A lighter disc with better heat dispersion and more stopping force sounds like a good thing… Imagine, having brakes as big as an M5’s without the necessity of 19″ rims.

No more of that additional unsprung weight from the hub carrier of the disc. The disc can be held onto the rim with numerous small bolts that don’t really need to be as heavy or as strong. And the rim is already pretty strong at the spokes, so it doesn’t need to be reinforced for this beyond adding the bolt holes. The flywheel effect of having more mass close to the edge should be more than counteracted by the much lower mass, overall. Probably be a very nifty idea for sports cars, as a way of getting more brakes while keeping unsprung weight down.

Without a caliper sticking out from the disc, You can probably run the same size disc inside out with a 16″ or 17″ wheel as you can with a 19″ wheel. The smaller wheels would mean less unsprung weight and better acceleration.

Practicality be damned… I want to try this!

I contend there has to be a better solution to improved braking other than $$$ ceramics.

Thank you P71_CrownVic for reminding me of the word for what the new Lincoln grills remind me of. I’ve been trying to figure out the resemblance for a while now…

It’s a reliability and liability issue. If you use EM braking, then it’s a simple matter of a fuse going out or the circuit breaking that can potentially take out the brakes. A failsafe on that level of current flow would be doable but tricky; the main issue is that it hasn’t been proven in the field yet.

I think another issue with the design would be the increased knock-back of the caliper piston(s). For a given amount of bearing/hub flex under cornering loads a caliper that is further away from the rotational axis will experience more knock-back deflection than one closer to the rotating axis. This would keep the design out of high-performance applications where it would be more highly valued (if only for the g33k value), or would require a technological application like the use of ABS/EBD to “pump up” the brakes to actively minimize knock-back (which BTW Chrysler patented not too long ago for the Challenger SRT8).

Quite so.

I reckon “unsprung” is the wrong word. Any brake disc is unsprung rotational mass, so this design is only worse IF it has has higher rotational intertia, for which you need to integrate the density * radius * 2 pi * dr for the brake disc.

Short answer, none of us can say out of hand what the performance impact of this design is.

But it does look cool.

You can make a bold statement without horrendously ugly designs.

Lincoln should be euthanized if this baleen grille makes it to ANY more models.

I am already dreading what the MKEdge will look like.

“Outrunner” brake allows you to fit a smaller wheel onto a big rotor, improving ride quality and further reducing weight.

A proper release mechanism (a bypass valve, or even lug bolts) would actually make maintenance easier – no need to unbolt the caliper, just… replace the pads. A 1-hour labor operation turns into a tool-less 10-minute job.

Only thing stopping this from becoming mainstream is the lack of standard wheels and rotors. It also spells the end of cheap stamped steel wheels. Someone has to get the ball rolling.

the reason inboard brakes disappeared from formula one in the late 70s early 80s was that the shaft connecting the brakes to the wheel snapped too often and tyres were helped with the heat coming off them.

The tires would skid long before the car flipped.

A friend of mine drove his Alfa Spyder into the curb at high speed. He didn’t flip over forwards. He ripped the front suspension off.

In a Lamborghini with 15 inch rotors, I could see the point of pushing the rotor to the outside in order to reduce braking force required, which would lessen brake fade. The unsprung weight and rotational inertia disadvantages wouldn’t be that bad since you’d be replacing a monster disc with a larger ring.

However, in a normal passenger car this method is useless. Increased braking force is unusable, as any current braking system should be able to overpower the tires (thus, the advent of ABS). Brake fade is not a concern, as the car will never see a track (unless you are foolishly riding the brakes down a mountain). Plus, you are replacing a relatively tiny 12-inch rotor now. So the increased unsprung weight and rotational inertia will be the only effects you feel. Absolutely no upside for a normal car.

Maybe they developed this for Aston Martin, and had nowhere to put it after they sold AM off.

Unsprung weight is BAD as it seriously affects handling. Other vehicles have used technologies not on the wheels but via brakes on the driveshaft’s and directly on the transaxle.

In the motorcycle world, American Off road company ATK used a disk on the counter shaft.

The goal is to move everything inboard just like suspensions on F1 cars. Get the weight low as possible but still suspended…

Audi did use an internal caliper design, on the Audi 200 20v with “UFO” front brakes, but they mounted the rotor to a separate carrier, not the wheel.

The design did not work well enough to justify the complexity, so it went Audi 5000.

http://www.sjmautotechnik.com/trouble_shooting/ecupic/ufo2.jpg

@MTeator,

Perhaps you skimmed the text of the article. If it is mounted to the wheel, it qualifies as ‘unsprung’.

Technically speaking, most everything that is part of the suspension is ‘unsprung weight’. Just remember, the farther you move the mass out from the pivot point, the more work it does. A 14″ rotor at 6″ from the pivot point is less to manage than the same 14″ rotor at 18″ from the pivot point. Dig?

There is another reason that every stoopid YuSuburbaHo needs a brake upgrade when you throw the dopeman 32″ers on it. Rotational mass.

Ford has been working on this for some time (I have got to watch less Discovery Chanel).

I agree with porschespeed, this is bad news on the roadside and, most likely, in Lincoln service bays.

And the physics (greater unsprung weight) are all bad.