Four Products LLC, a startup company that develops a patented brake component for high performance vehicles, is accelerating efforts to manifest its business plan. Owner Joseph Demers has lined up a contract manufacturer to make the North Hollywood-based company’s Fade-Stop Brake Cooler, a milestone that enables Four Products to increase output of the product, which to date has produced low-volume sales. Less heat on braking components extends their lifespan. Demers claims the Fade-Stop is the first brake cooler of its type. The device reduced the interaction between a caliper piston and brake pad by more than 100 degrees in racetrack tests. At the center of the cooler is the patented stainless steel and copper composite material developed by Demers called Thermal Steel. Building Four Products has been a lengthy and expensive process for Demers, who said he had the idea for the brake cooler in 1996, but put it aside for nearly 10 years as he continued working his day job, first for a tech startup and then as a physicist for an Alhambra company. Demers contributed $150,000 of his own money to get the company off the ground. He received $100,000 from an angel investor in 2005, which largely helped to fund patent approvals — a process that took four years and was completed last spring. The remaining angel funds were used to produce the first coolers. Demers had 10 sets, or 40 units, one for each wheel, made at a Glendale manufacturing facility; he assembled them himself at his North Hollywood home. “They were sold before I started making them,” Demers said. But shortly after receiving the patents, Demers realized that he could no longer do everything by himself. He enlisted Descher Automation in Raleigh, N.C., run by his sister Megan, to do higher volume manufacturing of the cooler. Demers kicked off initial sales to the closely-knit amateur racing circuit, including the Porsche 911 and Boxster. But he’s eyeing an expansion market among vehicles that make frequent stops. “You start putting these brake coolers on Fed Ex trucks, UPS trucks, 18-wheelers, pick-ups, and sport utility vehicles (and) all of them get that added safety,” Demers said. Jim Buckley, who races Porsches on a national circuit, started using the Fade-Stop about a year ago and has noticed a difference in performance. “I can say I have had fewer problems with brakes overheating,” said Buckley, owner of Buckley Racing in Lake Worth, Texas. “When they (brakes) overheat the brake fluid turns to vapor and there are no brakes.” Demers said his goal is to keep the company’s development work in California and to use Thermal Steel in other applications. He built a set of the brake coolers for the military Humvee vehicle, but said snagging a Pentagon contract can be very costly. Demers said he has a 40-page business plan to show to potential investors. But he plans to “boil that down to five pages to get people interested and involved.” Even among car enthusiasts, he said, it took convincing to make believers in the Fade-Stop. Dave Bouzaglou, president of TRE Motor Sports in Van Nuys, had his doubts until the cooler was tested at an Antelope Valley racetrack during a Porsche owner’s event. The coolers were installed on a car whose owner had an aggressive driving style and sensors detected the temperature difference with and without the coolers, Bouzaglou said. His business distributes the Fade-Stop. Demers faces technical challenges in getting wider acceptance of the cooler, said Buckley, the racecar driver. The cooler needs to fit different sized wheels and brake pads. And small balls of rubber can get caught between the wheel and the caliper and hit the cooler, he said. Different size calipers will need a different design of the cooler, but there is some standardization among some model cars, Demers said. “There is some overlap when we get lucky,” he said.
Startup Heats Up Production, Sales of Brake Cooler
