Lightning Brake Cooling

[BlackBolt9]

Well after this weekend at the race track I am pretty happy with what I have for brake cooling now. I went through half a set of front and rear pads and only cracked one rotor which was my mistake. Usually I go through a set of pads in a day so I used about 1/4 of what I used to. The only cracked rotor I had was because I didn't drive around slowly after my session on track and the extremely hot rotors cracked where they sat under the caliper after I parked the truck. The rest of the weekend I would take a slow ~10mph lap around the whole paddock before parking the truck, no more cracked rotors the rest of the weekend :banana:epper:

So without further ado here is what I am doing now for cooling.

In the front end I made a box that bolts to existing holes in the frame rails. Coming out of the box are two 3" tubes that will accept RV sewer hose that I routed up the control arm under the tie rod and to a backing plate that I welded a 3" tube to. I safety wired the sewer hose out of the way and it lasted the whole weekend without rubbing on anything. The mounting brackets for the box did get bent when I spun off track and got stuck in the mud but it did hold up and continue working throughout the weekend.

The box and hose:

Mounted from the front:

How the hose is routed:

For the rear end I simply took some of the left over sewer hose, safety wired it to the hard brake line mounting point so that it was aimed at the rear brake caliper. I then routed it under the leaf spring and safety wired the front of the hose to my Hellwig sway bar which aimed it towards the front of the truck. You could probably just safety wire it to the bottom of the leaf pack if you don't have a forward facing bar though. It also made it though the whole weekend despite being drug through the mud during my off track excursion.

How the hose is routed and mounted:

Overall it was a great weekend with some of my fastest lap times (which was due to being on Yokohama race slicks). If you want to check out more about the weekend and see the video of my fastest recorded lap check out my thread in the open track section. http://www.svtperformance.com/forums/showthread.php?t=506929

More video of the weekend, including getting past a few cars will get posted once I have some more time to edit it down small enough to host it somewhere.

 

[busakiller]

thats one way to do it i guess. i pulled the fog lights out and used some fabbed up aluminum cups behind em.

 

[Kryo-Genik]

dude thats awesome

I wanna see more of your Hellwig rear sway setup.
If possible could I con you into PMing me some more shots of those mounts and everything?
Im looking at a hellwig very soon when I drop the truck.

 

[BlackBolt9]

thats one way to do it i guess. i pulled the fog lights out and used some fabbed up aluminum cups behind em.

Yeah I didn't want to pull my fog lights, so this is what I came up with. They do make a great place though!

dude thats awesome

I wanna see more of your Hellwig rear sway setup.
If possible could I con you into PMing me some more shots of those mounts and everything?
Im looking at a hellwig very soon when I drop the truck.

Thanks! I can probably get some more pictures next week or so (I'm going to Alabama tonight for a race this weekend). I just used their mounts for the axle and then slotted the brackets that bolt to the frame because I was too low for their standard holes. If I would have seen it sooner I would have done the same as Chris Nelson and others who bolted the end links directly into the frame. I believe Chris had up some good pictures of how he did it, may have even been in the How To section IIRC. Good luck with it!

 

[Kryo-Genik]

Yeah I didn't want to pull my fog lights, so this is what I came up with. They do make a great place though!



Thanks! I can probably get some more pictures next week or so (I'm going to Alabama tonight for a race this weekend). I just used their mounts for the axle and then slotted the brackets that bolt to the frame because I was too low for their standard holes. If I would have seen it sooner I would have done the same as Chris Nelson and others who bolted the end links directly into the frame. I believe Chris had up some good pictures of how he did it, may have even been in the How To section IIRC. Good luck with it!

Ill go over the how to section and PM chris...but I wanna see your setup too
the more pics the better, if you dont wanna host that amount email me brother
[email protected]

 

[fastlightning58]

Do you have any video of the truck running at the track?

 

[BlackBolt9]

Ill go over the how to section and PM chris...but I wanna see your setup too
the more pics the better, if you dont wanna host that amount email me brother
[email protected]

No worries, next week sometime I can get some more for you. I just host them I photobucket so I'm not worried about that. Just need the time to get it done is all.:thumbsup:

Do you have any video of the truck running at the track?

Yeah but I only have that small amount edited so far from this weekend in the link in my original post. I am hoping to have the rest done next week some time so I will be posting some more then. If you search in the open track forum (and maybe in this forum too, I'm not sure) you can find some from last year as well.:beer:

 

[Kryo-Genik]

No worries, next week sometime I can get some more for you. I just host them I photobucket so I'm not worried about that. Just need the time to get it done is all.:thumbsup:

just hit me up
the more info I have the better...ive got a whole shop manual thing going on here

 

[cthunder]

You would have more success with cooling if you "V" out the middle, you are creating turbulence and an air brake with the design you have now. But other than that, good Idea!

 

[BlackBolt9]

You would have more success with cooling if you "V" out the middle, you are creating turbulence and an air brake with the design you have now. But other than that, good Idea!

I would like to know how you came to the conclusion that it isn't successfully doing what it was designed to do?:shrug:

I have a 1" X 36" ish opening feeding two 3" tubes, that's about 36 square inches feeding roughly 14 square inchs. This creates a high pressure area which forces air though the cooling ducts regardless of turbulence. I agree that flow would increase if there was a smoother transition but it is plenty successful now without doing all that extra work. I can now make it through a whole weekend of open track sessions (30 minutes of extreme braking) with the stock calipers and rotors using Hawk Superduty pads.

It may cause some high speed drag but it should reduce lift/ increase downforce on the front end just as an airdam would by directing air that would normally go under the vehicle out the sides. On the typical courses I go to the highest speed I have seen is 115mph which means I'm not as concerned about the drag anyways.

Thanks for the constructive criticism but I have thought about many of those things already and feel that what I have done is more than enough to solve the problems I have encountered while driving the truck on track. The only time I had a mushy pedal all weekend was when they let me stay out for a full hour, and even then I simply had to take 2 laps to let the pads cool down and every thing came back to normal and I was back to pushing the truck hard again.:thumbsup: