Reply to "Upgrading brakes"

Ron, your claim that moving your hats to an outboard position does not alter there position (ie closer to the fender) assumes that besides changing your hat you are also ordering new wheels at the same time. In my case I had already ordered and paid for my wheels. At $3500.00 I wasn't going to order new wheels to compensate in the .3" change in offset. I would agree that if you were buying new wheel , new brakes and totally reworking youur rear suspension you may be able to simply alter your offset to compensate for the difference in positin for the wheel caused by the extension of the outboard hat. There is another issue they may effect your ability to pick up the extra .3" normally gained by mounting an out board hat, and that is caliper size. While I was exploring reworking my rear suspension the whole process was actually initiated by my desire to install new brakes to go with my new wheels. While creating my brake template for the wheel manufacturer I realized that the caliper rotor assemblies over all diameter was not the only size increase I had to worry about. I had not even occured to me that that the brembo mono bloc calipers where thicker and
they would have prevented me from changing my offset to move the wheel in the additional .3"
needed to compensate for the change in the wheel position caused by the outboard hats.
So there are apparently no absolute truths in either position. You may be able to compensate for the increase in out board wheel position caused by using the outboard hats ( and have no change in the position or forces) But that can be a very big if ( like having to buy new wheels and revise your brake choice) and on the same token changing to outboard rotors may in fact change the wheels position to one closer to the outside fender and subsequently increase the forces exerted on the suspension components.
So in a perfect world where you totaly revise several major components of your rear wheel/ suspension assembly you may not generate any additional forces, but in the real world where modifications are made when some other incident effects your decision to make a modification Like repair a worn rear rotor and once they realize what a pain in the butt it is to change the rotors and someone tells them they can simplify the process in the future by installing out board hats the the facts are that there will be an increase in the forces exerted which is a contradiction of your statement that there will be no increase in the forces exerted.

Boyd