Bendix Ultimate 4WD Cuts Triton Stopping Distance
How much difference can a brake upgrade really make to a dual-cab ute? Bendix put two Mitsubishi Tritons, Supercars young gun Zach Bates and a tonne of water to work at Calder Park. The answer, at least in this test, was measured not in centimetres but metres — up to 20 of them.
Supercars young gun Zach Bates with the two Bendix Mitsubishi Tritons used to demonstrate just how much difference upgraded brakes can make when a 4WD is carrying serious weight.
There are plenty of ways to make a dual-cab ute heavier.
Start with a bullbar. Add a winch, canopy, drawers, fridge, auxiliary battery, roof rack, recovery gear and perhaps a set of wheels and tyres large enough to make the boys behind the counter at Bridgestone’s Boost Automotive smile broadly.
Then throw in the camping gear.
Before long, your once relatively svelte ute has developed the automotive equivalent of middle-aged spread.
The engine will generally cope with it.
The brakes, on the other hand, are still being asked to stop the whole shooting match.
Which brings us to a cold winter morning at Calder Park Raceway in Melbourne, where Bendix lined up two Mitsubishi Triton dual-cab 4x4s for a decidedly unusual drag race.
The winner would be the one that stopped first.
Two Bendix Mitsubishi Tritons line up among the cones on a rain-soaked Calder Park test course, where stopping distances were measured with the vehicles carrying different brake packages.
Same Triton, very different stopping distance
One Triton retained its standard braking system. The other was fitted with a Bendix Ultimate 4WD™ front brake upgrade.
Behind the wheel was Bendix Racing driver and rising Supercars talent Zach Bates.
His task was refreshingly uncomplicated.
Accelerate to 80km/h, reach the designated braking point and stand on the brake pedal with considerable enthusiasm. Then repeat it. And repeat it again.
Cones were positioned along the Calder Park straight at five-metre intervals, making the difference between the two vehicles rather difficult to disguise with marketing adjectives.
With both Tritons unladen, the Bendix-equipped ute repeatedly stopped 15 to 20 metres shorter than the standard vehicle.
Twenty metres isn’t the sort of difference where you need a clipboard, calculator and three engineers arguing over decimal places.
You can literally see it.
More importantly, in an emergency, it could be the difference between stopping before the problem and arriving at it with the ABS rattling away beneath your right foot.
The Bendix Ultimate 4WD upgrade package combines performance brake rotors and pads with braided hoses, high-performance brake fluid and supporting maintenance products.
Then Bendix added a tonne
Of course, an empty dual-cab isn’t necessarily representative of the way many Australian utes spend their lives.
So Bendix made things rather more interesting.
A water-filled 1,000kg IBC tank was loaded into each Triton and the tests were repeated.
The controlled private-track environment allowed the engineers to marginally exceed the Triton’s maximum legal payload for testing purposes, something that clearly isn’t being suggested for the trip home from Bunnings.
And this is where physics enters the conversation, because physics is annoyingly unsympathetic. It doesn’t care that your bullbar was on special. Nor is it impressed by your suspension upgrade.
And it certainly won’t knock a few kilos off because the salesman, keen on his monthly bonus, assured you that fitting the canopy, winch, fridge, drawers and rooftop tent would be “no drama”.
More mass requires more energy to stop.
Once again, the Bendix-equipped Triton pulled up considerably earlier, this time by around 10 to 15 metres compared with the ute running its original brakes.
That’s a substantial difference from 80km/h.
And unlike horsepower figures or dyno graphs, stopping distance has a wonderfully uncomplicated meaning.
Shorter is better.
Zach Bates noticed more than the tape measure
For Zach Bates, the size of the difference came as something of a surprise.
“The improvement in braking distance driving the Bendix-equipped ute was phenomenal, and it consistently pulled up much quicker and confidently, in an emergency braking situation a few metres can make all the difference between avoiding an accident and being involved in one,” Zach said.
There was another difference that wouldn’t necessarily appear on the measuring tape.
Pedal feel.
“Along with recording much shorter stopping distances, the Triton with the Ultimate 4WD™ Upgrade Kit also had better pedal feel — it was firm, smooth and progressive; as a race car driver, that’s what I like.”
That comment is worth considering.
