Are Rear Drum Brakes are they adequete with a Turbo Protege??

[amalik13]

Hey I just joined Club Protege, due that I recently picked up a 2002 Mazda Protege LX. So I am thinking of putting a HI-boost turbo into the car and was wondering if I could have adequete braking with the rear drum brakes.

[amalik13]

I am also planning to leave the orginal stock rims on the car, with some Pirelli's tires on it. Also would be best equiment to put on the car to get the best handling, such as strut bars.

[MazdaRacer]

right, after the first 2 hard stops, they'll fade.

Like John said, tires are part of the braking system too, upgrade tires before your brakes.

[MazdaRacer]

I am also planning to leave the orginal stock rims on the car, with some Pirelli's tires on it. Also would be best equiment to put on the car to get the best handling, such as strut bars.

an MP3 suspension swap would do the trick

[goldstar]

an MP3 suspension swap would do the trick

Agreed. I just put MSP struts and springs on my '02 DX and the combo greatly improved handling. As soon as I pay them off, I'll be installing MSP stabilizer bars to complete the package. I would also suggest a strut tower bar kit for an additional small but noticeable improvement.

[NegatiZE]

Yes, MSP suspension.

[macdaddyslomo]

kinda off topic, but isnt the MSP in G-class in X-cross ??? if the MSP outperforms the Cooper S in handling why does the Cooper S OWN G-class???

[jlanger]

for normal everyday driving the drums will work ok. As said before, in a race situation, or coming from numerous high speed stops, you will start to notice some fading. I beleive that Drums actually stop a car better, they just don't have the consistency that rotors do once they've heated up.

[goldstar]

for normal everyday driving the drums will work ok. As said before, in a race situation, or coming from numerous high speed stops, you will start to notice some fading. I beleive that Drums actually stop a car better, they just don't have the consistency that rotors do once they've heated up.

For high speed road driving and cornering, I've never had a problem with my rear drum brakes. It might be different on the track but I haven't tried that yet. I'm not so sure that drums actually stop a car better than discs at least in the case of single-leading shoe drum brakes of the type we have on our Proteges. Before the advent of disc brakes, many high perfomance sports cars, racing cars and motorcycles used twin-leading shoe drum brakes, at least on the front wheels. This method requires the use of two wheel cylinders or linkage arms per drum and enables more braking force to be developed for any given drum size than is possible with the conventional set-up.

For pure racing applications, an air scoop might be fitted to the backing plate and outlet holes drilled in the drum to promote heat dissipation, again at least on the front brakes. I don't know whether or not a twin-leading shoe brake is as effective or better than a disc brake but I do know that it had two disadvantages: First, it cannot dissipate heat as effectively as the disc system that has its rotor completely exposed to the air flow. Second, when the drum brake gets wet either by water ingestion through a scoop or going through standing water on a road car, it loses much of its braking effectiveness. Furthermore, while a wet drum brake cannot recover its maximum braking force quickly or easily because the drum acts somewhat as a container, a disc brake system is relatively impervious to water because of the squeegy action of the pads pressing against the rotor and the fact that the system provides no place for water to be stored.

I believe these are the two main reasons why discs replaced drums.

02 DX Millenium Red