Surface Transform CCST brakes for 488, Pista and F8 will start production very soon

Hi guys

A bit of news in the brake disc department.

Since January, Craig Couzens, a buddy of mine who's also a member here and I, have been working on a set of CCST discs for the 488 line of cars. That means 488 GTB, 488 Spider, Pista, Pista Spider, as well as both F8 variants. We have been doing some test fitting based on the 458 kit they have. We used this as a base, as we already knew the front disc was a straight fit. This means we have been working on rear disc fitment basically. After a bunch of disc removal and a lot of measuring, it turns out that the rear of the 458 also share disc specs, but with one major difference. The "old" style caliper which is the style used on cars like the 458, Porto, Cali, F12, and many others, do not feature a parking brake. This means that the parking brake is built in to the rotor hat via a drum brake insert. After consulting with a few Ferrari techs, Craig and I opted to get me a full 458 kit to see what needed changing, if anything. Sometimes it's better to make small changes to something that is 99% there rather than to reinvent the wheel. This past Monday my buddy and I did a test fit of those rears on his Pista Spider. And low and behold, they "fit". Now when I say fit, I mean, everything except for the drum brake insert is spot on. Offset, diameter etc. all of it is 100%. However, the disc dust shield did not clear the drum brake insert properly. Now after consulting with Craig and the ST CEO who's also their lead engineer, it turns out that the drum brake insert can be detached via 10 small screws. If you look at the pic below, you can see that there are 10 holes in the rotor hat outer circumference which looks like something's missing. Those are the holes for the screws where the drum brake insert used to be bolted to the backside of the rotor hat. So, on Monday or Tuesday next week, we will do the wheels of and an dance again, and test fit without the drum brake insert. If or should I say when, everything checks out okay and we have taken the car for a drive to be 110% sure everything's ready to rock, I'll report back to Surface Transform and things should be ready to go.
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A quick note. The production version will of course not have these holes for the insert. Nor will it have those two oddly placed holes, which seem sort of out of place. I'm talking about the hole at 3 o'clock and the one roughly @ 10 o'clock which sits outside the lug bolt circumference. Those two hols are used to adjust the parking brake on a 458. But since the parking brake on a 488/Pista/F8 is built in to the caliper, this is not needed here either. This means the hat will be smooth, nice and pretty. And when I say pretty, I mean pretty. My hands had just been all over this hat after removing the insert, so it is full of fingerprints and dirt. But the tooling on these hats are second to none. Then again, Surface Transform have been the OEM supplier for Koenigsegg for the past 10+ years, and we know their level of attention to detail - I am very impressed.

If anyone is interested in this, feel free to let me know and I will get you all contact info via PM.

Lastly, and I will stress this. I am in no way affiliated with ST. I'm just an enthusiast whom like so many others here, have been looking for an alternative. I do not make any money on this, nor have I gotten discs for free. It's all about trying to expand our options and see what else is out there.

Over the next few months I will do my best to beat the ever living snot out of these discs on both the road and track. But from what the guys who already have been running them in the Challenge series for a while now report back, they will take anything you can throw at them. I will be using the Pagid RSC2 pads initially, as something that has better longevity than OE or RSC1 pads is needed. These discs are extremely tough, and can run pads much more hoardcore such as the Pagid RSL 1- RSL 1 and RSL 29 is what the Challenge tuys uee with these rotors. But for a track focused pad that should still be pretty street friendly, I think the RSC2 is a good choice. For those who seek a pad that is an OE style, these disc will work with both OE as well as Pagid RSC1. As far as OE pad life goes, this is of course too early to tell. But I'm being told that the CCST discs should run 100-150 degrees cooler when tracked over OE CCM discs, which should increase pad life a bit. But alas, for those of us whom have been tracking 488's and Pistas a lot, we all know how those OE pads wear down in the blink of an eye, hence why I want to try RSC2 pads.

One last important thing about these discs. While they should have a significantly longer life than OE discs, they are also discs that can be sent back to ST for resurfacing. I believe this can be done four times. A resurfacing costs a fraction of the new disc price, so that's an added benefit.

So, that's all for now.

Stay healthy and safe out there fellow Fchatters

If anyone is interested in the Padid RSC2 pads for the 488/Pista/F8, I can also give you contact info on that. They are not an off-the-shelf item just yet, so needs to be ordered directly from Pagid.

