I rarely cross post between boards, but I think this one deserves special mention.

http://www.ls1tech.com/forums/showthread.php?t=168243

I think he has absorbed part of the picture, but it is scary what you may really achieve when you know enough to be dangerous.

Luckily, he is in FL, that is about as far away from me as can be

this is up there with the threads i have seen about the 'Redneck Line Lock' (read: no rear brakes)

On an interesting note, I have heard alot of stories about drag racers with drum brakes, adjusting them back to ensure that the shoe doesn't drag at all. i wonder how that woudl effect rear braking power. I would imagine with only the front brakes, he woudl be fine hauling himself down slowly after a 1/4mile pass, but I would not trust something like that, in anything that sees duty with other cars on the road.

and to think i have spent all of this time, trying to maximize the effects of my rear brakes, what was I thinking, I could have just chucked them, and free'd up some ponies.

With the excessive rear brake bias that LS1 cars have, disconnecting the rear brakes is tempting sometimes.

Here comes Peter f-bod tail,
hopping down the sweeper trail,
hoppity, hoppity, who needs brakes today?

OK, so I'm a little late

of course, with the practicly non-existant rear brakes of my thirdgen rear hop is not exactly an issue.

I bought my 3rd gen at 60k and put rear shoes on it (made me feel better) and at 158k they still had most of the shoes left. The adjusters just don't work. I rebuilt/cleaned them a few times. I'd adjust the brakes, they'd be better for a day or so and back to "normal". But, even so, I'm sure they did something.

Some people just go about things all wrong. This guy's next thought was probably, " I want to install a good safety system, so I think I'll wear fire-resistant socks next time!".

Where in Florida? Not in the Panhandle, near Pensacola, I hope. I go there now and again to race. If he's near there, anyone know what color car he's got? I'll keep a lookout in my rearview mirror. Of course, he'd be a great guy to follow on the interstate. If anything happened, he'd just plow everything out of your way!!

Dewey is correct, many drag racers back in the day would adjust the rear (and fronts) off of the drums to reduce friction. Amounts to more pedal travel when hitting the brakes. I was told its a 1/10 time savings. But then again it seems like anything you do for drag racing is a 1/10 drop in time. This was not a big safety issue. The first drum brake systems did not automatically adjust and yet drivers still were able to stop.

I'm not a NHRA guy, but I'm sure there are many 1/4 mile enthusiasts and particpants that swap on undersized rotors and calipers in order to reduce mass or (I). That guy's only misunderstanding was that improving his front end braking would more than counteract the savings by deleting the rear end.

What he really needs to do is delete the rear and swap on the smallest rotor/caliper he can find in the front. Would this reduce time? Absolutely. Is it NHRA/DOT legal? No. Maybe just ditch it all and go to a parachute. The question is good, too bad he got ripped apart.

I'd argue that. The title of the guy's thread was, "Street driving with no rear brakes.......... " It's one thing if it was a track dedicated car to ponder the idea, but for a street car???

Actually I was addressing his question, "How much RWHP would you pick up from the reduced rotating mass?"

He understands the idea of rotating mass. He just didnt make the connection that the front wheels are rotating mass despite not being the drive wheels.

Not all F-body owners are scientists, engineers or mechanics. I doubt the general public has any clue what effect rotating mass has on acceleration. Boards like these are to ask questions and learn.

don't get me wrong, I do believe there is such a thing as a "stupid question." This isn't one.

I never meant to indicate that it was a stupid question. It was a sound question based on a partial understanding of the subject at hand. I answered his questions in an informational way until he started advising that someone was a "dumb son of a B**ch" to not understand the rotating weight thing, though he missed it himself. And when he got upset about "dyno" after mentioning RWHP and saying he wasn't talking about a dyno? Ok. That is when he kinda fed himself to the dogs.

In 1985, I bought a new Camaro IROC. I believe this was one of the first cars GM ever put rear wheel disc brakes on, and they didn't do a very good job. Long story short, after a couple years of driving it, I noticed the rear discs were getting all rusty! Turns out the pads hadn't touched the rear discs in quite some time (over a year I think.) In normal day-to-day driving, it wasn't all that noticeable. On a windy canyon road going downhill, it could get very exciting trying to use the brakes, and I almost "bit the big one" on the way back from skiing one day. It actually took years to get the rear brakes working right on that car, and finally GM put out a campaign on them and reinbursed part of the money I had spent trying to get them working right.

I can't see the post on tech thanks to work blockage, but GM has been putting rear disks on Corvettes forever. They were an option of firstgen Z28's as well. Later secondgen T/A's also had them.

Chuck,

The link you can't see was to a post that said:

"Street driving with no rear brakes..........

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Can this be done?

Put some huge Brembos up front, top-of-the-line and remove the rotors and calipers too from the rear.

How much RWHP would you pick up from the reduced rotating mass?"

A lot of drag cars only have rear brakes, so I am thinking that a good set of well maintained front brakes would be fine for normal street use. Sounds like some thirdgenners have done it

Of course many of the drag cars with only rear brakes also have a chute...

Then what is it you do all day at work?

Don't tell me it's toil or sweat or anything like that ...

That would suck ....

Well that doesn't leave GM much of an excuse for what they did on the IROC rear disc brakes then. I'm surprised they didn't get sued over it. It was a design that required use of the parking brake for adjustment to compensate for wear. I've noticed the 4th gen LT1 cars have a totally different type of rear disc, and the LS1 4th gens still another type. LT1 rear discs have a caliper-disc interferance problem; just got done dealing with that.