Brembo brake kits - rotors, calipers etc

Brembo and others like stoptech make a couple rotors and many hats to fit the majority of cars. Likewise they got several calipers and control the relationship to the mastercylinder volume by piston sizes in the calipers. Then the calipers being the same have multiple applications via car specific mounting brackets.

typically you don't get reduced stopping distance but you get the ability to abuse the brakes over and over again because the heat capacity goes up and often there is less pad taper due to caliper designs. So you get more track capabillity that is mostly lost on the street.

 

all that is proprietary. If you use those calipers without brembo help. you need to know what you are doing. The easy part is CNC fabrication of mounting brakets. Thejn finding hats for their rotors or whatever you use. Foe example you could use girodisc rotors on your ferrari and build the brakets to fit those rotors. The hard part is testing caliper piston sizes and sourcing those sizes from brembo or making your own and trying to find the balance and brake bias to work with the stock master and stock rear brakes. This is not easy. Stoptech designed the SCCA T1 racing brake kit on my racecar and took me to the race track to do it. I watched how pros work and it is WORK. The results were amazing however.

 

Bembo used to publish on line the individual part numbers of the caiiper, disc, and hat for each kit as recently as last year on their online catalog I think. A quick check now shows that info is no longer available.

Rotor spec involves diameter, thickness, and annulus dimensions.


Hats are then specific to each car if the rotors are the same spec.

Calipers in addition to number of pistons, involves the pistons sizes, trailing or leading, mounting hole offset and stud spacing.

Unless you have access to CNC machining capability, you are probably better off selling your current kit and and buy a specific GT brake kit for your new setup.

BTW as far as I know all street going GT brake kit upgrade kits are NOT mono bloc calipers. Only the true motorsport racing kits are mono block billet calipers. And there is a huge price difference between the two grades of hardware.

 

This may be of interest also in the fact that the race calipers have a heat dissapating coating which is very different to the powder coat finish found for street use.

 

You know I've heard that. Stoptech uses it too on the trophy calipers which are the same as the regular calipers with weight saving cutouts and no color except some kind of clearcoat over the stock aluminum metal. Is a clear powdercoat anymore heat dissapating to a colored powdercoat? Hmmm I don't believe there is any thermal advantage there.

 

Who said that racing brakes had a powder coat finish..especially a clear coat?

I am not talking about a powder coat application/finish.

There are some new anodized and plated coatings that do an outstanding job of dissipating heat from the calipers.....

 

I went through front rotors with alarming frequency, until I switched to the Brembo Big Brakes. Amazing difference in life of pads (Pagid yellow) as well as rotors. There apparently were issues with fit, particularly because I have two piece wheels.

As far as I can tell, there is no difference in stopping power on the track.

Rob

 

Fbb has it about right. I would argue that going to bigger brakes also gives you a significantly more consistent controllable stopping capability.


1) To make the stock brakes live, even for a short while on the track, you do not need to use "racing" pads that don't work cold, chew the hell out of the discs when cold, then provide stopping power, at the expense of rotor life, at high temps. A few track days on one rotor??? Really high temperatures eat discs and pads in hours, not tens of thousands of miles. Trading scary cold stopping distances and short component life is not the way to go.

2) Using larger diameter rotors gives you better leverage, and i believe controll, over the stopping process. Less pressure is needed to clamp the pads, hence less caliper deflection and line swelling to obfuscate the feel.

3) Obviously, using a caliper with bigger pistons provides more clamping pressure, this reduces the amount of leg power needed and again line pressure - all of which is a good thing.

4) Usually the larger calipers also sport larger pads which are more resistant to catastrophic overheating/ short life and fade.

I believe that all of these things contribute to a more consistent, controllable, durable and predictable stopping effort.

I have installed discs on an old auto x speedster, 911 S cross drilled vented discs and calipers on a prepped 914 auto X er and:

Installed 355x 32 front rotors, 40-44 Brembo calipers (F-50 front brakes) and 360 challenge rear brakes, (full floating 330-28 discs, 36-40 brembo calipers and parking brakes on the rear.
I have rabidly tracked the car and always felt ENDLESS BRAKING, always predictable, absoltely 0 fade.

I can leave the loud pedal on the floor, pressing on, with maximum gusto, while my compatriots are suffering the unpredicatable and scary hot brakes down into the end of the braking zone.

City driving does not eat up my discs, I can use Pagid street pads, good bite cold and hot - linear, even into the end of longest straight.

Admittedly, Brembo 360 GT, (F-50) brakes are overkill for a humble 308 but they are absolutely BULLETPROOF. I know i could go faster with lighter rotors, but the 360 GT Brembo kit is a few pounds lighter than the 308 stock set up - go figure?? For sure, more rotational inertia.

The critical difference here is old technology versus new: ABS,EBD and all of the electronic modern technology , versus the direct physics of old braking. Clearly, technology wins, but i am kind old fashiond and am going with what i can controll.

Here are a few of the details of my brake upgrade, much enjoyed, but most likely not applicable to your electronic world.
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Maybe you are right. This hillbilly never seen a blanket, even a thin one, make you cooler on a hot night. If I had a marginal brake system the last place I would look to improve it is to take the caliper and put the new coating on it to throw off some heat. Maybe that's the F1 last 2% improvement that's fine just give me a bigger rotor, more air flow, a beefier caliper that's all my pea brain can handle

 

I agree with you on a street car and for most low budget racing...but when you go play with the big dogs every tenth or even a thousand of a second these days can make the difference between standing on the podium or watching the festivities as you load the trailer..lol