Quote:
Originally Posted by blitzvw
Here in South Africa, you can buy a hub and caliper bracket kit that allows you to run a Golf MK1/Rabbit front disc and caliper combo on a linkpin front end....
Hubs are also available to run the same disc and Golf/Audi rear caliper on the swingaxle rear end...
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The big problems with using the Golf/Audi rear caliper are three fold:
1) the rear caliper is undersized for most front calipers. The front/rear brake balance is severely affected. The straight transfer of a set of brakes from a front engined car is bound to cause problems as the weight transfer under braking loads the front end so that the braking effect can be distributed up to 80%/20% front/rear, whereas the beetle needs 50/50 braking effort after weight transfer. Look at the 911 set-ups to give you the idea.
2) Sliding calipers IMO are a cheap jack solution. They are designed to cheapen the production costs with (only) adequate brake performance. If you are moving from drum to disc brakes you will be doing so for performance reasons - right? If so, then you ought to discount sliding calipers in favour of opposed piston calipers of 2,4,6 or God forbid 8 pots. It is noticeable that none of the performance caliper suppliers offer a sliding caliper, they are all opposing piston calipers.
3) Parking brakes should be separate from the main caliper as they invariably weaken the reliability of the hydraulics especially at the back where there is more than enough crap being thrown around on a street car. Parking brakes on discs are also notoriously weak, inefficient and unreliable. A drum brake even if it works on the disc bell is much more efficient. If VAG don't offer a drum parking brake then GM do on most of their Euro designed cars. If however, you are stuck with the parking brake operating on the disc then a separate mechanical caliper would be the better solution. Jaguar were doing that in the '60s, Wilwood offer one and it should be easy to adapt a motorcycle one to fit.
I make no apologies for expressing my dislike for sliding caliper brakes and especially those with integral parking brake although, I will admit to having fitted some 944 single pot calipers to the front of the bug as an interim measure.
Clive