At the risk of attracting hate mail, letter bombs, and all sorts of other Wrath-of-God incidents, I just sent the following to the CRB.
The idea is to continue to update the class to more modern components. The ferrous brake rule is a throw-back to when aluminum brakes were prohibitively expensive, which is not true today.
Be for or against, but please direct the coments to the CRB to get any impact. And...this is my push as a SCCA member and does not represent any official position of the F2000 Championship Series.
To members of the SCCA CRB:
Formula Continental brake calipers:
I propose the following rule change for Formula Continental: Recind rule B.1.f Brakes unrestricted (with below restrictions) Brake rotors and calipers must be ferrous and replace: B.1.f Brakes unrestricted except: calipers must be either ferrous or aluminum and rotors must be ferrous.
Most other SCCA classes allow aluminum brake calipers. Currently there are only two suppliers (AP and ICP) for the LD 19 and LD 20 type ferrous Caliper specified for FF, S2, and FC.
1) There are numerous suppliers of aluminum brake calipers giving competitors a wide choice of both caliper and brake pad at a potentially much lower price than the AP or ICP ferrous caliper.
2) Multiple car constructors have indicated that with a radially mounted caliper (unavailable in ferrous material), the cost of manufacture of wheel uprights is drastically reduced, something they would like to put in production.
3) AP has aluminum calipers (parts # CP3696-6E0 and CP2577-14E0) as less expensive bolt on alternatives to the existing LD 19 and LD 20 ferrous parts so that no existing cars are excluded from a potential upgrade.
4) Current braking capacity is determined by the tires, not the brakes, so the only ultimate performance advantage gained by the change is un-sprung weight due to the lighter aluminum part.
5) Estimated cost of a set of AP aluminum LD 20 calipers is potentially under $1000, not much more than a set of tires, depending on quantities imported into the USA by a distributor.
Robert Wright
Membership # 47526