Just finished narrowing, and rebuilding the 8.8 rear end. Now its on to the brakes. Have my hats, rotors, and calipers ready to go. Just need to make brake caliper brackets. Is there any disadvantages to where I place the calipers? Can they go in front, in back, on top or any combination? I know I have to take bleeder screws into consideration, and the caliper can't interfere with anything else. On the bottom would lower the center of gravity and in the front would push mass towards the center of gravity. I'm using Wilwoods and at the moment there is no provision for an E-brake. Might mount mechanical spot calipers on the opposite side of the brake caliper later on, or install a small rotor on the rear of the driveshaft and install the spot caliper on the rear end. Cross that bridge later on. For now I just want to make some brackets out of 3/8" plywood and take them to my machinist to duplicate out of steel. My gut is telling me to locate them in front of the axle at 9:00 and 3:00 as you look at the wheel.
Packaging drives this. Put them wherever you want, as long as they're bleedable.
for some reason I think Twist and torque put a lot of this into play. most every car I have owned with 4 wheel disc brakes puts the front caliper behind the disc and the rear in front of it. It might be for weight distribution, but I think it is make brake torque work to stabilize the body under braking
The placement of the rear calipers, front or back doesn't matter. But top or bottom would make bleeding the caliper problematic.
In the front the placement of the calipers is dictated by the placement of the steering. Is the rack mounted in front of the centerline of the front wheels or behind? Most FWD cars have the rack placed behind the wheels so the calipers are in front. Most RWD cars have the rack in front so the calipers are on the back side.
I'll chime in to agree.... bleeders up. The rest doesn't matter.
I put 3/4 ton truck spindle knuckles on a 66 Bonneville. Since the truck was front steer and the bonny rear steer, I just swapped the knuckles side to side to get the steering "correct" which put the calipers forward. No issues.
The psychotic bump steer issues were a different story.
