| I was reading last month's issue of car and driver the other night, and came across this statement regarding the braking system in the new M5: "Big 14.7-inch rotors in front and 14.6-inchers in back slow the M5 from top speed quickly and without drama. Two-piston calipers clamp the front rotors. The M guys eschewed the fashionable four-, six-, and even eight-piston calipers because, they correctly claim, the effectiveness of the brakes is limited by tire traction, not rotor clamping force." http://www.caranddriver.com/article.asp?section_id=19&article_id=8782&page_number=1 ]">Full article here Where I can see that effectiveness of your brakes can be limited by tire traction, this statement also says that brake performance isn't limited by rotor clamping force. It's been bothering me the last couple of days because it seems totally counter-intuitive that rotor clamping force isn't important. Also, a lot of the selling points of the aftermarket brake kits for our cars have to do with increased clamping force...which according to the BMW engineers, is less important. Perhaps the key word here is *limited*, and they're just saying that you will be more limited by your tires' traction than by a 2-piston caliper's abililty to clamp (vs a 4+ piston caliper) in braking performance. Any insight into this? Pic:
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SZR...braking performance and number of caliper pistons - 
