Willwood Brakes.

[Maxim11]

Hi , has anyone any experience of Willwood calipers and discs in racing and if they compare favourably with AP, Brembo etc .Any advice appreciated .

[Oilchange]

Use AP myself, calipers and discs plus either Ferodo DS/Carbone Lorraine/Pagid racing pads but lots of others on the LEF use Wilwood as upgrades I believe (on Esprits).
To be honest a slab of edam either side of china plate would've been better than the TMC stuff my car came with...

[Trev450]

I had Wilwood calipers on an OMS single seater and found them equally as good as other top brands. I haven't tried the discs though.

[ctsdave]

We ran Willwood Superlites (iirc) on old mgbv8 dad raced (380bhp worth). Stopped as well as everyone on ap etc!! Used brembo discs and ferodo ds3000 pads.

[PhillipM]

They work well if you choose the right ones.

You see plenty of people complaining they flex and they're crap compared to their new AP's, etc.
However, you usually find out their new AP's cover half the disc, cost 2k+, and they'd previously fitted the cheapest wilwoods to save money without heeding that a caliper built for a 600kg sandrail might not have the stiffness required for their 1400kg saloon...

[johnnymaestro]

I use Willwood Dynalite calipers and discs on the Scim (circa 1000kgs) and they have never let me down. Changed recently PFC pads, which made a world of difference.

[GarethGTR]

Double check your measurements before you buy willwood. They are American and use difficult to find imperial threads and have odd optimal sizes for discs etc. I have brembo on one car, AP on another and wilwood on two more. I have converted one of these over to HiSpec because, well, I find wilwood to be not very good at all and a right royal PIA when fitting to a new build or retro fitting from another caliper. I can't rave about HiSpec either, but that's another story....

Their specifications and drawings are on their web site, so you can check everything.

As implied in an earlier post... you get what you pay for...

[DallaraV8]

Maybe the top end Wilwoods are OK, I've had experience of mid and low range Wilwoods and found them to be rubbish - as mentioned above serious flex leading to horrible spongy pedal. If you can afford AP or Brembo that would be my recommendation - even a heavy quality road car caliper is better than a cheap Wilwood......................

[PhillipM]

Wrong caliper fitted for the application....you can't expect to fit thin beam calipers to heavy cars and get away with it without going for more exotic materials.