pads they require a light warmup but once they're warm they're very powerful. Dusting isn't as bad as I first thought, being as that I haven't done any seriously hard braking since I decided that one was warped and they'd need machining. During normal driving, brake dust is minimal and it's pretty easily cleaned. Either I've gotten used to things or after the machining, the pads are much easier to modulate and aren't nearly as wooden when cold or as grabby when hot. I'm pleased.

The other day, though, my radiator jumped off it's supports (don't ask...) and fell backwards into the fan (you E-fan fanatics may rejoice, briefly) where it was torn asunder. I immediately killed the ignition and came to a stop on the side of the road without ABS, and boy howdy do those rear brakes lock up!!! I think a proportioning valve will be needed for some of you, but I haven't had time to rig up an ABS disable switch to see just how bad it is, as I've only got that one near spin to talk about. Another issue is that the non-ABS cars have a diagonal split system, meaning it's got TWO lines going to the rears, so I'm not sure how you'll deal with rear bias control... maybe some 240 rear limiting valves?
 
I'm trying to decide on my pad compound right now too. I do some track days. Usually several days a year, and I'm not against switching pads for the track. But, really with the increased coolling and braking from the wilwood fronts. I'm hopeful that a dual purpose pad can go both ways.

Just to give you an idea of the application. My car is heavy, Volvos ain't stripped race cars. And At Pueblo Motorports Park, my local track, I had to run some really aggressive race pads in the front of my factory 740 calipers to get anything resembling decent braking. These were not streetable at all because they could destroy rotors really quickly when cold. There is one really hard braking zone where I slow from about 110+ down to about 75 for the corner entry. Then several other spots where you need a little braking adjustment too. I'll need a wilwood pad that can take that on the track.

It looks like my choices are the BP10 or BP20 for a dual purpose pad. And then one of the racier choices if I want just a track only pad. Has anyone run a track day with the BP10 or 20 yet?



peehound said:
I'm using BP-20 pads, which match Matt's description of the BP-10s, except they're easily modulated when hot; I'm relieved that it's not dangerous when cold.
I let the smoke out of the pads yesterday on my favorite brake test hill with the 'ol lady riding shotgun; didn't stink too much at all. I have stock ATe rear brakes with MM pads; the balance is quite good.
Overall, I'm tickled.
Now for the track!
Click to expand...
 
qwkswede said:
It looks like my choices are the BP10 or BP20 for a dual purpose pad. And then one of the racier choices if I want just a track only pad. Has anyone run a track day with the BP10 or 20 yet?
Click to expand...

On another board, I read that BP20s only last 1 day, and that the "B" pads are the way to go for track days.
I don't believe everything I read.
I've got a spare set of BP20s I'm going to break in before I go, just in case.
Oct. 5, Thunderhill.:nod:
 
Matt Dupuis said:
Yes, but then you've got to get two of them and adjust each one accordingly.

On another note, apparently 140s have adjustable rear limiting valves. Hmm...
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Yes, but then you've got to get two of them and adjust each one accordingly.:-P

AND they're >33 years old...

I'm planning on converting to the ABS style F/R split, anyway.
 
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