Mopar big brake kit

[CookieSoup]

Stumbled on this listed for a JL but quadratech had differant brake pad options for HD brakes so that sparked a google search.

i didn't see much in a quick search

did the JT's just get the big brakes?

https://www.quadratec.com/p/mopar/big-brake-kit-jeep-wrangler-jl

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[CookieSoup]

Im dumb did a dash more reading looks like its a brake change with the larger axles

 

[dcmdon]

These are the brakes that come on a Gladiator.

You can't fit bigger rotors with stock style calipers.

If you want to go bigger with 17" wheels, you need to go to a caliper that can allow larger rotors, like Wilwood or Brembo
15 years ago the average Jeep had 16" wheels. I think that over time there will be a shift to 18" wheels just to fit larger rotors.

Brakes turn kinetic energy into heat. Larger and thicker rotors dissipate heat better. Sure we can go thicker, but the real benefit comes from going larger.

You look at something like this and you see several features that make brakes more effective at shedding heat.

1) large diameter rotors, enabled by monobloc calipers that dont require a very thick bridge in the back. If you look at the size of the rotors compared to the inside of the wheel, you see that there isn't much space for the caliper bridge, the part that connects the inside side of the caliper to the outside side. This style of caliper allows a larger rotor for a given wheel diameter.

2) Large diameter wheels allow bigger rotors for a given type of caliper. I believe these are 19s or 20s. This is the ONLY legitimate reason for larger wheels on most vehicles. When you see

3) Carbon ceramic rotors that can operate at much higher temperatures. One of the factors that determines how much heat a brake can shed is the "Delta T" or the difference between the temp of the rotor and the temp of the ambient air. If the rotor can get hotter, it can shed more heat.

I hope this "braking 101" helps.

 

[dcmdon]

One other thing, when you see vehicles like this Cadillac Escalade. The big wheels are solely for appearance purposes. They serve no functional purpose. In fact ,the car would drive better if engineered around smaller wheels.

Look at those itty bitty pathetic brakes.

 

[ShastaJT6]

FYI - I almost purchased the big brake kit from Mopar when I upgraded to aftermarket wheels and tires, then I realized it was included as part of the tow package. Double check to make sure your VIN doesnt already have this kit before ordering.

 

[dcmdon]

FYI - I almost purchased the big brake kit from Mopar when I upgraded to aftermarket wheels and tires, then I realized it was included as part of the tow package. Double check to make sure your VIN doesnt already have this kit before ordering.

There's no real upgrades to the brakes with the tow package.

All Gladiators have essentially the same brakes and use the same calipers and the same 12.9 in front rotors and 13.6 rear rotors.

A friend of mine with a JK bought a Mopar big brake kit. It is essentially a set of Gladiator brakes.

 

[CookieSoup]

I would have thought i would have seen posts about a brake upgrade if it was a thing they list it for the JL i just didn't know they had different brakes.

 

[DocMike]

Driving a BBK is heaven. I would wonder how large lug tires handle this vs lo pro sticky tires.
I know I slam on my brakes in the JT and can slide them pretty easily.

 

[In3briatedPanda]

replacing the rubber lines to steel braided lines made a difference for me.

Maybe it was placebo, but I feel the brakes modulate better. Just my experience.

 

[Jefe1018]

replacing the rubber lines to steel braided lines made a difference for me.

Maybe it was placebo, but I feel the brakes modulate better. Just my experience.

I've done this upgrade, always made me feel more comfortable and confident when braking during autocorss.

Eric the car guy did a great break down on this.

 

[Rusty PW]

You guys would love the brakes on my Nismo. Large 4/2 steel piston calipers. Carbtech 10x front, 8x pads. RacingBrake 2 piece floating rotors. Ti heat shield between the pistons and pads on the front. Stainless steel brake lines. Castrol SRF brake fluid. 3" brake duct hose on the front to cool off the front brakes. I hit the brakes and plant your eyeballs in the windshield. Helps having sticky Michelin Cup tires too.

 

[Beewdawg]

You guys would love the brakes on my Nismo. Large 4/2 steel piston calipers. Carbtech 10x front, 8x pads. RacingBrake 2 piece floating rotors. Ti heat shield between the pistons and pads on the front. Stainless steel brake lines. Castrol SRF brake fluid. 3" brake duct hose on the front to cool off the front brakes. I hit the brakes and plant your eyeballs in the windshield. Helps having sticky Michelin Cup tires too.

But you're a madman Rusty ???

 

[Deleted member 47279]

this brings up a question. when i had a S14 i could use STI take offs as in upgrade. any take offs out there for us gladdys?

 

[dcmdon]

I would have thought i would have seen posts about a brake upgrade if it was a thing they list it for the JL i just didn't know they had different brakes.

They don't. The factory Gladiator brakes already have the largest rotors that will fit in a 17" wheels unless you go to exotic monobloc type calipers.

this brings up a question. when i had a S14 i could use STI take offs as in upgrade. any take offs out there for us gladdys?