 

Quick insert I forgot. Craig Couzens is the Development Manager @ ST. He's not the member here I was referring to.

 

Hi guys - breaking news, or at least an update

This is my first stab EVER at a written review of brake discs, to bear with me guys

So today my buddy and I finally got around to do the full swap of all four Surface Transform brakes on his Pista Spider with about 2000 km on it. We will be testing with the OE pads for the rest of the week and hopefully get about 1000+ km on it - he dailies it While the car will get RSC2 pads on it a bit later on, we decided to start with OE pads on normal road conditions. In the beginning of next week. we will swap back to the OE discs for a proper A/B test. Today we managed to get the discs bedded and spent about two hours after, hooning around the back roads doing a lot of brake tests and spirited driving. Aside from bedding in, we did brake tests ranging from 80 km to a dead stop etc. all the way up to hard stops from 270 km/h, and a lot of driving in between. We're both pretty seasoned drivers and licenced track rats, so we were comfortable pushing the car pretty hard. We also did some testing in relation how much pressure it needed for the ABS to engage, as well as paying attention to brake noise and smoothness. Seeing that the weather was excellent and the car is a Spider, we had a great opportunity to listen out for any brake related noises.

Here are the initial impressions after today's experience.

Bedding in:
We used the Pagid method of bedding in, as the OEM pads is basically the RSC1 compound, and this is also what ST suggested. It basically consists of a bunch of easy stops to "mate" the disc and pad, followed by a series of fast hard stops for outgassing the pads as wel as getting friction material to the disc. Lastly a few soft stops followed by a curing to ambient temps. Note that the pads we used had been bedded previously, as the car only had about 2000 km on it when we started, and they have not seen track time. But this meant that we did not actually need a full pad bed in, but rather a mating to the disc. We did however, choose to just do a proper bed in as that was fairly easy to do. The Pagid bed in procedure worked very well and the disc quickly responded to the procedure. This makes it easy for drivers to get out and enjoy the car and not worry about sloppy brakes. We spent about 20 mins doing the actual procedure, and then let the disc rest till cool. This happened fairly quickly. We made sure to get the discs properly hot as is part of the procedure with stops from about 180 km/h down below 80 km/h. We know we got them glowing, the smell doesn't lie lol After this, the car was ready to rumble.

Quick note on some basic parameters.
Car: 488 Pista Spider
Full tank:
Two guys. Combined weight of us were about 160 kg.
pad friction surface thickness about 8 mm. New is 9.3 mm, so plenty of meat there.
Ambient temps around 16 degree C but with bright sun and little wind.

Initial bite:
Compared to OE discs, these provide more "bite" but with also with a greater sense of modulation. They were much easier to get the right pressure with, and you get a better sense of how much pressure to apply to the pedal for X amount of stopping power to be engaged. This was under both "slow" and spirited driving when the brakes were up to operating temp. Not glowing by any means, but like you'd expect during a spirited drive on your favourite winding road on a Sunday afternoon. While there were many impressive aspects of these discs, the initial bite was probably what impressed us the most. Not because the rest was not impressive, but rather because this was so darn good. We both agreed that the only brake we could think of which offered the same level of feel in the initial bite, is a Porsche GT4 or GT3RS with iron rotors and Endless pads. For those of you who have driven those cars, you know those brakes are very good brakes in the OE configuration, and a bit of a benchmark of how really good brakes feel. With aftermarket pads, those Porsche brakes get even better and are truly spectacular. The stock Ferrari brakes are nice brakes and perform well overall, but they are not a really great set of brakes, and while we did expect some kind of improvement, we did not see this one coming. Truly impressive.

Modulation:
This is a bit hard for me to explain, and is of course also part of a personal preference. One thing I don't like about the stock 488/Pista brakes, are how they are not very easy to modulate. Of course you get used to them, but at the same time I would like them to feel more consistent. You push the brake and you get an initial bite, but then it sort of becomes hard to judge right away how quickly the car will slow down, and at the same time once you're on it, it feels overly sensitive. This makes it difficult to modulate the input. With the ST discs, the engagement felt a lot more smooth and consistent. While they had better initial bite than stock, it was still more predictable, and you also got the feeling that you had more freedom to work with the pedal. I'm not saying the pedal felt soft or mushy, it simply felt like you had maybe 5mm additional pedal travel to work with. This leads to a braking feel that inspires much more comfort and and a greater sense of confidence when pushing hard.

