The 24 Hours of Lemons Forums → Lemons Tech → Water Cooled Brakes
I read in the rule books for a couple of the NASA series that water cooled brakes are not allowed. It got me thinking, is there anything to this in Lemons? It wouldn’t be that hard to implement this on the Taxi, and brakes are unlimited. In our car we had to pretty severely flatten out the brake ducts on the front rotors so we are cutting airflow.
Anybody have experience with misting the brake rotors?
thanks,
olaaf
This sounds like an awesome idea. You'll just have to keep the corner workers from black flagging you for the steam pouring out of your wheel wells 
Do it. Dump the cool suit tank overflow on them.
If this was a good idea, all race cars would run it. This fact alone makes it seem perfect for Lemons.
I had idly wondered about doing this. Mostly so I could use the phrase, "Steamin' up the squealers" a lot more.
Spraying water on red hot castings is a wonderful idea. Do it!
Wet brakes for every stop. That sounds like fun. NOT!
Generally, not enough heat is being generated by cars that having water cooled brakes would be effective. The truck racing across the pond, yeah - 5 ton trucks braking from 100mph down to 30mph, they need the extra cooling.
Well, I guess it might be overkill. But I think we’ll still do it. For Science. We’ll move our brake fans to the rears and water cool the fronts.
We need more switches, LED's, lines and water vessels in the car, anyways.
Hooray!!! *crowd cheers*
One way to do it.
Wire the brake light to the windshield washer pump, send the water to the brakes. viola,water cooled brakes!
You can then add switches, LEDS, bells, and whistles.
are you talking water cooling the calipers with a water cooled heatsink or misting water on the brakes? I think misting water is a very scary idea. If someone cant stop because their brakes shattered I dont want to be the one punted/t boned mid corner.
Even if you didn't shatter the rotors, it would take a 55 gallon drum of water for endurance racing. Those racing trucks go through something like 100 gallons of water in a sprint race.
Forget the water. Oil has the enthalpy of vaporization you're looking for.
Australian V8 Supercars use water cooled brakes also, so it's not that outrageous of an idea even on a car...
are you talking water cooling the calipers with a water cooled heatsink or misting water on the brakes? I think misting water is a very scary idea. If someone cant stop because their brakes shattered I dont want to be the one punted/t boned mid corner.
I thought the same thing till I read about Nissan GTR Race cars misting water through the vanes on the rotors. Theres a few different types of water cooling, from water cooled calipers to a mist being sprayed into brake ducts (which I think the V8 Supercars use).
Its not so far fetched but, I would imagine there may be more to the story than just misting water on rotors. I would do a lot more research before considering this. Even email the team engineers, I've found that posing technical questions to real race teams they are often more than happy to respond and bounce some ideas back to you.
Even if you didn't shatter the rotors, it would take a 55 gallon drum of water for endurance racing. Those racing trucks go through something like 100 gallons of water in a sprint race.
We have a 5 gallon poland spring jug in the car for the engine water injection system. I was planning on sharing this with the braking system with a pair of 3GPH nozzles.. We only take 1 hour stints as we aren’t really racing for position, so the capacity should be sufficient… we’ll see, though.
I don’t think we’ll shatter the rotors.. given the small amount of water, the misting nozzle and the heat of the rotors, the water should vaporize immediately. Like racing in the rain. I would be kinda worried about the rotors tempering and getting soft, but I read a bunch about this during the rear mount turbo installation- there is a lot of forum chatter about the turbine housing shattering when you drive through a puddle, but it doesn’t happen- apparently Garret engineers laughed off the question.
Even email the team engineers, I've found that posing technical questions to real race teams they are often more than happy to respond and bounce some ideas back to you.
killer idea, i'll definitely do that..
At a race a year ago my team noticed an E30 team hosing down their brake rotors at each pit stop (and each pit was happening like every 30 minutes). They didn't do very well that race, but their brake rotors never shattered.
Swamp cooling the brake ducts seems like it could work.
Another cheapo solution I've seen was GPU-style heatsinks mounted on brake calipers. Here's a commercial solution, but I bet you'd get reasonable performance hacking up a CPU or GPU cooler on your calipers if you can make it fit: http://www.fourproducts.com/FSBC.htm.
Here's a passive (doesn't have a fan) CPU cooler: http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/ … ;CatId=493
Did you have brake fade because the fluid was boiling? If not, you have a complex solution to a problem you don't have.
Why let that stop us... er him... from doing something heroic? Just focus on ways to spray water at the brakes. I see no fail with this plan.
Did you have brake fade because the fluid was boiling? If not, you have a complex solution to a problem you don't have.
For several racing in a row we had hard pedal and not so much braking towards the end of the day. THe calipers were OK, but the rotors/pads must have been pretty hot.
We've switched to vented rotors and all is better now.
Misting the rotors would work if the mist gets there before they get too hot. Misting the center, aiming up between the two plates, or whatever they are called, into the vanned part, would probably help keep cooling uniform and the pads will stay almost dry.
Another cheapo solution I've seen was GPU-style heatsinks mounted on brake calipers. Here's a commercial solution, but I bet you'd get reasonable performance hacking up a CPU or GPU cooler on your calipers if you can make it fit: http://www.fourproducts.com/FSBC.htm.
Heck, if you're going to go to the effort, why not run a low-volt Peltier cooler right on each caliper?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermoelectric_cooling
Adhere the cold side of the Peltier to the backside of your caliper where the brake fluid enters the piston cylinder. Adhere a heatsink to the hot side, and direct ducted air to the heatsink to keep the Peltier effect working at full efficiency. Run the wires for the Peltier zip-tied to your brake lines up to a transformer so you can give them car power dropped to the correct voltage. Would keep your brake fluid cool and thus more effective. No reason you couldn't do this in addition to the water spray for the rotors, right?
pshhh, peltiers! ha! if you're going for below-ambient cooling, why not just rebuild your car's AC system into a propane-co2 autocascade phase-change cooler and get those calipers down to -100 degrees!
way simpler.
The 24 Hours of Lemons Forums → Lemons Tech → Water Cooled Brakes