DoubleZero4x4

We may also be using different definitions of stopping distance. Most auto manufacturers define stopping distance from xxMPH to 0. That is usually measured at FULL pedal downforce. Less pedal effort will increase your stopping distance.

That is what I was using as my definition of "stopping distance".

ebelen1

Not to bust your balls but if you use full pedal downforce w/ the stock system vs. the Tundra system on the 4runner, won't you stop faster? Wouldn't you have better stopping distance?

DoubleZero4x4

Your not busting my balls...I enjoy spirited, mature debates.

I would answer no. And here is why...

Some Constants: Stock Brakes vs. Tundra Brakes, Same Truck (weight/height), Same tires, Same ABS system, full pedal downforce to activate said ABS....

Your stopping distance would remain the same at "foot down - full braking" because the braking effectiveness is negated by the fact that you have applied maximum braking and the ABS system will take over and release pressure to prevent wheel lockup.

Now that being said, the amount of foot pedal pressure required to achieve the activation of the ABS is reduced but your stopping distance is going to remian pretty close to constant.

It will remain constant because your contact surface area (rubber on the road) has not changed and it is that surface area that truely affects your stopping distance.

I am not a scientist, nor do I play one on TV. I am simply using the same physics that automotive engineers use to design cars. Less surface area of tire on the road and it does not matter how much brake pedal pressure you use. 20" rotors would not stop it any faster either because at some point your tires will either lock up and start to slide or your ABS system will detect that lockup and release brake pressure.

Look at my avatar. NASCAR uses non-grooved tires to maximize the amount of surface area contacting the pavement. Try running those corners at 175MPH+ on tires with grooves....it would get ugly.

bamachem

yup, and i agree. (BTW, that other comment above wasn't directed at you, but to Idget, i mean Midget) the stopping distance is dictated (when ABS and traction are the limiting factors) by your contact patch. the better the contact patch traction, the more stopping force can be applied to the road, the quicker you'll stop.

however, pedal sensitivity is also key in stopping distance in a real world situation. if you have to press the pedal all the way to the floor and the ABS just barely kicks in, it takes a while (split second, but at 60MPH, you're moving 88 ft/sec) for the pressure to increase as your foot has to compress the pedal all the way down. with more sensitive brakes (lighter pedal feel), your foot imparts the stopping power to the system much sooner and with less resistance.

if you could simulate a 60MPH-0MPH full pedal stop at exactly the same time on a stock runner and a stock runner w/ the tundra calipers/pads/rotors, then the stopping distance would be limited by the contact patch with the road and the ABS system reaction. however, in the real world, if you can knock just 1/10th of one second off that timing (from the time you initially touch the brakes to the time the ABS kicks in), then you could essentially cut your real world stopping distance by as much as 8.8 feet - that's a LOT for a simply caliper upgrade that bolts on. that could also be the difference in life or death in some instances, or even the difference between having an accident or just a near miss.

also, by having more rotational mass as i do, then the wheels are more resistive to stopping, leading to increased stopping distances due to the increased rotational inertia. that just means that even more pedal pressure is required to achieve an ABS intervention. the upgrade allows you to achieve that quicker. the quicker you reach the point of ABS intervention, the quicker you'll stop in an emergency situation.

the MAIN benefit of the tundra upgrade is as follows:

• Better braking reaction time (from the time you hit the pedal to the time the ABS kicks in) on an emergency stop
• A thicker, more robust rotor that has more mass to help with Brake Fade due to overheating.
• A thicker, more robust rotor that will reduce the chances of warped rotors due to incorrect wheel lug torque or heat issues with the brakes

for a $200 upgrade to such an essential safety system, that's all i need to know.

DoubleZero4x4

Andy...Excellent post!!!

Midget96

I seriously have no idea where any of you guys are getting your info. You say my claims are false. HA! You think that a thicker rotor and new caliper are the end all solution to a non-existant brake problem. Wow. I'll do this one more time before I let you and your bandwagon go on your way to ignorant bliss.

Your arguement for this mod has been changed many times in this thread, from saying that it stops the truck faster, that these brakes will never "warp", that the pedal feel is better. All pure BS. If anyone is pissing in the wind, it's people that think this a must-do mod.

