What would be the advantages/disadvantages of a 1 piston caliper and a 4 piston caliper?

This is for a Granada setup and 1 piston is available locally. Havent look for 4, if its even made, yet on the internet to compare.

Thanks guys! Nic

 

On a street car I see no real advantage to the 4-piston design. The single piston has 1/4th the probability of a piston leaking or sticking. They are more difficult to change pads on though. When I rebuilt my 4-piston ones I put some Mobil-1 synthetic grease inside the dust boot to keep moisture out. It has worked for 25 years. No pistons sticking and no pistons rusting.

 

Disc brakes used through `67 are the 4 piston type. Did Ford downgrade to 1 to simplify overall problems? Does 4 piston offer better braking then 1?

 

The 4 piston design offers more evenly distributed pressure on the pad and the pads should wear more even due to this. If you look at racing and motorcycle brakes you have up to 6-piston differential bore designs to put the pad up aganist the rotor with more pressure toward the front to keep the pad flat and prevent the back of the pad from wearing faster than the front.
I'm sure all this works better but we are talking street cars that most of don't drive at 150 mph on a regular basis.
That is why I don't mess with 'the best, most advanced' anything on my cars/motorcycles. Shelby dumped the all aluminum engine and dry sump oiling system on the GT-40 in favor of cast-iron production car based wet-sump and won world titles and Le-Mans. If it's good enough for Shelby, it's good enough for me.
KISS. KISS. (keep-it-simple-stupid)...again.

 

Thanks for the information, that's what I was looking for.

 

More contact area, more stopping power.

 

Four puck calipers are rigid with respect to the rotor and spindle, and they are set closer to the rotor. Single piston types 'float' which compensates for out of round rotors due to heat, and have a little more (not much) designed in clearance. The use of the single piston is simple, less parts (cheaper), looser tolerances (the float) and more power in a single area (grip). One of the advertising claims was that the single piston lasted longer and gripped better. I got 4 pucks on my 65 and 66, and singles on my 99. I'm happy with both, but if I was going to put disc on a 66, it would be a single piston type.
Jim.

 

more pistons more stoping power you can run 6 piston cailpers on a street car just most use huge rotors so you need street pads which keep the heat up making it stop better.http://www.abspowerbrake.com/ has the 4 poiston kelsey/hayes ones if you want oem but you can spend a little more and get baer or wilwoods

 

Help me out here, I see all the discussion about pistons, and stopping power.
Once the wheels lock up...your done right?

 

The main idea behind a good brake system is being able to control it. If yo run a small rotor or you don't have enough hycraulic leverage you can put 300 lbs of pressure on the pedel to get the force at the pad but yo won't be able to modulate it and then you have an all or nothing situation where about all you can do is lock them up. NOT good.