Ferrari F40 brakes

Brembo makes new rotors and hats that are slotted, not drilled, far superior to factory rotors.

You might also check Girodisk, a sponsor on this sight.

I have used set of F40 rotors but they are well used!

 

Sounds like the perfect reason to upgrade to LM brakes.

 

Too funny... I saw this thread title and immediately thought, "Parr could probably help out..." clicked in, and who's the first reply from? Good stuff.

 

I have a complete set which look like they have had very little if any use but have been lying around for some years. If you are interested please PM me and I can get them measured up to confirm.

 

... but then, with LM brakes (with yellowish calipers), you need to change the wheels. Or somebody found a way to put the LM brakes with the original wheels ?

 

You sure? I thought LM's had 17" wheels? Maybe they just had more clearance. I know most LM's ran OZ Racing wheels, and I am 99% sure they first bunch of LM's had 17" wheels. Thought they didn't swap to 18" wheels until the first GTE?

 

Just got an F40 here and if anyone was seriously interested, I'd be willing to get 2-piece replacement rotors fabricated. I may do this for myself, as the Ferrari tax inthe aftermarket is likely high and there is no reason that a hat & rotor can't be made for probably under $400 (maybe less) with repacement rotors for under $200. Just have not gotten around to it yet.

I am very curious about the brake problems this car is supposd to have. The front calipers are identical to my Viper SRT10 with 500 hp and the brakes on that car were excellent. The F40, with less weight and power should not have any fade. Now the pedal effort is high with no power assist, but the ducting makes me wonder how the fronts can fade?

I can see using a different combo for endurance racing where you want lots of pad material to minimize pad changes, but for short sessions, I'd have to feel it to believe it that these brakes fade.

 

Apologies for the confusion, I didn't mean that LM brakes led to change the SIZE of the wheels, but the DESIGN of the wheels. Indeed, you can run a street F40 with LM brakes on 17" wheels, but i think only the OZ can fit.

Pics below:
Top = original wheel/original brakes (black calliper)
Bottom = LM brakes/OZ wheels. Note the yellowish calliper
Both have the original front and rear size (in 17").
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The Brembo brake upgrade did require going to 18"s.

F40's have multiple brake problems, however most F40 owners do not drive the cars hard enough for it to be an issue. If you think your stock brakes are fine, you are not driving it hard enough. Period.

The factory rotors are trash, drilled rotors are a bad deal and nothing you can do to salvage them. I hate to hear that Brembo is not making the upgrade kit anymore, serious time and money went into development of that system.

There is no simple fix, it requires new hats, rotors, calipers with titanium inserts and the most important part is to convert to a dual master setup. The factory master is not up to the task, if you do everything else and but did not convert to a dual setup, you threw your money away.

Eric Dahl was an engineer at Brembo at the time the system was developed. He now has Girodisc, I would contact him as he is probably the leading expert on this system. I do not know if Mark is still with Brembo's race division in Costa Mesa, but you might talk to him as well.

Chris Parr


Note: The factory "LM" system uses smaller rotors and less effective than the Brembo package and still uses drilled rotors which cool too fast and cause serious issues, in other words, they are a very inferior system. The LM pedal box for dual masters is a piece of art but its about $6,500.00.

 

Both Brembo and AP still make replacement rotors. The F40 rotor is a std sized racing part. For those of you that thing that your brakes are bad, check to see that the flexible air ducts are still installed in your front vents and change your brake fluid often. Many air ducts are missing! Brembo makes both cross drilled and slotted discs. They used to make a drilled and slotted on the same disc. Really cool looking. P/N 90.6524/6525 (L/R) drilled, P/N 906526/6527 (L/R) slotted $369 ea. Requires floating hardware P/N 91.5503 $87.00 (each disc). With a std sized replacement rotor and good pads/fluid (castrol SRF) you will have no problems. Just get air to those brakes. Call Bob at (310) 306 3748 (no affiliation) . Might want to service those front wheel bearings. Really expensive when they go bad! You can still get factory disc assemblies for about $1500/ea.

 

FYI The Brembo upgrade is a larger rotor and you must go to 18"s. Cooling is just a part of the issue...

 

I have not tracked the car hard and have no plans to do so with any frequency; I have race cars for that, so bigger brakes are a probably a bit of a moot point. I don't have the budget to run the car at race pace.

I have raced Porsche cup cars and odd that, on slicks, with factory cross-drilled rotors and comparable sized rotors and calipers and pads and a simple tandem master cylinder that the car does just fine. I am enough of a skeptic that I will have to feel fade for myself before I beleive it in the F40, but won't be the first time I was wrong.

I have adequate pace to know when brakes are or are not sufficient, so that is not the issue.

 

I know there is a difference 330mm vs 355 approximately. The GT kit is by no means a "racing set-up" it still uses cast painted calipers. There has been 20 years of development in cast iron rotors and pads since the F40 and they are much better now. The smaller rotor also accelerates faster. The factory wheels also block airflow through the brakes. Its all about the cooling...

 

Okay, what I thought.

 

I've always heard how good the LM master set-up is, but I've never heard that the LM rotor set-up was "inferior". I thought the Brembo system was based from the LM set-up which was made by Brembo to begin with. LM's ran some pretty damn good lap times with these set-ups as far as I know. Either way the LM set-up is better then the "regular" F40 brakes....

 

Jim at poncono has a lot of experience with F40 braking systems as he runs at least 2 F40s on the track and came up with an awsome system.

I will let him in on this thread to answer any questions.

 

Remember, cmparrenzo along with Brembo developed a whole new brake setup on his personal F40. That's the F40 that I now post many photos of and it's the F0RZA #42 cover car. In that edition of FORZA they talk about the development process.

 

Bit of a thread revival here with a question. I acquired a used but very good condition set of OEM discs and would like to swap the front discs to the rear to even out the wear. The discs are the same part number front and rear while the flanges are different - larger on the rear than the front. Does anyone know the requirements for swapping the flanges and discs? Is it a straight forward dis-assemble and re-assemble job? Is it necessary to replace the 10 bolts attaching the flange to the rotor? What is the torque setting for the bolts? Thanks.