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Anonymous10/14/25, 21:12No.28671174
A local mechanical engineer told me increasing brake pad area has no effect on braking torque.
He said it only changes heat dissipation.
How the fuck does that work?
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Anon10/14/25, 21:15No.28671178
You can only brake as quickly as the tire can maintain traction. The pad just dissipates heat through friction. larger pad means more surface area and mass so it doesn't heat up as much
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Anon10/14/25, 21:16No.28671182
Friction force = normal force x coefficient of friction
Brake torque = friction force x distance from center of rotationNo area in either formula. Friction coefficient is dependent on the pad and rotor material only.
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Anon10/14/25, 23:19No.28671373
is accurate, any modern braking system that can lock up the wheels (or engage abs) is grip limited.
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Anon10/15/25, 14:41No.28672231
at some point you put tires wider than the small pads can handle
then you put big brakes with big pads that the small tires can't handle.
the ideal is to have the most tire you can safely fit on the car without scrubbing or bottoming out and putting big brakes on that can stop it affectively.
course you don't need any of that for bench racing.
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Anon10/15/25, 15:11No.28672279
Think of it this way. No matter how large or small the pad/rotors are the amount of friction required for a certain amount of stopping force is going to be the same, and the limit of effective braking is the tire grip.I won't bother Paul Harrell'ing my further comments with caveats and explanations of how infinitely large or small units are a stupid thought nor the intricacies of rotational inertia contributions to required braking effect.
If you want to be that pedantically autism retarded just go kill yourself.
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Anon10/15/25, 17:59No.28672508
he's technically wrong, but morally right.
best brake upgrade you can do is add another caliper piston
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Anon10/15/25, 19:58No.28672700
More thermal mass to absorb more heat and more surface area to dissipate heat faster.
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Anon10/15/25, 20:52No.28672787
Just thought I’d throw this in amongst the stew of correct and incorrect posts ITT.OP specifically talks about braking torque. Accepting that if there is sufficient torque to break the dynamic friction of the tyres, the system is grip limited, in answer to OP’s actual question is it depends on how the pad area is increased. If the additional area is bigger pads radially, then the effective radius that the pads operate at will be increased, which will increase the torque exerted for any particular braking force.
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Anon10/16/25, 00:17No.28673115
Point your hands together like a prayer. if you touch your fingers together as hard as you can, then switch to your palms, you have had no affect on the torque you're applying, you just increased the surface area from your fingertips to your hands.
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Anon10/16/25, 00:33No.28673132
I'm an electrical engineer and I don't trust mechanical engineers to know their shit.
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Anon10/16/25, 02:52No.28673321
increasing brake pad area allows for a better bite on the rotor. thus he's wrong because it'll take less effort to stop the car, if you have a smaller pad, it'll heat up quicker. just saying, heat degrades brake pads.
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Anon10/16/25, 06:46No.28673514
Man there sure are a fucking lot of dipshits who think their ChatGPT diploma means they know wtf they're talking about.
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Anon10/17/25, 08:50No.28675187
i am just a crackhead shitbox enthusiast but i don't like the wording
the concept of torque being available during a reductive system operation has me a bit confused since torque seems only available if the system it is applied to is static or additive in pressure from a pivot
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Anon10/17/25, 08:54No.28675192
Kek at two retards who flunked out of physics arguing itt
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Anon10/17/25, 09:01No.28675199
I can't be arsed to read the thread but it's because if you don't change any other parts of the braking system, you're not increasing the clamping force by adding more area, you're just spreading the force you have over a larger area so the clamping pressure - not force - gets reducedI'm gonna use some retarded values here but the math is the same. If you have 200N of clamp force and a brake pad that's 0.1 sqm, you have 200/0.1 Pa of pressure (2000Pa). If you don't change the clamping force but double the size of the pad you have 200/0.2=1000Pa of pressure but it's still the same force on the brake it's just spread out wider.
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Anon10/17/25, 16:49No.28675725
In an ideal system yes, see
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Anon10/17/25, 16:55No.28675734
If your stock brakes have enough force to lock up the wheels with ABS off, then adding more force does literally nothing for you.
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Anon10/17/25, 20:04No.28676045
Your engineer can't just make a blanket statement like that. There are too many other factors. Also he's probably wrong.
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Anon10/17/25, 23:23No.28676425
Boy there sure are lots of truck users who carry absolutely fucking nothing in their trucks, also a lot of "engineers" not accounting for the weight that should be in your useless little Ridgeline shitters. Otherwise they would have accounted for the amount weight on the tire in question and how the brake pad is designed with that in mind.
>but muh sedan
No one cares about you.
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Anon10/17/25, 23:31No.28676436
>Le brakes pads don't matter guys, le tire, le friction, le uh oh I put 2000 extra pounds in the back and my fat frenchman crew is in le baguette van and my le calculations got me le t-boned. Mon dieu!
