Carbon brakes on 550

Just finished off adapting the 398mm carbon discs and calipers from an F430 Challenge car to fit onto my 550 Maranello .this the standard 575 carbon rear discs purchased from Ferrari with the 430 caliper .
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These are the fronts
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With the wheels on
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Very nice George. Those are some good size wheels to have that much clearance. Please keep us posted on how you like the setup once up and running.

Bill
FL

 

Cool! Was the 430C stuff a direct bolt on to the 550 spindle?

 

George- Very nice, so you have 398 mm F430C rotors front with 6 piston calipers front and 575M HGTC 360 mm rotors rear with 4 piston calipers. Should really increase braking power.

What kind of wheels are those? Takes at least 19" wheels to clear the large front rotors and calipers, and even some 19" wheels are too small.

 

V cool modification.
Philip

 

They are image wheels and not my first choice as they are quite heavy but They were cheap and they were available . I had to reverse the front disc bells and had the mounting brackets machined to suit the radial mount six pot calipers .there is minimal clearance between the wheel and caliper . Tyres are 265-35-19 front and 325-30-19 rear Michelin Pilot Cup 2's
Having completed the fitting and dealing with some disc alignment issues it's now obvious to me that had I started with the carbon discs from a road car with the five bolt fixing as opposed to the challenge cars center lock version , I would have saved my self quite a bit of trial and error . The challenge bells do not centralise properly on the 550 hub so I had to make up some dowels to locate and centralise the disc . I also HAVE to use 11mm spacers on the front between wheel and disc to get clearance to caliper .
I am off on vacation tonite for 3 weeks so won't get a chance to try the brakes out till I get back but the car is now prepped for a trip to the Monza GP in September via Spa Francorchamp , Nurburgring and a whole lot of Alpine passes !!

 

This may be water under the bridge in this case but for the sake of information on mounting these larger brakes on our cars I'll add the following. The factory (Maranello) HGTC brakes have aluminum mounting brackets at each corner that adapt what appear to be somewhat standard mounting point calipers to the original hub or steering knuckle. These independant mounting brackets bolt (with two bolts) to the calipers, then the caliper with bracket bolt to the hub or knuckle.
Looking in the factory parts book these brackets don't seem to be sold separately from the HGTC brake calipers. Pic below shows a rear HGTC caliper assembly. It would seem that they or something similar could be reproduced without much trouble if an original bracket were available as a guide.
Bill
FL

Understood that Dell was working with a separate problem converting a Challenge rotor/disc to a work with a Maranello, just providing info that may be helpful in future efforts.
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For all the effort the hot ticket to me would be to adapt the corvette zr1 carbon brakes so disposibles would be cheap and rebuild parts cheap and plentiful. It would require a custom hat and custom caliper mount and empirical matching of mastercylinder and piston volumes.

 

This may be the way to go as Carl highlights. The machining stuff would be easy (btdt) but the MC sizing has, for me, been more of an issue in the past. I put 355 calipers on my old 308 and went with twin masters and a balance bar set up at the same time (removing the booster). There are calculators but at the end of the day, getting the balance of pedal travel and effort right was a difficult (but not insurmountable) problem.

Philip

 

That's exactly what I have - photo shows hand made bracket used to confirm fit and then I had them CNC machined and hard anodised for the final job
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Front caliper bracket in place
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Rear caliper brackets in situ
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Dell, nice work on the brackets!
If one could be sure that the calipers are the same sizes, either from another Ferrari or Brembo provided, the master cylinder on our cars need not be changed to go to the larger CCM's.
Switching over to Vette obviously MC and volumes becomes a factor. As FBB says those parts will always be more available and more affordable.
There are signs that the cost of CCM rotors/disc are slowly coming down. And there are companies (link) out there that will take your "hat" and put a new disc on it saving a few more dollars.
Bill
FL

SICOM EUROPE - CCM Refurbishment service - SICOM Brakes - High performance ceramic braking systems - CCM brakes

 

Bill, George, FBB- On the Maranellos, master cylinder size should not be an issue because Ferrari did not change the master cylinder when they added the CCMs to the 575M HGTC. My 396 mm Mov'It CERs work perfectly with the stock MC, as well. On the 394 mm ZR1/Z07 rotors, owners have been using the Corvette friction rings with Ferrari hats and that seems to work pretty well. Just need a used set of Ferrari rotors/hats. Again, I doubt the MC would need to be changed, even if an entire set of Corvette brakes were used. The volumes are very similar to what is used on the HGTC and my Mov'Its.