Good brakes aren’t simply about producing the biggest possible deceleration number. A firm, predictable and progressive pedal gives the driver a better idea of what the vehicle is doing and how much braking is available.
That matters on a racetrack.
It arguably matters even more when you’re heading down a mountain with a loaded ute and considerably less runoff area than Calder Park.
A tonne of water in the tray made sure the Bendix Triton wasn’t getting an easy run. The loaded ute was repeatedly hauled down on the wet test track to measure the difference made by the Ultimate 4WD brake package.
The accessory problem
Away from racing, Bates drives a Hilux and says dual-cab utes and older Patrols and LandCruisers are particularly popular among drivers his age.
“I have a Hilux as my daily and have a lot of mates who own 4×4 utes and even older Patrols and LandCruisers — they’re popular cars among my age group, especially those older 4x4s that are a bit more affordable to buy,” he said.
And therein lies an increasingly common Australian motoring problem.
Buying the ute is merely the beginning.
Then comes the accessories catalogue, followed by installing enough touring gear to cross the Simpson Desert and possibly enough LED lighting to rival a small regional airport.
None of those additions seems particularly dramatic in isolation, but collectively they can add several hundred kilograms to a vehicle.
“Load them up with some accessories and other gear and they’ll be 500kg heavier before you know it, further compromising the OE braking system,” Bates said.
“Given the modest outlay for Bendix’s Ultimate 4WD™ Brake Upgrade Kits, I think it’s a great investment that will significantly improve safety and overall vehicle dynamics.”
Two Bendix Mitsubishi Tritons line up among the cones on a rain-soaked Calder Park test course, where stopping distances were measured with the vehicles carrying different brake packages.
So what does the Bendix brake upgrade actually change?
The Bendix Ultimate 4WD™ front upgrade fitted for the Triton testing combines upgraded disc brake rotors and pads with Ultimate 4WD™ brake hoses and the associated installation products.
The rotors use four-wheel-drive-specific metallurgy designed to retain strength at elevated temperatures while providing high wear resistance.
They also incorporate high-efficiency cooling pillars that help draw cooler air through the rotor and expel hot air more quickly — important when brakes are repeatedly working hard and heat begins accumulating.
Then there are Bendix’s Diamond Tip Slots.
These slots and V-shaped dimples on the rotor face are designed to move gases, water and debris away from the braking surface more effectively.
The Ultimate 4WD™ pads use Bendix’s Mechanical Retention System, or MRS, to improve the mechanical attachment of the friction material, together with a 4WD-specific ceramic formulation designed to provide strong braking performance with low dust and noise.
The upgraded brake hoses also contribute to the firmer pedal feel Bates noticed during the test.
None of it is particularly glamorous.
There’s no extra turbo whistle, no larger exhaust tip and nothing shiny to bolt onto the bonnet for Instagram. It simply helps the vehicle stop. Which, when you think about it, is a fairly useful modification.
The Mitsubishi Triton’s wheel and brake assembly provides the business end of the Bendix Ultimate 4WD brake upgrade.
And there’s more available at the back
For Tritons retaining rear drum brakes, Bendix also offers its Ultimate 4WD™ Brake Drum Upgrade Kit.
The package uses high-carbon metallurgy drums paired with brake shoes featuring ‘GG’ friction material, designed to deliver strong initial bite along with improved resistance to brake fade.
For owners who routinely load their ute, travel off-road or tow, improving braking performance at both ends of the vehicle deserves consideration alongside the usual suspension, tyre and engine modifications.
Because making a ute carry and pull more is only half the equation.
Eventually you have to stop it.
Next stop: our old D-Max
And we won’t have to take Bendix’s word for it for much longer.
Over at Gone Touring workshop, our faithful 330,000km Isuzu D-Max is about to receive the Bendix Ultimate 4WD treatment, including upgraded front rotors, pads and braided hoses, along with new rear drums and shoes.
Once everything is fitted, bedded in and we’ve put some kilometres under its wheels, we’ll be able to report on what the upgrade actually feels like from the driver’s seat of a ute we’ve known for more than 16 years.
And given that the old D-Max spends its life doing rather more than driving around empty, we’d eventually like to take the exercise one step further.
Because we’re particularly curious to see what happens when there’s a caravan hanging off the towbar.
That could make for a very interesting comparison.
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