You continually point to a Tundra TSB; mind you, Toyota also introduced a TSB for Tacomas that warned of a scratch on the spindle that COULD reduce wheel bearing life. They are a very responsible manufacturer. But who's to say that an incredibly small minority (keep in mind, Toyota owners on message boards are way under 1% of owners) didn't fight the company day and night for some sort of resolution to their brake problem. Do you know the history of the TSB? Do you know what the original claims were to initiate Toyota's solution? No. You don't know if some people were towing a 10,000lb. trailer or some were trying to do a canyon run and then complained of "warped" rotors. Look at the problems Mitsubishi had with the Evo, when people were abusing the car on the track, then threatened legal action if Mitsu didn't do anything about it. We're in a nation of simpletons that will sue for anything, whether it's there fault or not, and this was obviously Toyota's gesture in making some sort of change to rectify a problem. We'll never know exactly how that TSB came to be, but seeing as how it was brought about by owners after the Tundra had been in service, it's impossible to rule out abuse as being a reason for the different rotor and caliper (which make it marginally more abuse-proof).

Pedal feel is "better" because you are using a new caliper and new pads, simple as that.

You regain an off the showroom pedal feel with the Tundra caliper. There is no reduction in pedal travel because the brake system is not altered mechanically. There's no larger master cylinder and the caliper design is pretty much the same. You're just feeling the effects of how new parts aren't as crappy as old ones, and how new pads bite better than ones worn to the backing plate. A slightly bigger pad is not going to reduce travel, sorry. I'm well aware of the forces at work in a brake system, but I focused on the ones that would actually change the pedal feel and make a difference in braking performance (good pads aside, I've mention tire contact numerouse times). I'm sure that some proponet of this mod will discredit this.

The 4Runner does not have a 240HP V8, cannot tow 7500lbs. and doesn't way 4500+lbs. from the factory. It's brakes are more than adequete for nearly any kind of driver, even when you modify the truck. Yes, Toyota hasn't made larger trucks for very long, but when the brake systems they install on medium SUVs like the 4Runner are larger and better than the systems on some larger domestic trucks (older Dodge Ram 1500, Chevy Silverado/CK, Ford F150, look it up if you don't believe it) I'd say they're doing OK.

You completely ignore the 300ZXTT perspective, when in fact a sports car that is used will ALWAYS require more from the brakes than a truck towing something (unless it's towing in mountains). With a sports car on the track, in one 20 minute driving session, imagine how many times the brakes are used. The heat build up and stress on the brakes is incredible. I've never seen a 4Runner make the rotors glow. I've never seen smoke come off the pads on a 4Runner. Most of us haven't even used the full capacity of the stock brakes on this truck, let alone need an "upgrade".

Brembo rotors - I'll share this with you one more time. THEY ARE NOT ANY BETTER THAN A DECENT AUTOPARTS STORE ROTOR. I learned this years ago when I burned through a set of $120 Brembo rotors with stock pads. I got the same performance and life out of $70 rotors from Autozone. It will indeed take you guys awhile to realize this, but they aren't better and aren't worth the price. Yes, there are crappy bimetal rotors out there, but I'm not talking about those. Nearly every club racer has realized this, and people I used to see at the track were even harder on their OEM brakes than I was on my Wilwoods, and they have zero issues with stock setups and cheaper rotors. Anyway, you say you can prove it, then DO IT.

Warped Rotors - You guys have seen warped rotors. WOW! You can see >0.005" of runout? Impressive. Just one glazed spot on a rotor can create a bump on it bigger than this that can be felt in the vehicle. Define excessive heat build up? Please, post a pic of these warped rotors. I'm sure there aren't any glazed spots on them, are there?

New Brakes That Shake.

In this thread, a guy gets all new brakes (including those bulletproof Brembo rotors!) and still has shaking. Explain...

And if anyone was intelligent enough to draw a conclusion from that Matrix article, then you would see what I was originally getting at. It doesn't matter what vehicle you do a brake comparison with, the results will be similar and all encompassing.

Even a 4 wheel, 4 piston caliper brake kit with huge 13" rotors does not stop a car any quicker than the stock brakes.

Took you that long to realize that, even though I touched on it in my first post.

BS. You sit here and compare an overhauled system to stock brakes that barely work. How can you say that a "simple caliper upgrade" allows you to react quicker to an emergency stop when you have no control to compare it to?

Again, claims that lack any sort of proof. How do you figure that these brakes will stop you any faster? No proof, just nicely worded claims of improved performance. And again, you're comparing to a poorly maintained stock system. The fact remains that the Tundra brakes don't offer any real mechanical advantage (no greater torque through a larger rotor, no more clamping force through a better caliper) over the stock brakes.

What happened to claims of shorter stopping distances and more torque? Keep changing your claims until you get the ones that you like. Good call.

