what is the lightest setup for front brakes on a kingpin front end with off the shelf/easy to get parts?

i know i'm gonna use a cnc staging break to activate the front brakes, so im mainly just wandering about caliper and rotor options

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Chris

ok whats up with you guys

i know there are post on here about front brke setups and have looked at most at least i think i have, but for the majority they are using heavy (nissan sentra for example) and i'm thinking its overkill for the front calipers and either welding on a rotor to a cut down hub or using a heavy rotor/hub assembly ( which may be the only other option and if so what is the best way to lighten it ? )

also some post mention cutting the kingpin spindle and welding on a balljoint but i dont want raised spindles and i dont really trust welded on spindles that much anyways without some kind of extra beefing up which adds even more weight

mostly what i want to know is what is the lightest way to mount a caliper (weld on or bolt on mount ) and what caliper to use, i know there are lighter calipers than the sentra ( maybe cnc or wilwood or?????? ) ?

and as far as rotors, how much difference in weight is it between the ball joint and the kingpin rotor after doing whatever is posible to lighten it ( drilling holes, etc... ), and if the blljoint is lighter is there any option to use it on a kingpin spindle such as a "conversion bearing" without having to weld on a balljoint spindle?

to sum it up, light and "bolt on" (with the exception of maybe welding on a caliper mount and lightening the rotor) is what i'm looking for

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Chris

I can't be much help because the way I did mine is how you don't want to do yours. But what I did was use a bug ball joint spindle assembly,,mill it down flat on the back,,mill the spindle off of my existing knuckle assembly then weld it together. buy Karman Ghia rotors and fab a caliper bracket for whatever caliper you prefer. I used a hydraulic clutch master cylinder from a Maxima with a homemade handle. My junk is heavy and is found in the "don't do" list of cookie cutter building.

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If your clutch ain't slippin,, you probably got it adjusted right!!!!!

Get a set of balljoint rotors and the following bearings. Inner; Timken# 30205M 9/KMI.
Outer SKF# 32004 X/Q.
Send the rotors to a machine shop, have them open up the races to fit the new bearings. You then have a couple of options. First are the Verga calipers, the are cast iron and somewhat heavy. Or you could use either CNC calipers or Willwoods, both aluminum.
I have done this 4 times now each one works without any problems.

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This of course is all just opinion. The best of both worlds (light and easier to build) is to get a set of rotors for king pin spindles and have them lightend. you can have the rotor face turned down, and cross drilled, and you can also drill holes in the bonnet or have holes milled out. This ofcourse makes them weaker, but we have ran them hard on light weight buggies with no problems. The easy way to fab a braket is to buy brakets for the three hole mounts on the spindles and adapt them to what ever caliper you choose. the lightest are yamaha calipers which can be found on several models like the raptor and banshee, on a light weight buggy they are more than enought to stop you eaily, we run them on a seperate handle so you dont have to wear out your rotors or pads when you don't need them. You can use regular vw calipers or wilwoods or cnc, or anything else as well.
Most of the chips'a'hoy buggies cut off the spindle and weld on ball joint spuds. you can lower your spindles down a inch and a half or so and gain a little more ground clearence this way, welded on spuds are plenty strong enough without any added support, you do lose the use of the three hole mounts unless you weld them back in the same spot. ball joing spuds are suppose to be stronger than kp, but i don't know...

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John 3:16

ok now we getting somewhere, these are the kind of options i was looking for

and by the way this project is for my two 2 seaters, one is a old fugitive im gonna fix up with fiberglass body for the wife and to use as a ridge runner/ highway machine and maybe in christmas parades and such, and the other is gonna be a cobra (gonna do this one first most likely), for when i have somebody going with me and still want to do a lot of climbing or gonna be on a all day ride and want / need a little more room than the one seater provides

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Chris

find and old wrecked motorcycle,late 70s with dual disk on front and use them calipers,and sometimes u can use rotors to

by the way i have not got the front wheels yet so i'm flexible on the lug pattern however i do want to stick with the vw 4 or 5 lug pattern for the front and im gonna try to find me some cms or centerline style wheels for the front

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Chris

I RUN A KING PIN FRONTEND WITH A 4 LUG ROTOR,I BOLT THE BALLJOINT SPINDLE ON SO IF I DO BEND IT I CAN EITHER SHIM IT WITH A COULPLE WASHERS OR IF ITS BAD ENOUGH I CARRY SRARES IN THE TRAILOR.I TURN THE ROTORS DOWN TO ABOUT.125 AND THE DIAMETER GETS CUT DOWN,THEN A LIL DRILLPRESS WORK WITH A 1 INCH BIT MAKES THEM QUITE A BIT LIGHTER.THEN I USE WILWOOD CALIPERS THAT WEIGH HARDLEY ANYTHING.I THINK IM THE ONLY ONE THAT RUNS THEIR FRONT BRAKES OFF THE MASTER CYLINDER,I JUST USE A BIAS VALVE TO ADJUST HOW MUCH PRESSURE TO THE FRONT OR TURN THEM OFF COMPLETELY.THAT WAY I DONT HAVE TO HIT ANOTHER LEVER GOING DOWN HILL OR INTO A HARD TURN.ITS WORKS GREAT FOR ME.

hey helmet guy you got any pics of how you bolt on the balljoint spindle to the kingpin?

and also of your lightened ffront rotors?

im leaning towards this way or mad mikes

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Chris

im not any good at getting them on the computer ,but give me your phone number and il text you some

We've got some DIY'd discs on the back of a set of wilwood wide-5's, using the new shape forged Wilwood dynalight caliper. More than enough braking power with a set of XP8's in there, even for tarmac tracks.

i would appreciate it
256-476-8275

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Chris

chris if u can post the pics on here please! im very interested in this topic also

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lets just ride

has anybody tried these?

http://www.pacificcustoms.com/AC498003-01.html

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Chris

pics courtesy of helmet guy

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Chris

I like mine.









-Dakotah/koko

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-Dakotah/koko
keep on keepin' on!!

so koko, i assume that is a stock brake drum thats been cut down to just the hub but what kind of rotor is that?

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Chris

Looks good and all that but what happens if/when the rotor section gets messed up? Start over again or cut the rotor section off and replace it? Not exactly off the shelf parts.

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Hmm, haven't really got any decent pictures of our fronts, this is the best I can do until Sunday:





As you can probably guess the discs bolt on with countersunk cap screws to keep them flush to the disc surface so they clear the uprights, they're just laser cut and then countersunk/deburred/etc. by hand, less than £20 a pair.

yeah i know its not off the shelf but there is also a lot of wok to do to the one like helmet guys to get them light and i was thinking it might be possible to make those rotors of koko's bolt on to the hub by just welding on a "flange" of some sort or even individual ears kinda like phillipm's setup

i'm pretty sure that i will use a kingpin spindle so i dont have to modify any of that and then machine the inside for the bearings like madmike was saying, but i got to decide on helmet guy's "lightened rotors" or koko's "lightened rotors" both are gone need some machine work

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Chris

That it is. They're motorcycle rotors. Chuck made 'em.

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-Dakotah/koko
keep on keepin' on!!

How often will that happen....?? And when and if it does, scrap it, and make another.

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-Dakotah/koko
keep on keepin' on!!

Nice CAM drawing there Phillip. Wish I had a machine that could run that program.


Koko, I didn't mean anything was wrong with what you did, just he suggested off the shelf parts.

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Of all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most.
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Got a mate with a VF4 so I wrote the program to mill 'em, but ended up just having a dozen laser cut instead.