[Shotimes] brake caliper placement

[Jon Heese]

Out of curiosity, I've been conducting an informal visual survey of the
brake caliper placement on vehicles I see around.  For instance, most
front discs have the caliper to where it grabs the top leading edge of
the disc (10:00 on the driver's side, 2:00 on the passenger).  I've also
seen them grabbing the top trailing edge and the extreme trailing edge. 
Among vehicles with rear discs, there seems to be an even split between
the top leading edge and the top trailing edge, and I haven't noticed
any trend having to do with RWD/FWD-ness in their location.

Now from a physical perspective, since the rotor is an axially symmetric
body, I don't see any inherent braking difference between any of the
possible mounting locations; as long as it grabs somewhere, that's just
as good as anywhere else.

So, does anyone know how the engineers choose the mounting location for
the calipers?  Is it just a space or hardware (i.e. "this spot provides
the most structural integrity to hold the caliper to the knuckle")
consideration?  Looks?  Aynone know?

Jon Heese
'95 GL