Braking performance:
What can I say, they stop, and they can do so fast and with no delay. When you get on it quickly like you would on a track, e.g when you push hard and get that small chirp from the tyres, right when you engage the pedal, it stays smooth and keeps breaking hard. No signs of any shudder or uneveness, only sensation you get is the ABS when that engages. We found that ABS would engage smoothly above 80% force depending on speed. When we did these tests, tyre temps were in the 60+ degree C area according to the cars tyre temp system. While the level of force needed to engage the ABS was not far off from OE, it still felt like it needed a bit less. By this I don't mean to imply that the ABS came in too soon and the brakes were too aggressive, it simply responded a bit less heft on the very top end. Both these discs and the OE discs can stop the car well, but these seemed to do so a bit more effortlessly. No matter the speed, not once did we have to get "out of the seat" to engage the ABS, and this is very reassuring to know in case of an emergency. Of course people are different and some have stronger legs than others, but this is from a fairly average early 40's mans perspective.
When doing more fluent and spirited driving, the feel was excellent and incredibly smooth. Quick and predictable engagement before each corner with no bad manners. Here the great sense of modulation and precise initial bite really started to shine. It was such a pleasure to watch a turn come up and then instantly getting a sense of knowing how fast the car would slow down. It really made for a drive where you connect closely with the car, and getting a sense of the cars system working with you and not against you. It's been a while since I have experienced this kind of buttery creamyness from a braking system. If anybody remembers the late 80's 911 4 piston system(pre-964) that's what comes to mind. It's been a while since I've driven such a 911, but I recall the brakes as being some of the smoothest I've experienced to date.
Lastly, when the car settles down and it's time to cruise, then it gets very OEM like for all the right reasons. No jerkyness or sloppy feel. Of course like the OE system, when cool, it needs a bit more input, but no more than OE system. Cruising through a small town or along the motorway, it is just an overall nice and familiar feel. There's no issues with brakes that get scary when cold or the like, the easiest way to express it is to say OEM feel. In this situation, that's a good thing as many would not want a hardcore race type brake feel when having a relaxed drive.

Comfort:
On one hand there's not much to say, and o the other, I could use all sorts of supperlatives to explain it. But it can be summed up in four words.
"Smooth and dead quiet". Like I wrote above, they are incredibly smooth. No drama, no odd noises no sense of jerkyness or the like - they just glide along and takes you to a stop. How gentle depends on your level of input, but never any unwanted drama.
Noise. What noise? I mean quiet, REALLY quiet. No scouring noises, no loud squeals, not a single chirp - zero, zip, nada. I will say this. While we did put a fair bit of km's on the brakes today, I'm curious to see how well this quietness holds up, but I do think it looks very promisiing. After what, about 10 mins in the 488 Spider it starts squealing again, despite both prior spirited driving or track time. Same with this Pista. From it was delivered less than two months ago, the brakes squealed. They have been bedded and all the rest of it, so it's not for lack of trying to stop them. I think many will agree that the stock 488/Pista/F8 brakes simply are noisy buggers. While the driving during the week will tell us more about the noise aspect, I must say that I feel pretty confident that it will stay silent. We did take the car through its paces today and it definitely was driven in a manner where it would have started squaling with the OE discs. I'm fairly new to these CCST style discs, but they are said to be much more quiet than classic CCM type discs.

Fitment:
Easy two person job and 100% plug and play. Jack up the car and remove the wheel. Remove the two disc retaining screws. Loosen and remove the two caliper retaining bolts. Have your buddy grab the disc and turn both disc and caliper outward. Slide the disc out of the caliper. Insert the dew disc in the caliper and put it back on the hub. Each wheel can be done in less than 10 mins from start to finish. Don't forget to disengage the e-brake when doing the rears

Overall:
A really nice set of brake discs worthy of such a car. While this is an initial review, I think this is a great impression of what these discs are all about and what they have to offer. At this stage I will definitely consider them an upgrade that is well worth it over OE discs - especially considering the fact that they are similarly priced if you purchase the OE disc from a place like Eurospares or the like. If you pay dealer pricing, these are quite a bit cheaper in fact. Also, like mentioned previously, these can also be resufaced once worn out, The price for this is 1200£ for a set and this can be done more than once. I can of course not say much in regards to longevity, but the expected life when using OE or RSC1 pads is about 10 times that of the OE CCM discs. In race applications when using really aggressive pads such as the Pagid RSL29 or RSL1, discs last about 3-4 times as long as OE CCM discs. The latter number is straight off the users in the Challenge series

All in all a great day in a great car, and I must say that I'm initially very impressed with the CCST discs and will highly recommend them.

