dbasteve

G'Day guys and gals!

I'm just wrapping up our RX8 disc brake product line for release this year and would like to hang around on your forum to share some knowledge and learn from you good people.
I'm the Chief Engineer for Disc Brakes Australia (not a salesman) so there won't be any sales and marketing cr@p coming from me.

From what I have learnt about the RX8 the current brake setup is quite a well balanced system for street and club level track use. For this reason we haven't pursued any big brake upgrades other than a one off GT Performance racing vehicle that had wider two piece rotors fitted to accomodate an AP Racing caliper. Both the one piece and two piece rotors in our product line are direct replacements requiring no mods.

If anyone has any questions or would like to fill me in on some known issues with the current brakes please fire away.

Regards
Steve

Gomez

Hey man, I have a question....

I have DBA drilled and slotted rotors on my Falcon. I cracked the front rotors years ago on a track day at Calder Raceway during a John Bowe High Performance course. I realise these aren't designed as a track rotor, but I tried to be careful and did two cool down laps after each hot lap. The pads were Bendix Ultimates and were fairly new at the time. The cracked rotors had chamfered holes, the replacement rotors showed up unchamfered.

Now to my question.....Will you offer a drilled and/or slotted rotor for the RX-8, and what could/should I have done to prevent these rotors from cracking? The cracks were probably only cosmetic, but I changed the discs anyway.....

I don't plan on taking the RX-8 to the track, but you never know..

Thanks, Gomez.

P.S....J.B did a few laps in the thing, he probably stuffed them on me! He did pick a marker 20 metres further into the corner.....

Gomez

Okaaaaay, I found your other thread and it has answered the first part of my question! But what about the second part....?!

dbasteve

Drilled rotors are a big No No for the track as they dont handle huge temperature fluctuations very well at all. Bendix Ultimates although they are a good street pad can be very hard on discs on the track. After about 30mins above 500 deg C these pads make a big mess of rotors and calipers.

Question 2
Yes there will be a drilled rotor available. The XS disc in that other picture is made from the same high grade materials as the motor sport disc with radius (not chamfered) holes. Even so we don't reccommend drilled discs for the track. Drilled discs have two main uses. 1. To look good and 2. For maximum brake torque in an emergency.
Pads play a big role in the life of the disc through the friction co-efficient, the optimum operating temperature, and the transfer layer mechanism.
I tend to lean towards Ferodo or Hawk compounds which are more passive on discs when used in the correct application.

I hope this answers the question.

Regards
Steve

shelleys_man_06

Are failure modes more catastrophic in single-piece rotors than mutlipiece, or are they pretty much the same? I'm speaking in terms of crack-propogation and fracture. Also, what good are multi-piece rotor assemblies? Finally, does dba offer internships? I'd love to work in Australia for a summer.

dbasteve

Catastrophic is a little harsh description.

A two piece rotor will take longer to generate cracks under the same conditions.
Why?
The rotor in a two piece system is more balanced in mass on either side of the vents. Therefore the heat and stress distribution is more even. An even heat and stress distribution prolongs the life of the disc.
A test we conducted 18 months ago using 32 cars (V8 Race catagory) showed 2.5 to 3 times greater life using a two piece rotor over a one piece disc. Both discs were the same diameter and thickness. The same pad type and caliper were used also.

We do take interns occassionally. The position is already taken for this year.

Cam

iTrader: (1)

Thanks for stopping by Steve.

I assume your products will fit the U.S. model?

Does DBA have a website with the product line?

Prices?

Thanks

dbasteve

We make discs for both the Standard and sport suspension models.
The two piece is only available in the larger sport suspension version 320mm 12.6" diameter.

I'll post up the applications in a few minutes

dbasteve

Thats Diameter, height, rotor thickness, minimum thickness, centre hole, No. Lugs

dbasteve

Cam,
Sorry I dont have pricing. Thats not my dept.
We have a warehouse and distributors in the USA.
You can try this guy in Ca ;
Al Colbank
Man a fre
805 578 8712

The full details will be loaded onto our site later this month.
www.dba.com.au