RE: UFO brakes

["Buchholz, Steven" <Steven.Buchholz@kla-tencor.com>]

Well, there are a few of us die-hards that actually prefer them.  It is very
easy to tell if a car has UFO brakes ... if you can look in the openings in
the front wheels and see a normal looking brake rotor and caliper you don't
have UFOs, if it looks like there's a compact spare mounted inside the front
wheel you are probably looking at UFOs.  UFO brakes have the front brake
rotor attached to the hub from the outer surface rather than the center like
most other disk brakes.  The caliper spans the rotor from the center.  This
allows more braking surface (swept area) for a given rotor diameter (and
thus wheel diameter) by the nature of the fact that each inch of lost
diameter at the outer edge of the rotor results in higher loss of swept area
than an inch of lost diameter closer to the center of the rotor.  

The problems with UFOs is that they are unique and given that only the V8
quattros and 20valve 200 turbo quattros (which you don't happen to see on
every street corner) came with them, service parts are likely to be and
remain expensive.  Others complain about the extra unsprung weight.  My main
complaint is that the UFOs make your fancy wheels look like hubcaps over
cheap steel wheels ... :-) but I'll take the way my car stops with them,
thank you very much!

HTH!
Steve Buchholz
San Jose, CA (USA)

	----------
	I've been a quattro fan for 12 years now, and have just stumbled
onto
	your get together here.  I am in the market for a '91 200tq.  What
is
	all this talk about UFO brakes?  From what I can gather, you don't
want
	them.  How do you tell if they are on  a perspective vehicle, and if
	they are...then what?  I appreciate your attention!