Flaws with the Tundra upgrade

• No increase in clamping pressure or brake torque over overhauled stock brakes due to same diameter rotor and same sized caliper/master cylinder
• No decrease in stopping distance or stopping time over overhauled stock brakes due to no changes in mechanical ability
• Uneeded and marginal increase in heat capacity due to lighter duty and less powerful nature of the 4Runner

There is no point in trying to shed some logic on this subject. You guys will continue to preach this Tundra brake mod as the only way to combat any brake problem. All I can speak from is HPDE experience and conclusions that people who beat on their brakes much harder than anyone in a 4Runner came to years ago. Keep on believing this mod is the greatest thing to ever be discovered. Those that are incapable of thinking about what it actually does for the brakes might believe you. Those that know brakes and what actually makes them better will shrug this mod off as the trend that it is.

I've learned my lesson on what to spend money on with brakes, and it certainly won't be the "Tundra Mod." Here's an extremely old picture of my Integra with a brake system that was overkill for anything short of a C5 Z06. Never "warped", never glazed, never overheated. I did 6-7 track events with these and didn't even touch half of their capacity.



I surely won't be relying to this thread anymore because most seem to be blind to any other opinion or facts about this brake mod. Definitely not worth my time to make lengthy posts that aren't read.

UNR.Grad

Midget96, ok my friend's calipers on his 3rd gen are shot, a local brake shop confirmed it. Now would you suggest he upgrade to tundra calipers/rotors since he is going to be buying new calipers/rotors anyways? They are roughly the same price, he might as well right, can't hurt?

MTL_4runner

I'll leave one last comment in this thread and people can do with it what they will. I've said all I need to in my previous comments above, this arguement is a dead horse now as far as I am concerned (both Bamachem and I have said all that is necessary for people to decide for themselves). Midget96 obviously doesn't consider anyone, but himself as a knowledgeable source (sure, all the engineers/mechanics on YT are idiots ) of brake system information for Toyota trucks (perhaps it will spill into other areas later....TBD.....hopefully he'll share some of his wealth of knowledge over on Pirate 4x4 as well).

To any who find this thread later....
Take the advice of Midget96 at your own risk.

Yes, I will still be doing the Tundra brake mod on my truck.

bamachem

Hmmm... two engineers (me and MTL) with good reputations on this board or a guy with less than 20 posts who only likes to see himself type.

YOU BE THE JUDGE.

Fingers

I am one of many who did this mod. I would never go back to stock.

Guerrero

I just need some rotors, which rotors do you guys recommend? I'm real busy and I need to order some rotors asap, I'm sorry can't search
Where and which? thanks

UNR.Grad

According to most people on the boards, go to tirerack.com and get some brembos, not slotted or anything, just plain brembo rotors.

But according to midget, go down to any napa, kragen, autozone, etc. and pick up some quality cheap rotors there.

You choose.

Guerrero

only $41 for brembos, that's good... How much are the rotors in the local auto parts?

UNR.Grad

That's per rotor, so $82.

I did a quick check on kragen for you and they are not much cheaper...

http://www.partsamerica.com/ProductL...r=Disc%2fRotor

Guerrero

2 Brembos + tax + ship = like 100, I though they were more...
I think I just going to check my local autoshops
Thanks

Whitey13

Midget96 is advising others that a well maintained or freshly overhauled stock 3rd gen. brake system will be more than sufficient for the needs of most, if not all, 4runner owners who inquire about the Tundra upgrade. Can you please elaborate on the RISK in which you refer? You are singing the praises of a mod that you don't even have and as far as I have read have been unable to debunk any of the statements that you have labeled erroneous.

As far as I have seen (I think I've caught every post) Midget has not reduced the debate to name-calling or attacking your profession as an engineer. The fact that he is trying to express an opinion that is contrary to your own doesnt suggest that "all engineers/mechanics on YT are idiots" as you put it.
Just out of curiousity, since you guys brought it up...what field of study are your engineering degrees in? I enjoyed reading both sides of this argument but I think your frustration clouded your theories ar times.

metalhed

I wondered how bigger rotors and calipers stopped better when the master cylinder stayed the same. Do Tundra capliers have a bigger volume capacity?

If you are pushing the same volume to bigger calipers, I would think you would have impaired braking. If you upgraded to a bigger master cylinder, then I could see an increase in braking effectiveness.

