Front /back pad wear etc

[Dave Eaton]

you could also have a movable ballast which travels while the car is in
motion to counter-act the weight shift.  it was an idea which the german
class 1 dtm cars used a few years back and is now being picked up and used
by a few of the current crop of wrc rally cars...

dave
'95 rs2
'90 ur-q
-----Original Message-----

>    My understanding is that static weight distribution is irrelevant
>to the work required to be done front and rear by the brakes. This is  due
>to 'weight transfer'. I.e. under braking the mass of the vehicle combined
>with the centre of gravity of the vehicle causes a torque effect around the
>front wheel axis which results in a 'shift' in 'weight' away from the rear
>wheels and over the front.
>
>This is also the reason you went over the front handlebars on your
>bicycle when as a kid you tried riding into kerbs to see what would happen.
> As a result the harder you brake, the less grip the rears have and the
>more the front have, which may lead to rear lock up unless you have ABS or
>in the case of  Non ABS systems the lovely heath-robinson spring actuated
>rear compensator which uses changes in the rear ride height to reduce the
>pressure to the rear brakes.
>
>    For this reason brake systems are designed from scratch in terms
>of relative piston area so that the fronts do most of the work. This
>greater work done is *usually* compensated for by the use of large pad area
at
>the front and smaller at the rear, but not to the extent that both wear
>out at the same time. Usually rear pads are relatively 'bigger' than they
>need to be and hence last longer.
>