Here's a few pics

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Wow. You obviously do not know much about Surface Transform brakes and what they do. The owners buddy? What? What are you talking about? I have purchased the rotors, we tested the on a buddys car, they will go on mine next. I am in no way affiliated with Surface Transform Brakes and none of this is second hand info.

You should know ST is the OEM for Koenigsegg, Tesla, Mercedes, the McLaren Senna GTR, BAC Mono and a few other major manufactures which I cannot disclose at this point. ST is not some two bit small operation, they have been in business for almost two decades and are taking OEM's away from Brembo left and right because Brembo have been asleep at the helm by not properly developing their CCM product over the past 20 6ears. It's easy to hold a large market share when you got the monopoly, but you get into trouble if you get lazy and someone else comes along with a better product.

It is NOT a cheaper product by any stretch of the imagination. But they don't run as crazy a mark-up as Brembo has. Like I said, if you go to a Place like Eurospares and purchase OE discs they are similarly priced. Help with sales? What are you on about? Who exactly do you think you benefit by that? Ferrari? Lol, nope. That money goes to Brembo. Trust me, when it comes to wear parts such as brake rotors and pads, Ferrari hates Eurospares and the other sellers just as much as ST. You want to "help" your Ferrari dealer, who I believe has been so incredibly up front and honest with the delivery time of your Porto? Okay. Make sure you purchase all your tyres and new brake parts there. Remember to sit down before reading your first Ferrari full brake servise bill. Helping sales. That's a good one.

You are entitled to your opinion, but you might want to understand the case and the product a bit better before advising others against - especially considering the fact that you have zero experience with the ST product or the 488/PistaF8 range, and obviously know very little about Surface Transform brakes.

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Thank you

I understand why people can be apprehensive about a different product they don't know. I myself was on the fence for a while thinking long and hard about this. Even prior to first contacting ST in December, I have spent a lot of time over the past three years talking to people in the industry, including companies like Remmen Brakes whom used get discs from ST. They are OEM for Singer, so there's another OEM using the product. It is perfectly fine to have an opinion, and like I said, I fully understand the apprehension and unease - I've been there. But I get upset and angry when people advise and discredit others based on absolutely no experience or knowledge. CVR is a newcomer to our scene, and has little experience with exotics, and even less track time and drivers training such as Corse Pilota. Again, I fully understand being on the fence about using a non-OE part, but advising against and disputing the integrity of the company, the product and the user based on absolutely no knowledge gained from personal experience or research, is wrong and poor form. Had he at least owned or driven a 488 series car, he might understand some of the points people are making for why the cars could use an upgrade in the brake department. Some people, especially newcomers see that Cavalino and think that it means "perfect". But fact is that Ferrari has their flaws and downsides too, and some things can be changed for the better. Don't even get me started on the lack of camber on front wheels. That's an entirely different chapter that just boggles the mind and makes you go "What the hell were they thinking!".

I appreciate your support, and I wholeheartedly believe something good is done by bringing this product to our fellow driving enthusiasts.

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They would be an equally great fit on your F8 as they are on the Pista The Pista and F8 shares brakes, so a 100% fit.

Which pads do you use on your 911? How are the road manners and noise with the pads you use?

 

These are still better if you're on the road. You will find that even on the road, the OE discs don't last very long all things considered, and pad wear is a down right joke. The CCST disc is virtually impossible to wear down on a goad car, and the fact that it runs that much cooler meant that pads wear slower too. The on/off switch sensation also goes away, and that is equally pleasant on a nice spirited Sunday drive. Yes, these are very nice for the track rats among us, but a guy who just love to drive his Ferrari can benefit a lot too.

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Regarding my comments about the Porto and 458/488. I mistook you for Fchat member CYR. Apologies for that.

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Nice. What kind of track mileage do you get from the RSC2 on your car? On a track like Spa, a 488 will burn through a set of OE pads in the course of a track day weekend when fitted with OE rotors.

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Four weekends? Wow. How many miles do you run in such a weekend?

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No. ST rotors on a GT3.