Wilsons Sandbox

Some follow up on the front brake modification in the form of hypothesis:  The master cylinder used on Gen1 & Gen2 are the same therefore the lever effort to pressure is the same. The caliper piston area is virtually identical between Gen1 & Gen2 front calipers, therefore the clamping effort is the same for both calipers. The rotor diameter is 260 mm versus 280 mm which means the average swept distance per revolution of Gen2 is 110% of Gen1. The pad area for Gen2 is 120% of Gen1 pad area. Gen2 braking is better than 110% of Gen1 so the improvement (given the same pads EBC HH) therefore some other effect must be providing the extra braking. A frequent claim is made that brake pad area/size has no effect on brake friction but this is clearly not correct. Another factor is that braking effect/friction is not linear with apply pressure/clamping force. One can recognize this by simply experiencing the braking effect of any vehicle under increasing lever or pedal effort.Applying a given pressure to the pedal or lever provides a degree of braking. Doubling the application effort may double the braking or result in greater or lesser braking which shows that the relationship is not linear.  When one reaches a certain degree of braking, applying additional effort to the lever or pedal results in very little braking increase because the pad to rotor friction has reached maximum. At this point, adding increased pad area to the same caliper will result in increased braking.