if you want REAL information on brake rotor engineering
i think it's a shame that there isn't one place where everyone can come see the insides of rotors. so i'm making this place.
the basic idea of intelligent rotor design is to maximize air flow THROUGH the rotor by pumping the air through. this is accomplished by establishing a low pressure zone on the outter ring of the rotor and a high pressure zone on the inside of the rotor. this can also be helped along by increasing air speed through the rotor by use of aerofoils.
there are several caveats. hot air expands, so does a manufacturer make expanding channels that may BUILD pressure but make room for expansion or do they make more narrow channels that accelerate air?
also the rotor is active, it moves which NECESSITATES air flow but you must EXPEDITE this process!
this is a picture of a typical pillar vane design rotor, not much to see, if we had a cutaway it would just be a buncha dots. some manufacturers get fancy with diamond pillars, these are just as bad as circular pillars even if said manufacturers will try to sell you otherwise.
this is a drawing of a potential straight vane design.
here's a picture of straight vane design.
project mu's straight pillar vane design
this is kangroo paw design by disc brakes australia, it's like a pillar vane but there are half as many channels on the ouside as there are on the inside, this is actually backwards. but could help with the expansion of hot air as to not back up further in the channels.
this is a typical curved vane rotor
this is the most common curved vane design. same amount of channels all the way around. this example is from performance friction.
here is a sample of brembo's curved vane, straight vane and shaped pillar vane (similar to dba's roo paw design).
racing brake offers a very simple design. similar to movit's design in overall geometry it is simpler than movit in that they use full vane walls. there are twice as many channels on the outside as there are on the inside.
movit approaches the engineering of expanding the air differently, they use a fin on each rotor face to break up the flow, this design of course creates twice as many channels on the outside as there are on the inside. however movit adds just a TAD more surface area by using a FIN as opposed to a whole VANE wall.
this is stoptech's aerorotor. i will refer to this type of vaning as uniform, 1 internal vane stretches all the way to the outside. with stoptech's clever placement scheme they have narrow inner vanes expanded to wider outter vanes. notice the aerofoils on the inside ring.
this is ap's offering and it is fine indeed. notice that they use a "uniform vane" design but they create the low pressure zone on the outside ring by actually breaking up the vanes and causing cascadeed flow. notice also the aerofoils. notice that there are also movit type fins intbetween the channels, notice that the fins even have aerofoils. now you no longer wonder why they're so expensive.
here's brake man's hurricane rotor. made of stainless steel and it has all kinds of finning inside. unconventional and totally questionable as a company, not too many people have had experiences with brake man and some that have had bad ones.
as an ending note we'll put endless's "24 slot" rotor on blast here. the rotor loves minimizing surface area which is crucial for pad contact and pad friction. it's also great at shaving pads down quickly so you can buy more endless pads.
here's brembo's offering that shares the same sentiment. these are both obviously show rotors. just like cross drilled rotors are often now associated as being "show"
HAT DESIGNS
baer's eradispeed NON floating rotors.
notice endless's LACK of hat venting.
project mu's very normal hat venting
pf's very unique full floating attatchement design.
and their approach to getting air from both sides of the hat, similar to dba and many other types of single side hat mount brakes.
disc brakes australia's approach to getting flow from both sides of the mounting hat.
girodisc's same approach
notice girodisc's fasteners and possible pad clearence issues.
stoptech's single side mounted hats, with aerofoil stand offs.
brembo's very conventional single side mounted hats, notice the antirattle hardware, spring clips.
this is a diagram of how racing brake's antirattle hardware works.
this is racing brake's hat mounting method, the center mounted hat. notice they use hex bolts instead of allen screws for their antirattle hardware.
racing brake's very innovative rear two piece rotor design that includes a cast iron ebrake drum.
brake man's normal hat venting design.
everyone brings up jgtc to try and defend project mu and endless
http://www.dome.co.jp/e/race/car/03nsx.html
the takata dome nsx uses alcon ap bbk
i'm not saying that endless is bad. but it's not the best.
this is the winningest skyline using ap again.
this is one of those be all end all threads that leaves out as little as possible cuz i'm not sellin' anything.