Unless it included calipers like the Sti had (ex 2004 STi owner, here the brakes were excellent), you can't go any bigger.

 

[dcmdon]

Something to remember. Many things go into effective braking.

Tires are the first most obvious factor. You could have Brembo calipers with carbon ceramic rotors and if you have a MT tire, there is only so much friction the tire can make.

After that there are a couple of scenarios that we should explore.

1) Lets first talk about a one time emergency stop or general braking in day to day driving.

In a situation like this, big fancy brakes make no difference. Stock brakes, starting from a cool state, make more than enough friction to lock the wheel. So going bigger, and better makes no difference.

Its all about friction, which the stock brakes make enough of.

Back before ABS, the next things that would matter in a panic stop are

a) modulation - how do the brakes feel. can you approach incipient lockup and hold the brakes close to locking. Its all about feedback.

b) brake bias or balance - Do the front wheels lock before the rears or the other way around, or do they all lock about the same time?? Properly designed bias played a big factor in how fast you could stop.

For the most part those items don't matter any more. For most drivers, the fastest way to stop is to mash the pedal to the floor and let the ABS modulate both braking power and bias.

So for most vehicles driven day to day, big fancy brakes only get you better modulation. Which is irrelevant other than in the tactile joy it provides you in working a good set of brakes.

2) When we are talking about repeated stops from high speeds, towing downhill, or road racing then the ability to shed heat becomes the most important factor.

One thing to remember is that the kinetic energy of an object in motion increases as the square of its velocity. That means that a car going 100 mph doesn't have 4x the energy of a car going 25. Its got 16 (!!!) TIMES the energy of a car going 25.

So when you are braking from high speeds the ability to shed heat (brakes turn kinetic energy into heat. So 16x the kinetic energy means 16x the heat) becomes most important.

That's why road race cars have huge brakes. They need to shed enormous amounts of heat.
But again, these huge brakes don't provide any better braking when cold than smaller, cheaper, lighter brakes.

You can see this on autocross cars. Autocross cars tend to have small brakes and small wheels. This is because an autocross run takes about a minute. In this time you drive as hard and fast as you can. But its so short that nothing has time to heat up.

Smaller wheels, tires, and brakes weigh a LOT less and are faster. It also allows you to lower the center of gravity of the car without changing springs and other stuff like that.

When we used to autocross my dad's RX7, it had 16" street wheels but we ran 14s when we autocrossed it.

If we take all of this and apply it to the Gladiator it works out like this.

A stock truck has plenty of friction to lock a wheel. So in regular driving the stock brakes are close to the optimal compromise of power, weight, and cost.

If you make repeated hard stops from 80 mph, they will probably fade and you would be better served by upgraded brakes. By upgraded, I primarily mean something with larger diameter rotors. That's the most efficient way to upgrade brakes. Eventually if you keep making hard stops from 80 mph on the stock brakes, you will probably warp a rotor.

So brakes that are too small can become a maintenance issue. I used to drive a company car that was a Ford Taurus. I warped the rotors about every 6 months. I braked too hard for them and they would get hot and warp over time.

I never worked them hard enough to actually feel any fade, but over time they warped.

If you install fancy brakes on your Gladiator you will not experience any increase in maximum braking force available simply because that maximum force is limited by the tires, not the brakes.

You may say they feel "stronger". Sure, they may be. There may be more braking for a given amount of pedal pressure. So they "bite"faster. But that also means that they will get into the ABS(or lock if there isn't ABS) sooner with less pedal pressure. Either way, this PERCEPTION of power is what sells most people. You could achieve the same thing with high friction pads, by the way.

If you were do do instrumented tests of the Gladiator's braking from 75 mph or so you would see slightly better numbers than stock brakes. This is caused by 2 factors.

1) the quicker initial bite means that you will approach the maximum braking force faster than you would with stock brakes. Remember that at 75 mph, you are moving 110 ft per second. So even a 1/10th of a second faster bite would give you a 11 ft shorter stopping distance.

But before you use this to justify fancy brakes, remember that you could achieve more initial bite by simply swapping the pads for high friction pads.

2) Fancy brakes modulate better. This allows the ABS to manage traction better and hold the tires closer to lock without actually locking them. This is a very very minor factor. But it does seem to be real. But then again, you could make large improvements modulation of the factory brakes by installing braided steel "aeroquip" brake lines.

So in summary. Unless you are towing down mountains, or road racing your truck, larger brakes are either eye candy or unnecessary.

One last thing. If you put a Rubicon on mudders with $3000 of Wilwood brakes up against a stock High Altitude, the High Altitude would smoke the Rubicon in any braking test because of the superior traction its low profile tires provided, right up until the stock brakes started to fade. By the way. There's nothing dumber than a rock crawler with upgraded brakes.

They are sexy as hell though. Aren't they.

I hope this is of value. There's an hour of my time I'll never get back. Ha.

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