Teams were this week informed of an impending update to rules regarding the six-piston, AP Racing-supplied front calipers.
Anti-knockback springs are no longer compulsory, while Brad Jones has revealed teams have also been warned against tampering with the piston seals.
Jones explained the situation in his latest BJR workshop video.
“The reason there has been chat about this and clarification is that people are playing around with a couple of things to try and minimise the amount of drag the brakes have,” he said.
“One of the things they’ve been doing is freezing [the seals] and machining or linishing (sanding) them to reduce the drag.
“What they try to do is minimise that but not allow it to leak, so it’s quite a tricky operation. They do it in GT cars.
“[Now] you’re not allowed to touch it at all. You can’t linish it, you can’t freeze it, you can’t play around with it.”
According to Jones, teams were also manipulating the anti-knockback springs in the name of reducing drag.
“What people are doing is they are putting them in a press, taking all the tension out of them so they don’t push the pad up against the disc so hard,” he said.
“What Supercars have done is make this optional.”
Jones commended Supercars for stepping in as teams try and eek out every possible performance gain, no matter how miniscule.
“This is the sort of stuff that’s going on at the moment to try and find all those little extra bits that add up to something,” said Jones.
“It’s pretty clear what you can and can’t do now with the caliper.”
Supercars undertook brake testing following the last round at Symmons Plains in the name of exploring new pad options for the category.
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