SmokingRocks
hopelessly addicted to Cruisers
Nothing against anyone who buys into the 100 series pads up front of 80s, but I raise an eyebrow whenever there is any conjecture that 100 series pads improve braking performance.
I haven’t exhausted the research, and I won’t, but I have not read anything remotely scientific or empirical to prove or disprove the thought that the fractional increase in surface area of the 100 series pads improves braking performance by any discernible degree. Especially when using your butt as the barometer.
I’ll stick to 80 series pads on my 80 series cruiser. They happen to fit perfectly in conjunction with the shims.
It'd be hard to say they'd hurt either though.
I imagine, purely from a physics standpoint, that the larger surface area would improve the initial bite of normal braking. That said, the added area of the 100 pad over the 80 is closer to the interior of the brake disk where the affect of added contact area would be diminished. Secondarily added surface area would increase the amount of pressure needed to provide the same PSI on the disk rotor, so if the added surface area of the 100 pad isn't able to provide sufficient additional grip at the same PSI as the 80 pad then it would be a downgrade to run the 100 pad.
Kinda rambly but that's the way my engineering brain looks at it, and I would imagine that when its all on the table we'd probably find that the delta in stopping power between the two pads is within 5% +/- of each other, and I'm honestly not sure which way it'd fall.
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