Brakes

["dmcman82" <srubano@xxxx>]

While surfing the net last night and looking at brake components 
(I'm in the process of making all new brake lines at the moment and 
installing them on my car) I came across some interesting and 
startling information.

The first bit of interesting info comes from this page:  
http://www.vtr.org/maintain/brake-conversion.html
If you look at the caliper (figure 1)?It's the exact same one used 
on the Delorean (front ones). Go down the page a little and you'll 
also notice that the rotor looks about the same too (Figure 3)! Can 
we use this as another cross reference for the rotors and calipers? 
I know the current cross reference for the front calipers is from a 
Mercury Capri. It would be interesting (although not necessary) to 
do this conversion on the D :).

The second piece of info I came across was one for concern. I 
noticed that some people have modified (and others sell) their front 
rotor dust shields for "cooling" purposes. Why does this alarm me? 
The dust shield is in place to protect the backside of the rotor and 
brake components from everyday road debris such as mud, dirt, rocks, 
etc.. By bending the dust shield to achieve a cooling effect for the 
rotor you are exposing it to all of this road debris. Not only are 
you channeling air to the rotor but also all the mud, rocks, dirt, 
etc... that is kicked up while driving. This would be ideal on 
track/race cars since A. the rotors are replaced after every race or 
every other race and B. the track is cleaner then public road ways 
we ride on everyday. In some instance race cars don't even have 
these shields in place to cut down on wind drag and "lighten" the 
car (every bit counts). If anyone is thinking of doing this then 
please re-think it. The rotors are expensive and it's not an easy 5 
minute job to replace them. I'm sure there will be people jumping on 
this post trying to make it look wrong but think about, the flare 
that is created to force air in will capture and force debris onto 
the rotor and brake assembly causing damage (you'll see some "dings" 
divots, gouges, etc on the surface of the rotor). Have you ever 
noticed that build up of "crud" on the back of the dust shield? The 
front of the rotor is not prone to this problem because A. It is 
protected by the Wheel and B. there is no type of "flare" or "wing" 
that is channeling air and dirt onto the surface of the rotor as the 
so called "dust shield rotor cooler mod" is. 

This is from the DICTIONARY OF AUTOMOTIVE TERMS:
dust shield: Sheet metal disc or plate placed on the brake assembly 
to keep debris from brake assembly. Also called "splash shield."

Steve