I do think that any system used will have positive result and like all things, over time the system will degrade. By using bigger components you slow this process.
just my .02

Fingers

The Porsche 928 increased rotor and caliper size 5 times during it's run from 1979-1995 culminating in the Big Red (911 Turbo) brakes in the GTS edition in 1993. The master cylinder was only changed once in 1986 (not counting the antilock system upgrade in 1983). Each upgrade to the brakes yeilded a better system in both performance, fade resistance and modulation feel. The benefits of the larger rotor/calipers for the 4runner are based on the same logic and yeild the same results. Many people have done this mod. Of the ones who have, to my knowledge non have claimed it was money not well spent.

waycan

I have brembo cross drilled (but not slotted) rotors with PB metalmaster pads. Much improved stopping. Although I get alot of brake dust on my wheels now.

MTL_4runner

While I appreciate people playing the devil's advocate (it is always good to look at both sides of any arguement), I do take exception to people making wildly speculative, unsubstantiated or misinformed claims (which is ironically what is being said about the Tundra mod). As I mentioned before, you can see in my comments above that I did in fact show that his statements are incorrect assumptions/speculation. I am not saying that absoultely everything he said is wrong, but I am saying that there are specific areas of disagreement and I explained exactly why the logic was incorrect. The main issue is having people with little technical knowledge come onto YT (ie newbies) and trying to sort out fact from speculation or just flat out misinformation while trying to decide what to do. So people with good technical vocab can be particularly difficult to sort out, as you can see this thread has done (which is the reason for the "use his advice at your own risk"). Whether I have done the mod or not has no relevence on its validity as I am sure you would agree.

Here are some examples of the holes in the arguement:

• No increase in clamping pressure or brake torque over overhauled stock brakes due to same diameter rotor and same sized caliper/master cylinder
  
  Where is the math to back up this assertion? It was already stated above that he couldn't find any info on the calipers or pistion sizes. Nor did he have any info on pad contact areas, rotor diameter, etc or even that there are different levels of quality for various brands of brake rotors (gray iron carbon content, alloys, uniformity of the microstructure, heat/cryogenic treatments, manufacturing tolerances, then there is the issue of quality control on all of this too.....shall I continue?) which can also be factors. This is just a case of pure speculation or poor assumption on his part. This arguement for increased brake torque could be resolved by someone with a set of dial calipers and a scale willing to take parts measurements (I might consider doing this for the sake of putting this arguement to bed once I do mine and have all the parts handy and get some free time set aside to do so).
  
  
• No decrease in stopping distance or stopping time over overhauled stock brakes due to no changes in mechanical ability
  
  Ok, where is the testing to back up this statement? Again it is likely built on a house of cards arguement based on the above speculated info. Just to clear things up, the stock brake system is not junk, nor is anyone argueing that at all, the discussion is whether this Tundra brake mod is in fact an upgrade or not.
  
  
• Uneeded and marginal increase in heat capacity due to lighter duty and less powerful nature of the 4Runner
  
  This has already been shown to be false. Rotors on these trucks due warp due to heat buildup (as evidenced by the fact that when you turn them, they will continue to warp even under normal service, which I have personally experienced twice, nullifying the lug tightness theory for that scenario despite the lugs being properly torqued by yours truely). Do the tundra rotors/calipers/pads provide more heat dissipation? The smart money would be on the "yes" side (since you can even see the rotor differences visually in Bamachem's pics), but unless someone used the dial calipers and a scale to end the arguement, it is tough to prove definitively except for the fact that I have not heard of a single person having warped rotors after the mod was done. In addition to that, the fact that you are putting a braking system on that was designed by Toyota for a truck 1000+ lbs heavier than a 4runner/Tacoma (as he had pointed out above with a Sequoia at near 5300lbs) will not make the truck any more capable/robust than the stock system is again rediculous. Brakes work by translating the linear motion of the truck into rotational motion of the rotors, then the rotation of the rotors breaks down further into friction that includes 2 more things: ablation of rotor/pad material and a HECK of alot of heat (vast majority of the energy is in fact turned into heat) so the heavier the vehicle the more heat resistant the brake design must be. If you assumed the 4runner was 4000lbs and the Sequoia was 5000lbs then you could say the brake system with the upgrade would have 125% of the heat resistance the stock brake system would have. Finally the the comment that the 4runner is a less powerful/capable vehicle is just hilarious. I mean if you take that at face value then no one should be doing any mods to push the limits or increase the capability of these vehicles at all (ie forget about YT). It is a laughable comment if you think about it even for a few moments.
  

In short I have nothing personal against Midget96, nor do I care about winning any popularity contests, but I have seen no evidence whatsoever from his statements to prove even the slightest chance that this Tundra brake mod is somehow a useless upgrade. Like I said before it is a waste of my time to sit and show the holes in the flawed logic each time he posts (since they are quite profuse), hopefully people will begin to fill in the blanks for themselves now.

How timely for this emoticon to show up now!..... .......