kevin12973

I have a 944 and think its about time for a caliper rebuild. I did this service 4 years ago (when I bought car), then DE'ed/raced the car since with only flushes for maintenance. On 3rd set of brake pads. Is it time for new seals?? What is normal interval for 2,600 lb. race car that has low stress on brakes?

Matt Romanowski

Age is not the main factor, it's use. How many events/miles/hours since they were rebuilt? How do the dust seals look? What pads do you use? How hot do they usually get?

Frank 993 C4S

I rebuild my fronts every year, which is about 50 track days and replace the rears with new ones (as it is not cost effective to rebuild and keep the old ones for spares on my car). That's probably going overboard but then, I've never had any brake issues at the track. Same with my wheel bearings BTW.

ir_fuel

wow I do about 6 / year

Matt Romanowski

Here is what Alcon has to say about rebuild frequency

• Calipers that regularly run up to 200°C – Re-seal after every other event.
• Calipers that regularly run between 200°C and 220°C Re-seal as soon as possible

From page 4 at http://www.alconusa.com/client_images/files/92_1635.pdf

I have not seen anything similar from other manufactures, but maybe it's out there somewhere.

kevin12973

Thanks Matt, Im not sure how hot they get, but I figure not too hot compared to heavier faster cars. Its a momentum car with Hawk HT-10's. About 10 track days per year on average.

gbuff

I dunno....it's good to be proactive, and brakes are certainly important but I'm more from the ''if it ain't broke" school; if it stops OK and nothing's leaking I'd leave it alone, especially since you're not racing. You're checking things often enough (right?!) when you rem/rep your wheels so you should be able to see if something's amiss.

FWIW I also drive a light, low-power car an average of 30 track days/year and have had no issues with calipers.

Gary

Viperbob1

Dust shields are crap on a real race car. They HOLD IN HEAT. In many cases they overheat and crack very fast. The real issue is the seal on the pistons. Yes in most cases we rebuild every couple races with really fast cars the generate a lot of heat in the brakes

Matt Romanowski

For the price of the rebuild on your car, I would do them.

In my experience, waiting for them to leak or have other problems is far after they have had other issues. As the seals start to fail, they will not retract the pad far enough and build extra heat. This will not be perceptible driving the car, but it can show up with the right data.

kevin12973

Thanks guys. I asked Van how often he does his on the SP-2 car. "never"!!! Well I already ordered the kits and want to sand blast/ paint them anyway so.......