Brake Dust shields - has anyone removed them?

[Jeff Williams]

Has anyone removed the brake dust shields, on their Q, to see if it improved cooling of the rotors.

This is the first thing we did, on our street stock cars. Of course, driving a 100 to 500 mile race is a lot different than a daily street driven car.

I see, on almost all brake upgrades, the frist thing you have to do, is cut them away.

Does anybody have any idea, or research, on what other use they have, other than keeping dirt and mud out of the calipers, and rotors?

[Q45tech]

Water is a bigger problem than dirt around town or on highway. Water gets between pads and rotors, hydroplanes the pads.....Steam..........where drilled rotors have a small advantage in wet conditions.

[psychic_mechanic]

The reason all of the aftermarket brakes have you cut away the shields is that the rotors have a larger diameter and will not fit in the stock shields.

The better way to do this is to modify the shields to fit the brakes by bending them or trimming them. Unfortunately most of the people that put huge brakes on their cars do it for the bling factor more than the increase of braking ability.

If you really want to cool the stock brakes, modify the shields to accept a cooling duct hose and run scoops up on the front bumper to duct cold air over the brakes. With hardware store bits and pieces, it's a pretty cheap mod. Just make sure it doesn't interfere with anyhting over the full range of motion of the suspension.

[Jeff Williams]

We used dryer vent hoses, on the Street Stock cars. I have seen some scoops, on some hot rods, but these would trap water, just as well as air.

I have thought of just using a body hammer, and dolly, to the front edge, to create a built-in an air scoop.

I have the drilled rotors, so maybe venting is not such a big deal, now.

I would like to know if anybody has cut them away on their car, and if rainy days, or dirt is a real problem.

[911/Q45]

I had to remove mine for the Skyline brakes and have had no difficulty. No snow or salt where I am, just occasional rain.