Understanding Your Brakes

Being able to stop your Jeep is just as important or vital as it is to start it and move along your journey.  The factory brakes on your Jeep have been designed with the vehicle in mind on how it is set up from the manufacturer.  This consists of several factors like tire size, predicted rate of speed, and vehicle weight.  When your Jeep left the assembly line the gross vehicle weight was about four thousand pounds and depending on the trim you selected (e.g., Sport, Sahara, Rubicon), the Jeep could have had a tire as small as a 245/75R17.  The factory brakes work exceptionally well for the Jeep for the way it was built and rolled off the lot. 

Being the off-road enthusiasts that you are, you indulge in aftermarket part to make your rig more capable to the terrain.  You, me, and everyone else we know like to swap out to bigger tires, nicer wheels, add lift kits, and other impressive accessories that make our Jeeps stand out from the crowd.  When doing so, wheels and tires get heavier, lift kits add weight, and more weight is added by every other added piece of gear that is added to your Jeep.  this is something to consider even if you start with the tires that are actually rolling mass.  Now, let us pretend you went from a 245/75R17 on the factory 17-inch diameter, 7-inch-wide wheel and decided to put 37x13.50R17 tires on a brand-new set of 17x9 inch wheels.  The difference in weight gain can be from fifty to seventy-five pounds per wheel or combined added rolling mass of two hundred to three hundred pounds on the Jeep.  to take this step further, you have just added a lift kit to your Jeep.  parts will be replaced on the Jeep like springs and control arms but added brackets and other equipment will be added to the Jeep adding to the Jeep gross vehicle weight.  This is only the items that have been fastened or bolted to your Jeep.  of course, smaller items count as well like lights, bumpers, rock sliders, tires carriers, and any other small item that requires to be fastened to the Jeep.  what about the regular weekend off roading gear that you do not keep in your Jeep like tools, supplies, food, chairs, and tables.  Everything adds up and the weight keeps coming. 

Your Jeep’s factory brakes were not designed to support such weight.The factory semi-metallic pads work well but the rotors on the front and rear of the Jeep are small. The front rotors are vented meaning that air can flow through the brake rotors between the brake pads, but the rear rotors are solid.Under so much weight and stress, the factory brakes can overheat and possibly fail.Upgrading the brakes of your Jeep will help you out in the long run, due to the weight gain from equipment, aftermarket brakes can help prevent premature wear on hard parts.

There are several brands out in the world that offer upgraded brake parts designs like Power Stop, whose cross drilled and slotted rotors offer more cooling to the brakes and the ceramic pads that come with the kit produce little to no brake dust while demonstrating a capability to slow down the Jeep faster and at a shorter distance than factory pads. This is a fantastic feature since the added weight on the Jeep will require you to apply the brakes sooner than before the added weight. Consider larger vehicles on the road like public transit buses, or heavy equipment trucks. These vehicles must start to slow down at a longer distance because of the extra weight. If you decide to cut one of these vehicles off in traffic trying to get to the light first, there is a likely chance that vehicle will not be able to stop in time because the stopping distance has now been shortened because you decided to put your Jeep in front of the larger truck. With that being said, distance is important.

Without staying in the factory dimensions of the brakes, there are other brands that offer larger pad and rotor kits. Teraflex offers a Delta Four kit that supplies larger slotted rotors, semi-metallic or carbon pads, and four-piston calipers. Although this may sound a bit strange, larger pads and rotors add more surface area for the brakes to grab hold and stop more efficiently. By now, this should be obvious but the slots in the rotors also add cooling to the brakes. The one thing that is noticeable of the larger brake kits is the calipers. We have not touched this area of the brake system so let us indulge this for a second. To what I know of at the time of this writing, there are three types of brake calipers. There are the one piston calipers which are the most common, the two piston calipers which are usually on larger vehicles and sports cars, and the four piston calipers which are specialty use.

Single piston calipers are the most common caliper in use. These calipers have a single, large piston that flows from the inner part of the caliper outward and is pushed by brake fluid. This puts four pistons around the vehicle brakes for stopping power. The outer part of the caliper has a two-prong design used to support the outer brake pad while the caliper compresses during braking.

The two-piston caliper has a similar design to it but instead of one large piston, it has two smaller pistons next to each other. Putting eight pistons around the Jeep for greatest stopping power. I believe this design was intended to deliver more braking power to the wheels by applying more brake pressure throughout the pads instead of pressing the center of the pads.

The four-piston caliper is the next evolution of performance brakes. As the name suggests, these calipers have two inner pistons and two outer pistons. This puts a total of sixteen pistons of stopping power around your Jeep. This brake system puts your brakes to the next level of being able to stop your Jeep with all the added weight from upgrades.

Regardless of what direction you want to go with your upgraded brakes, do your research. Make sure the kit is right for your needs. Make sure the kit with fit with your existing wheels or you may have to buy new ones that will work with the brake size, make sure the kit accommodates for the back spacing of your wheels, and make sure there are or are not any other items to buy that may not be in the kit.

For instance, the Teraflex Delta Four kit fits JKs and JLs but for the JK, you will need to replace the master cylinder and power booster with the JL parts. These can be acquired from your local Jeep dealer.