Either I'm stupid and haven't seen anybody talk about this, or just nobody has covered it before... I'm impressed, perplexed, and amazed at modern braking technology.


If I remember right, a Honda S2000 AP1 brakes from 60-0 in 128 or so feet.
Everybody on this board has their opinion about 0-60 times and how cars have gotten bigger, heavier, faster, slower etc...
Well unless you don't like your life that much, 60-0 times are in my opinion even more important than the 0-60.

It seems to me that braking has well done nothing, but improve.
Cars that weigh 4000+ lbs, to cars that weigh around 3200-3300 lbs are putting in awesome numbers on stopping.

So my question is this:

What makes braking so much better since the early 2000's?

Brake pad/rotor technologies?
Even more sophisticated ABS and sensors?
Bigger wheels = Bigger rotor/caliper combos?
Stickier rubber?

Global warming, Al Gore or the internet?




Also when I had my motorcycle, stainless steel lines made life smoother... what do they do for cars in a performance sense?

 

Well the rotors are indeed getting bigger and bigger each model year upgrade (to handle the heat of these big cars??). On top of that are ever increasing performance of tyre compounds.

Now while the braking has improved in general I wonder how sustained/repeated braking has faired this last decade...?

 

Another reason I'm impressed is that as the years go by people complain about the lack of throttle cables... electric steering in some cars... rev hangs, lack of manual transmissions... etc.


Nobody really seems to complain about braking

 

tires and maybe abs programming.

 

Mostly comes down to tires, suspension (anti-dive geometry) and improved brake compounds that bite faster and better when cold (wider range of effective temperature). ABS doesn't actually stop you faster than a non-ABS system if you're a really good driver, though. It just allows for excellent consistency and (ultimately) more control than most people could muster on their own.

Also look at the systems on some of these cars where they prime the brake system when they sense braking is about to happen. This reduces system response time, firms up the pedal and gives faster full engagement of the brakes (less slop, "zero" fluid flex).

 

I think tire development has a huge role too. You used to have sporty cars with skinny 205s up front, now manufacturers can afford to put sticky wide front tires on most cars, while still retaining approximately the same gross weight...

AP1-->Ap2, very similar weights, but wider tires are going to help braking...

 

Tires #1 by far. Suspension (weight transfer control) is probably #2. Most crappy brakes still seem tire limited for at least the first hard stop.

 

Tire compound, pad and rotor material all help improve braking along with better brake fluid (mainly so it doesn't overheat). Tire technology has come a long way since the 90's or even the 2000's. IIRC, some cars like the 370z offer awesome braking performance for the first few times, but their ability to dissipate heat from the rotors decreases exponentially causing them to worsen their braking performance after a few hard stops (this was tested by a magazine, Car and Driver I think.) That's likely due to the pad and rotor compounds (and maybe even the brake fluid) than the tires since I doubt the tires are being overheated after a few hard stops.

I'm curious to test my car and see how much it has improved over stock with 255s up front, track oriented brake pads, and better brake fluid. Basically, the faster you can convert kinetic energy to thermal energy and the faster you can dissipate the thermal energy, the better you will stop. Vented and slotted rotors do help out a ton for consistent braking under high heat conditions (cross drilled rotors are prone to cracking at the holes). But as you mentioned, there are drawbacks to having things like track pads or bigger tires. It takes a longer time to heat them up and have them working at their full potential, and with track pads, your rotors get worn out faster, pads might make more noise, etc etc. I think manufacturers now have done a great job to decrease braking distances substantially over the past decade, especially in trucks.

 

You are right about ABS. There was a female race driver (FF driver I think) who was at a Honda event of some sort (sorry, second hand story). Honda was showing how people stopped faster with ABS. Most drivers did but not her. She was used to threshold braking in her race car and was thus faster with the non-ABS car which allowed for better control.

Of course this comes with two important notes. First is the assumption that you have the right brake bias for the job. Unfortunately the right bias will change depending on surface conditions. So just the right about of rear brake bias for a grippy surface would be too little for a low grip surface. The other note is that even a great driver can't compensate for uneven left to right surfaces.

 

only reason is better tires.

The OEM honda brakes can lock up tires which mean the limiting factor is...the tires.