Has anyone had their rotors silver cadmium plated to eliminate the rust? It will wear off the friction surface quickly but the internal surfaces will no longer rust and sling brown stains arouns the inside of my nice clean wheels. I see this plating all over the place int he aftermarket - but not on any Porsche sites I've visited. Any clues for the clue-less?
Rotors should all be ceramic and problem solved.
Russ
Well, the coating would add weight and possibly reduce cooling.
Greg Kable reports in Autoweek November 13
that a German Auto Manufacturer will offer Electronic Wedge Brakes [EWB] in 2008. These brakes, produced by Siemens, will stop in half the distance of hydraulic brakes. Imagine the G-forces these clampers would have at 160 mph!
I read that article today, and I'm kind of confused. At one point they say,
"In tests, a prototype with the wedge brakes regularly required less than half the distance to come to a complete stop than the prototype with the standard brakes, a company official said."
HALF the distance??? I thought tires would be the limiting factor a lot quicker than that.
Also... whenever I hear about a technology like this, I wonder why the guys in F1 aren't using it? If somehow, they didn't 'know' about it, can I COUNT on seeing it in F1 next year. I mean -- HALF the distance! Your team instantly dominates.
Same thought, if these are so amazing why don't we see them in F1, but then the rules might need to be changed to allow these stoppers. The other thought I had was how do these brakes feel while driving? Say I tap the brakes and suddenly I am going through the windshield..just before the guy behind me rear-ends me. How good would that be? Then there is M-B's experiment with E-brakes. On a drive to San Diego these e-brakes drove me nuts, I was afraid to use them for fear of what might happen at So-Cal highway speeds.
This is an interesting innovation and it will certainly be interesting to watch it develop and evolve. But I don't see it becoming main stream any time soon.
Here are my concerns:
1. What about pedal feel? The visceral experience of a Porsche will loose an important component, the feedback you can feel from the brake pedal. These electrically operated brakes will provide as much pedal feel as your 'drive by wire' accelerator pedal does, none.
2. What about reliability? You can read about all sorts of electrical failures including check engine lights, PASM failures, PSM failures, ABS failures and so on. Though you can still limp home or to a dealer with most of these, what happens if your electric brakes or accompanying control units fail? You're toast. I like the old school mechanical reliability of a hydraulic brake system. Every system in the car can fail and those brakes will still work.
3. If this braking system is so great, why aren't we seeing it in use in other areas first, like on race cars (as pointed out), airplanes and trains?
4. Do we really need an improvement in brakes? I am finding it hard to believe that this can reduce a Cayman's braking distance by 50%. With today's good braking systems, it seems stopping distance becomes a product of traction more than anything.
Perhaps in time they can solve these issues, but you wouldn't catch me being their guinea pig until I see real world performance and reliability.
Very interesting... any cooments on Cad plating? I may just buy and extra rotor and try it.
By biggest concern with cad plating would be the material transfer going on as it wears off the friction surface. Sounds like a great way to really mess up the interface to me.
as for e-brakes, you won't find them in racing for a very long time until they can work out the ability to modulate and feel them. The best thing about hydraulic is that its a direct connection foot to pad that you can feel and which eventually becomes a direct extension of your nervous system...your brain forgets about all the stuff inbetween it and the tires and it just does what it needs to do to put you at the right speed at the right spot (one hopes) on instinct...put a computer in the middle that interprets what it thinks you intended and you f everything up. The weak link in modern racing brake systems is not the hydraulics...however. Its materials and thats is still what is holding even e-brakes back.
here is a good video showing how they work, and a good SAE white paper from the on them too.
E-Brake Video
E-Stop SAE Paper
If anybody really wants deeper details I also havea copy of the original patent filed by eStop, the company that siemans bought to acquire this technology for the eWheel project.
dw
