Wilwood Brake Caliper Temperature Strips Now Available at Summit Racing

Road racing, circle track, off-road, autocross, drifting, and other types of long-duration or very intense racing will cook your disc brake calipers but good. When that happens, brake fluid boils and piston seals degrade, reducing braking effectiveness. You’ll know if it happens when you start losing brake pedal feel.

Use Wilwood's Temperature Strips and you’ll know if your calipers are getting too hot. Attach one of the adhesive-backed strips to a clean, smooth area on the caliper—the nose, body, or a piston bore are best—to record peak sustained temperatures after a track session. If temperatures exceed a strip’s rating, the whole thing will turn black. Yes, that’s bad.

The guide below shows what happens at the temperature ranges listed on a Wilwood test strip:

• 0°-250° F/0-121° C: safe range, too cool for optimum brake effectiveness on-track
• 250°-330° F/143°-166° C: Optimum caliper temperature for track use
• 370°-450° F/188°-232° C: Calipers are running on the hot side, seal life will be shortened
• 450°-535° F/232°-280° C: Calipers are too hot, seals must be replaced immediately

You can also use Wilwood Brake Caliper Temperature Strips to measure temperature of other components on your race car. They come in a pack of 10.

SEE WILWOOD’S BRAKE CALIPER TEMPERATURE STRIPS AT SUMMIT RACING