ras2k

I am interested in painting my stock callipers, but have been told by a couple people that painting the callipers will probably affect heat dispersion of the calliper resulting in brake fade. Is this true? Does anyone have any information on painting the callipers? Is powder coating the same/better/worse?

Thanks!

cdelena

Not true. Most of the heat is in the rotors.. although the pads get very hot, it is not transferred to or dissipated through the calipers all that well. There are no reports of painting affecting brake performance.

slalom44

I disagree with cdelena, although I may be splitting hairs. Although most of the heat is dissipated through the rotors, it is the brake pads getting hot at the pad/rotor interface that causes brake fade. Does the paint or powdercoat reduce the caliper's ability to dissipate heat? Since these coatings have lower thermal conductivity than the base metal, they will get a little hotter. How much? probably very little. Does that heat conduct into the brake pad? Probably only a miniscule amount, since the brake pad itself is a relatively poor heat conductor. I'd say that it has a negligible effect, but not zero.

However, it will have a greater (although still small) effect on the temperature of the break fluid in the caliper. If you change to a hi-temp brake fluid, you should be safe. Your dust seals will likely be just a little more prone to turning into dust, but that could happen anyway if you're in the brake fade temp range.

Personally, I don't think brake fade is a concern from painted calipers. There are much more effective ways of keeping your brakes from fading.

Utah S2K

CD has it right......thanks again CD. Brake fade under normal driving will not be effected by painting your calipers. The vast majority of dissipative mass is in the rotors. On the other hand if you are going to track the car, Slalom is well taken, it is always wise to upgrade your fluid and raiser the boiling point of it.

Utah