George- Really ingenious work on adapting those calipers and rotors to your 550. I see sets of those rotors available occasionally for reasonable prices, much more so than the street CCMs. I assume you had to shim the calipers to get everything centered, like we did with mine. They came with shims for that purpose. Mov'It now makes rotors and pads to replace CCM brakes. They are very expensive, but the rotors are close to indestructible.

 

Thanks for the compliments - No shims required due to the added effort of hand fabricating the brackets and carefully checking fit and clearance and building any adjustments into the final CNC part . The front brackets are light alloy and the rears are stainless steel . I have over the car around my workshop and despite brand new pads , the pedal feels and responds the same as the yellow stuff pads I had on the original discs . I don't mind a bit of increased effort at the pedal and what I was after is a set of brakes that can do more than one lap of Silverstone without melting !!
Once I am back from Monza I will be attending to dampers and anti roll bars .

 

George- Ron Schemmerhorn at Delta-Vee can rebuild and revalve Bilsteins for whatever jounce and rebound you want. The Maranallo Skunkworks guys, Dave, John, and David, are looking at making an adjustable rear anti-roll bar, which might be just the ticket.

 

I'm not an engineer but those brackets look scary. Lots of stress risers. Your life is on the line make sure they can take the required loads.

Master cyliner to caliper piston volumes are always an issue. The math is known. The minuite one switches calipers to not stock one should instantly expect a mismatch. There are specific ways to track test empirical selections too. I was there when Stoptech brakes engineered and tested the SCCA T1 racing brakes prototyped on my racecar. It is a process. Street testing without proper knowledge is just a recipe for a bad outcome.

Brake system engineering is just as difficult as thinking a big cam is a great idea until the next link in the engine blows up.

 

Last corvette zr1 carbon rotor was $700 IIRC. I think that makes a corvette carbon system R&R about 1/10th the cost of a Ferrari system.

 

that would be an awesome retrofit.....

 

FBB- Last time I priced them, they were $1200 a rotor. Checked with GM Parts Direct and price was ~$2400 retail and ~$1253 online.

When Ferrari used the same master cylinder on the HGTC 575Ms as on the steel brake version, I figured I was fine with similar size calipers.

 

Thanks for all the advice and I will be thoroughly testing the brakes prior to going to Monza . Having raced for 20 years I will be doing this at an airfield where we can get constant and repeatable results to ensure the system works as I expect .
Bilstein UK will do my dampers to suit for £85sterling so that's sorted and we are well into doing our own adjustable bars for front and rear . I will also have the maths on the front suspension geometry done and sorted to optimise the handling . I want to cure the excessive roll at the front without stiffening the cars ride too much and making it uncomfortable to drive on the road . Having worked with one of the best suspension designer/engineer in the UK for the last 20 years whilst racing , I know this can be done through changes to the suspension pick ups although the exact science eludes me . As I write I have just come across a 612 engine that needs some repairs so it looks like that's next years project , probably with some head work , mild cams and throttle bodies . 150 BHP per litre should be achievable , don't you think ?

Photo is Silverstone Ferrari Owners Club 2013
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150/liter is a LOT.

You'll need a lot of work on the engine and even then it's somewhat doubtful to get to that amount of power. I'd say 120-125 per liter is a better figure to work to. Jenvey make ITB throttle body adapters for a reasonable cost!

Please keep us updated with pictures and all that!

 

Maybe you got lucky? Caliper size is only part of the problem. Piston size is critical and relative piston sizes with in calipers to control pad taper which is the reason to go with multipiston calipers in the first place. If testing is done legally on the street I don't see how proper testing can be done. You need a repeatable test protocol and know how to deal with the abs/traction control during the testing for starters. You can homebrew a system that feels good on the street that could be a total disaster under several scenarios.

If the conversion is very clost to stock you have a better chance of being ok. It depends on how different the new parts are vs. The old.