-----ABSTRACT-----
1) Need to replace front calipers so going the wilwood route
2) Turns out the Wilwood has no dust seal and thus deemed more of a track caliper
3) Have any of you who used wilwood for a long time experienced problems due to lack of dust seal etc. with street use?
4)and please list what U.S. State/ conditions u drive in. i.e.
"NY / daily driver"




-----WHOLE STORY-----
Hey I have a caliper kit that I was going to use since my stockers are seized/ grinding/ rotors are OEM with 150k+ miles

I'm using replacement brembo 4th gen BLANK rotor and using 4 piston Wilwood caliper that fits on the stock size rotor in the front.
(I havn't tried but Im positive these may just fit the the 16" wheel)

I don't track the car, and once in a while hit about 80mph on highway when the love of my life (no not the car) but the one in the passenger seat gives me THE look and pretty much gets back to 60mph... I drive in the right lane most of the time and stick to speed limit.. but when I wanna stop quick the original calipers with some good pads were pretty much all I demanded.

THIS being said, I was reading some literature about the wilwood calipers and it said that they don't have dust seals... This would be a problem as i use the car daily. Has anyone noticed any problems due to lack of dust seal? please state you accounts of incidents and or any opinion you may have about Wilwood caliper (not.. you should go 13" cobra rotor/ q45 caliper/ 300zx.. i know i know.. but I'm on budget and I have these calipers already and they fit on the car, just want to know about the dust seal problem and any other common Wilwood)

PLEASE dont tell me to use the 300zx option etc.
I got the two calipers/pads new for great price, and these are only like 120$ to replace with new ones from wilwood, so its a great option when they eventually need to be re serviced. There just the basic wilwood 1" thick rotor compatible calipers that brackets were added to work on the 4th gen rotor.

 

okay.. I guess I should cal wilwood.

 

Having just gone through my ancient stock calipers I have some thoughts.

First, yes I think the lack of dust seals is an issue for a year-round driven car. The road salt will definitely take a toll on the exposed seal and piston. But I think it can be overcome easily. You do have an aluminum caliper which should corrode less than cast iron.

I would rebuild the caliper each time I put in new pads. In other words, I would never push the piston back into the o-ring and drive crud into it since pad replacement is when that happens. The rebuild kits should be cheap, since the only thing you're replacing is the o-ring. So you take apart the caliper, clean the piston surface and use a fresh o-ring.

Or at least when replacing the pads I would put a block of wood in the caliper and clamp the pistons in a little further to exposing some more clean piston surface. This way you can clean thoroughly with brake cleaner before pushing the pistons into the o-ring.

Dave

 

"Or at least when replacing the pads I would put a block of wood in the caliper and clamp the pistons in a little further to exposing some more clean piston surface. This way you can clean thoroughly with brake cleaner before pushing the pistons into the o-ring."

THAT IS A GREAT SUGGESTION.... and these calipers are only 125$ a piece from wilwood... even if i wanted to buy another set and just swap calipers once in a while and really clean the dirty set off and change it back after a while...