Late-model truck owners love to modify their rides, and Baer Brakes has long provided big-brake kits for drivers who have swapped larger rims onto their trucks. Now, owners with 17- or 18-inch rims – including off-road enthusiasts running larger tires – can also upgrade their braking performance with the new Baer 6T front-brake kits.

The 6T kits are a direct replacement for the factory brakes. The first kits are on sale now and are initially available for late-model Ford (F-150 and Bronco), GM (Silverado and Sierra), Jeep (JK and JL Wrangler, JT Gladiator) and Toyota (Tundra and Tacoma) applications. Further fitments, including for Ram trucks, will be added to the lineup in due course.

The new, six-piston 6T calipers are unique to each application and work with 13.5-inch brake rotors that will even fit inside most 17-inch rims, such as those on the F-150 Raptor. The kits are priced from just $1,795.

Design and engineering

For an insight into the engineering behind the new line of 6T calipers, we spoke with Rick Elam, sales manager at Baer Brakes.

“The majority of the 6T calipers are ear-mount and mount directly to the factory knuckle, with no intermediate bracket,” he explains. “This makes them very specific to the vehicle, unlike a radial-mount caliper, which uses an adaptor bracket for a wide variety of applications, but in some cases did not allow us to bring the brake caliper down far enough to fit a smaller wheel.

“Additionally, we have made sure that we match the total piston area to the factory total piston area so that we don’t run into hydraulic issues,” Elam adds. “These are not universal parts. We treat these calipers as specific to their application, whether that’s a certain thread-hole size, ear size, or piston configuration to match the total piston area.”

Another unique feature of the 6T caliper is a simplified pad-replacement process. A stiffening bridge on top of the caliper unbolts so that replacement pads can be loaded from the top without unbolting the caliper from the vehicle. The caliper also features stainless anti-rattle clips as well as pad abutments. As the pad rides on in the inside of the caliper, it rides against the stainless clips instead of the caliper body. The anti-rattle clip pushes on the pad to create some tension, so that the pads don’t generate noise while the vehicle is in motion.

Like Baer’s other calipers, the 6Ts are all machined, powder-coated and hand assembled in Phoenix, AZ. The standard caliper colors are red, black and silver, but they are also available in Hugger Orange, Monster Green, and Fire Red. There are even custom colors to appeal to off-road enthusiasts: Graphite Gray, or newly developed Desert Sand, which complements Toyota’s popular truck body color.

Shop Baer 6T Truck & Off-Road Front Brake Kits here.

The 6T brake kits use 13.5-inch, one-piece, purpose-cast rotors with a curved vane design that allows the rotor to work like a centrifugal pump for improved heat dissipation. The curved vanes also increase the structural rigidity of the rotor and create a better heatsink. Like the calipers, the rotors are vehicle specific; together with the ear-mount caliper, which makes the kit very simple to install. There are only a few parts, and they bolt directly to the truck.

The rotors are slotted, with a zinc finish. There is no cross drilling, so there is no place for dirt, mud, debris, or rocks to get stuck in the rotors, which is a common complaint in the off-road market. Baer optionally offers slot-zinc, rear Claw rotors to match.

The kits have undergone extensive testing on customer and employee vehicles, with Baer engineers gathering feedback and making final tweaks to ensure they’re ready for the market.

Off-road ready

Baer recognizes that many late-model truck owners are looking for brake upgrades that will perform as reliably off-road as they do on the street. Several features on the 6T are designed with off-road use in mind, with Baer leaning into its experience of working with Trophy Truck and short-course off-road teams.

“The calipers are aluminum, so they save significant weight over some of the factory pieces,” Elam explains. “But when owners are doing serious off-roading with a small-diameter wheel, mud, dirt, and rocks get packed in the wheel. As the wheel spins, the debris can damage the calipers.

“To prevent that, we’re introducing stainless-steel rock guards that you can purchase and add on to the caliper using pre-drilled and tapped holes. They protect the leading and trailing edges of the caliper from debris and rocks that get between the caliper and the wheel. There is also a guard that protects the bleeder screw from getting knocked off, which is something that happens more often than not in off-road use.”

The 6T calipers are also built with an internal crossover.

“Normally on a six-piston, we would have a crossover hose that connects the inside pistons to the outside pistons, transferring brake fluid from the front of the caliper to the back,” says Elam. “That can get knocked off in off-road use so here, we build it in, internally. Then, as rocks and debris get into the wheel, those can’t hurt the crossover and damage the caliper.

“We also have two different inlets in the caliper: one at the bottom and one at the back. Depending on whether there’s a lift kit, or you’re running custom hoses, or you’re doing something unusual with the brake plumbing, it gives you different options on how to plumb the brake kit.”

Factory-style, DOT-specified internal dust and weather seals also help to keep the calipers as effective off-road as they are on the street.

“The new 6T kits have unique off-road features in the calipers that most of our competitors do not offer,” sums up Elam. “This is a brake system at an economical price for the truck market that will fit smaller wheels, with a lot of provisions to take it off-road without worrying about damage like ripping off a bleed screw or tearing off a brake crossover tube. We’re excited that customers looking to upgrade their trucks with other Holley products like exhaust systems or off-road shocks can now add a brake package to the 17-inch wheels as well.”

Shop Baer 6T Truck & Off-Road Front Brake Kits here.