Hi everyone, Girodisc has just become a sponsor for Ferrarichat, and I wanted to introduce the product to those who may not have seen it. Girodisc is a engineering company that produces racing brake systems and components. It was formed by myself and Martin Meade. Among other things I was an engineer for Brembo and Martin was an engineer for Porsche for years. We have OE replacement sized two-piece discs for most modern Ferrari models. the discs are lighter and cool better than the OE parts. They also cost less is most cases! Have a look at the website for lots more information. www.************. Below are some pictures of the two-piece F360 replacement discs. The Girodisc weighs 14.5 lb, and the OE unit is 18.2 lb. The car loses 14.8 lbs of rotating mass and gains some ability to cool faster and resist fade longer. We tested the 360 rotor on the track in competitive events several times and found no problems, and the performance of the rotors to be exceptional. We will also have 360 Challenge rotors available at months end after we do a validation test at a track event on the 25th. I look forward to answering questions and working with the Ferrari community to provide braking solutions for Ferraris as well as many other vehicles. -Eric
Eric, Your website lists these at $1,100 per pair. What does it cost in the future to replace just the rotors per pair? It might help in your marketing to stress that the car owner can replace just the rotor after initially purchasing the rotor and hat assembly.
Thanks Scott, The iron rotor replacement is about $250 per disc, including the hardware mounting pack. I will get the info on the website ASAP, the suggestion is great. Thanks again. -Eric
More pics of an install on a 360. Note that this is a current production 360 unit, and the first pics were of a early unit. The current units use a silver zinc plating vs a gold on the early units. The current units come slotted, for all the right technical reasons you can read about on the website in the tech section. We will drill discs on special request and for additional cost. But we prefer not to. You can see that the unit is worth having for the aesthetic value alone, the fact that it works better in cooling, is lighter, and costs less than the OE unit is all bonus! -E
Welcome to the forum. I have been speaking with Martin about rotors for the 360 Challenge cars, as well as about better cooling ducts for the street 360's. Glad to see you have made so much progress. Look forward to seeing the 360CH rotors. Will the Challenge rotors be much different from the street rotors (besides being floating)? Most of the time we reuse the hats and bolt on new discs. Hat failures are rare, even at the track. Will you sell the Challenge discs without the hats? I wish you the best of luck. Let me know if I can help. If you have a set ready by October 1 I will be happy to test them for you at track events October 5, 6,7 at Pocono and the Glen, provide feedback and take pics.
As an aside, the 360CH uses a 14" front disc (350 mm) and the stock rear (13"-330 mm). The 355 Challenges use 14" all around. I have some 355 Ch owners interested in your rotors. Are you geared up for 14" discs?
Hi Steven, Martin has mentioned speaking with you. We have 360CH rotors in stock now. We will be conducting a test on the 25th of this month at Willow Springs. We are going to test our rotors against the CH Brembos to validate that our rotors perform as well or better in thermal capacity and cooling rate. Once the test is completed and we sign off on the rotors they will be available. We are intending currently to offer them without slots, as we want the most surface mass for thermal capacity, and the pads used in the CH series are not a compound type that requires cleaning with slots. We also do not intend to zinc coat the rotors as this would require a longer bedding period that race components usually do not have the luxury of doing. We absolutely intend to offer the 355 rotors as well. I have the designs almost ready for prototyping currently. The next step is that Martin and I have been discussing an upgraded 360 brake system for those taking the CH cars into Grand AM or other series where larger systems are available. We will post details as we have them. Talk to you soon, -Eric
This all sounds promising.... I'm interested in kits for 360/550 road cars in particular. I need a bolt on, big caliper/mount/steel braided hose and big disc upgrade for the front...definitely NOT interested in anything that uses std calipers on front of 360/550. Got that covered thanks! The problem is mainly pad surface area/cooling. No real market for any rear upgrades for me I don't think. Basically, A 360 challenge full kit at a sensible price, that has alternative caliper mounts and disc hats to make same components fit a 550 would be fine. On a 360C, the hat bobbins tend to become loose as the slot in the disc gets knocked around, so the squarer style of floating bobbin would be much better, rather than a direct copy of the std Challenge set up. For 360 C, the specific size is 355mmF 328mmR, and grooves are so much better than the std flat discs it's not funny. I prefer to use PFC and Pagid pads, but there are many that do the job. The 360GT uses even bigger brakes again, but these are only really for endurance, the performance is not really any better, in fact it's harder to keep the temperature up when the pads are 28mm thick each!
