When upgrading my 10" Drums it was a short leap to Wilwood. Here's my thought process.
For me, the deal braker going factory was:
- having to buy spindles. If you need disk spindles, even a GREAT price for used spindles is at least $125 shipped---New off shore copies are $200 shipped
- The TWENTY EXTRA POUNDS PER WHEEL OF UNSPRUNG WEIGHT.{I think its ridiculous to see guys spout off about how great their thousand dollar+ suspension mods are the bees knees in one post but also swear to their dying breath that the HEAVIEST disk brake setup available is pretty much always "the best"}
FABO group think dogma says just go to get factory stuff from Dr.Diff,,ok well that's over $550. Not really a steller deal and that's for reman calipers and Chinese knuckles,,,,meh
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Even if you RockAuto most of the parts and find knuckles, the core charges and shipping still winds up the same price
Ok so over $550 for 38lb PER WHEEL worth of factory bits.
I'm building my Swinger with a 3.6L pentastar for better weight distribution and 40lb hanging off each knuckle wasn't siting well, especially for $550. WFT! For $150 more I could just get 100% brand new Wilwood.
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But is the $150 difference worth it?!?!
Then I remembered an OLD Mopar Performance News(Dec 1993) article i read some 25years ago(found it tonight in the basement). The MP engineers were going on about their MP branded Wilwood disk kits--the SAME kits being discussed. The engineers claimed when a vehicle's UNSPRUNG weight is reduced, there's a 6:1 advantage per lb vs the same lb removed from SPRUNG weight.
"A acceptable rule of thumb in racing is that every pound of sprung weight you can remove from a vehicle will give you the performance equivalent of 6lb of sprung weight"
In the MPN article, they dropped 20lb PER WHEEL for the Wilwood vs 10.75" factory Disk. So the resultant drop in ET would be equivalent to reducing overall vehicle weight by 240lbs!(20+20 x 6)--a potential drop in 1/4 mile ET of .20s. Now isn't that about what ~10-15hp gets you? Not too shabby side benefit for Fen BRAKES!
This would be ON TOP OF all the benefits of lighter wheel weight has on handling, which is 99% of the time why unsprung weight is reduced. So yeah WILWOOD!
My Wilwoods are 24.4lb total with the lighter weight 10" drum knuckle + LBJ.
The 10" Drums, Knuckle + LBJ weighed in at 35lb
The Stock 10-3/4" disks are ~38lb WITHOUT the knuckle OR LBJ, so maybe 45-48lb? if included.
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Oh one more thing,,,that super scary 500lbf deficit the Wilwoods have compared to the "stock" disks,,it only takes an extra 15lb of foot pressure to make up the difference--about 2 toes worth lol