Hi Phil, We are on that task now. We are going to develop brake packages for the 360 and 550-575 The specifics of the package is still in progress. The current details are that we will be using Brembo 8 piston calipers in front and two-piece rotors all around. The system will be complete and include lines, brackaets and anything necessary to be direct bolt on. We are also going to be sure to come to market at a reasonable price. We are taking our time to be sure to develop the system to maintain the proper brake torque balance and not to upset the balance dictated by the program algorythms of the ABS system in hard braking actions. After we finish the design and validation process we will be sure to make the announcements here. Stay tuned... -Eric
We are probably going to need grooves on the 360CH rotors. The pads I use (Ferodo DS3000PLUS), as well as Ferrari's specified Challenge pad (another Ferodo) do require degassing while bedding, and do continuously release gas which the slots wipe away. I don't think I'd feel comfortable with a smooth rotor unless you have tested it with a particular pad in both smooth and slotted varieties and noticed no performance decrease with smooth surfaces. Which pads are you running for your tests?
Hi Steven, You make a good point. It is likely that we will be offering the disc in both conditions, slotted and non. We are going to run the discs on the CH Brembo pads, the DS3000+, as well as the PFC 01 compound. The PFC has very good feedback. We are excited as we know we can offer the discs and hardware kits at significantly reduced prices over the Ferrari dealer prices. We will also be offering the Brembo CH rotor at a reduced cost from the dealer price as well, for those who want to stay with Brembo product. Stay tuned. -Eric
Any idea on what you will sell the 360CH discs for, without hats? I'm also sending you a private message.
Eric, On your tests on the 25th at WSIR, are you going out with TCRA that weekend or are you going to test on the streets of willow? Do you guys have 360's to run or are some of the regulars like the International Motor sports guys going to run the combos for you on their 360's?
Hi Fatbillybob, I am not sure if we will be running with the TCRA, but we will have discs on at least one if not more of the cars from International Motorsports. They are a Girodisc dealer and very excited about supplying CH rotors. We dont have 360CH test cars of our own, we sunk all of our money in the business so far. If it returns well, we will. We gave up all of our toys and cars for the moment to finance all this braking craziness. -Eric
Well guys Martin from International is one hell of a driver. He will find out really quick how good the rotors are. So it they pass you can bet that you will not be able to beat those rotors any harder than Martin. Then I would say you got yourself a great product.
I wish you all the best of luck. I sit in my office all day, digging through B@!!$h*t wishing I could walk away, but basically lack the nuts to do it. I hope you've got a great product & I'm reading about you in Fortune Mag one day. Rob.
Thanks for the support, Sounds like you know Mr Baratt well! Thats why we are hooking with him for this test. Too many cars get babied and not acid tested, but not the cars from IMS. It took some long talks over many beverages for Martin and I to gain the courage to go for it and him to leave Porsche, and me to leave Prodrive. We have fingers crossed that a couple years of sacrifice will pay off in the long run. -Eric
When you go testing , try to do comparisons for the following... Pagid RS14-B Pagid 4-4 PFC93 PFC01 PFC03 DS3000 Also try comparing the older straight 8 slots against the "squiggly" multi slots that are current brembo issue..... FYI...My testing with several pro drivers shows that different drivers prefer different pads at different tracks...depending on characteristic/conditions etc. Temperature is very important and I always use the heat paint and adjust cooling efficiency if needed. Prefer Brembo 600 fluid too FYI. NEVER had ANY brake problems since ditching smooth discs and DS3000 pads, which are toast in 4 laps at one particular track here.....
Hi Phil, Sorry for the delayed response. You pinpointed it exactly in stating that pad choice in racing is mostly about driver style and choice. Every pad you have listed is a good pad, and each will work well, but it is a drivers choice as to what pad to run at what track. I will be making suggestions for application to those who ask, but a full pad testing regiment would be an exspensive and time consuming project. We will be doing some more validation and performance testing on a brake dyno very soon. The current goal at Girodisc is to replicate and improve on the rotors first. With that said, We will be running on the PFC 01 and Ferodo DS3000+ at this months test.Ill watch the Ferodos very close. We are also going to be developing a Porsche 996 cup kit, and most of the cup cars run on Pagid pads, so I will be making some comparisons on the dyno with similar rotor materials. The temp paint is a very smart idea. You are also right on the money with the Brembo fluid, it is a better fluid than the Castrol SRF, and yet it is mostly unknown as Brembo does very little to market it. We will be selling it along with the other items. We will be selling many problem solving and quality brake components through the web catalog as I write this. As for the rotor slotting, we are offering the Brembo replacement items, and I am still waiting to get some clear answers to the benefit of the odd pattern. I am waiting for some feedback from some old friends at Brembo Italy. Ill pass on the info when it comes. As far as testing the difference, we will be testing temps and cooling rates, if the slots make a difference in this or in NVH with the pads we will use, I will record that and report it here. -Eric
Hi Eric: Do you have any result on brake pad tests you can share with us? PFC 01 versus Ferodo DS3000?
