Galo

Gentlefolk:
Sunday after a nice drive to my son's house (25 miles away, great back roads including some awesome hill country) I started feeling the dreaded shudder from the fron brakes under hard braking. Subtle, but there and I know it will get worse over time...
From all the reaserch on brake ugrades and many posts from many folks on this board it strikes me that the best 'bang for buck' is the Fastbrakes Wilwood kit: 12.2" rotors, aluminum 4 piston calipers, 10 lbs weight savings per wheel...all way cool except Fastbrakes does not have a kit yet for the 2000+ Max.

Their kit for the Gen4 sells for about 950 bucks...cheap as hell compared to the Brembo kit at $2500...who here would be interested in pursuing a group deal on the kit for the Gen5?

azhelipilot

Actually I'm not disappointed in the factory brakes for street use. At least with the ABS. Not sure if I'd trust the "10lb" weight gain claim. I mean what does a stock caliper and brake disk weigh ?? Not much more than 15lbs total I bet. Their setup weighs 5lbs. ?? Plus larger caliper means more fluid displacement, and pedal travel. Might need larger master brake cylinder --e.g.---go from 7/8th" to 15/16th" to make up difference. And that means more brake pedal pressure needed if the boost won't make it up. Is there a front/rear brake proportion valve that gets upset ?? etc,etc,etc -- Don't mean to rain on the idea though.

Thorzdad

Will the ABS circuitry still work with aftermarket brakes?

Colonel

One thing to remember, as I want to get a different kit also, is that pedal feel is actually reduced...not increased. No tests have been done to see if it really helps all tha much to put a whole kit on other than better parts to work with if something goes wrong.

I really want to do something but I just cant get myself to pull the trigger yet. I want a much better pedal feel and cant get past the mental hang up of less pedal feel for a better stop/brake.

Galo

brave soul...I'm a fixed-wing dude -as God and every one else except Igor Sikorsky intended it to be. )

Hey...do you mind if I copy and paste some of your questions over to an email to both Brembo and Fastbrakes? Damn good questions, IMHO...would like to see them both take a crack at them...what say u?

Colonel

Man I missed his reply...helps to read once in a while...duh! He does have good questions and if they are answered might help a bunch of us pull the trigger as I want to do this right...not half...*ahem*!

azhelipilot

Let me throw in a couple more things. --- The deader than dead thing.-- If you can already lock up your brake/ tires with the stock system, why do you need more ?? Not getting into weight transfer set adjusting (which differs on curves) proportioned individual line pressures (including left to right), tire pressures, cambers, brake fade, and other fine tuning, etc.,etc. -- you can't brake more than your tire/road surface conditions can take. Can't lock them up lockier. I think the stock system already exceeds what our tires can do.

azhelipilot

[Yea I don't mind you quoting me.(and I trust airplanes more than heli's) Try changing boost vacuum (restrictor ??), or master cylinder size, or the brake pedal leverage point for different feel. Larger master cylinder piston bore size = more pedal pressure needed for same results. With the new bigger caliper kit your pedal effort will be lower BUT -- pedal travel will be longer. No I haven't done any of this to my 2000SE max. I'm happy so far.

Galo

I've been exchanging emails with..want Fastbrakes to know there could be more interest if some questions are answered. I already sent them an email with these -and other- questions, BTW.

Going back to your questions/comments about master cylinder sizes...if I remember my physics correctly...fluids being incompressible, when you hit the brake you're not really moving fluid thru the brake lines but merely using that incompressible medium to transfer the pressure from the master cylinder to the calipers -but the fluid itself does not move/flow one iota. Thus, I would expect that the master cylinder's actual volume is inconsequential to all that is happening but...that's only a theory...we'll see what they come back with.

I agree that for street driving you cant lock them up more locked than locked but....for sporting driving, autocrosses and/or Solo I's it's rather apparent the stock brakes arent up to it....longevity, fade, etc.

azhelipilot

On the Master brake piston size. --- Smaller piston size means still the same line pressure to do what you want, But the longer piston stroke to do it and therefore less effort to do it. ( same as better leverage ) Of course you could run out of pedal travel or fluid if the bore doesn't have the capacity. IF your leg/boost can handle the effort of a larger piston you gain increased fluid capacity to save for a LONG road race pad wear (Very important), and better heat dissipation from more fluid your storing. I think brake pads would mean the most to us stockers. Metallics = harder pedal pressure just to warm up, and then no fade + more heat transfer from pad to caliper/fluid -/- cheap pads fade and wear away quickly and don't transfer much heat to the caliper/fluid. Most cars come with the cheaper ones just because they are ready to use instantly without warmup, and they'll work good that first and only panic stop. Got to find a pad in-between.

Galo

Fastbrakes below FYI

Jose,

The stock calipers weigh approx 12 lbs each, the Wilwood cast calipers 6 lbs with pads, billet 7 lbs with pads.

Stock rotors 13 lbs, the 2 piece 12.2" rotors 11 lbs.

The brakes are ABS compatible as the computer recognizes the wheel rotation rates.

The caliper pistons are sized to approximate the stock caliper pistons so no changes in pedal travel should be noticed. For the differential bore calipers a slight increase in pedal travel is noted.

Brake pedal feel in greatly enhanced, that's the reason to go to the 4 piston set-up....

Thanks for the help...I'll be getting the knuckle for the 2000+ cars as soon as I get back from the IAS so they should be ready shortly after that....

Brian H

Galo's comment: the weight savings above equates to 8 lb savings per wheel, not 10...I'm okay with that..he was stating the 10 lb savings boast on the Gen4 brake setup so I'll allow him a 2lb difference

Foglght

I bought the OEM replacement rotors and metal matrix pads from stillen. They have greatly reduced fade, more bite, and they don't warp. BUT!

you do have to remember why you may be having this problem.

1. if you tourque the wheels incorrectly, you can warp the rotors.
2. Spraying them at the car wash while the car is hot can warp them
3. repeated 100+ stops (and yes most of you probably do this once in a great while)

the owners manual tells you how much to exactly tourque your wheels. I have a feeling that is a major reason why this is happening. Discount tire around here rotates my tires. After I get home i have to loosen all the wheels and retourque everything. Last time they were on one wheel: 1. over 100ft. lbs 2. correct 3. probably around 85 4. correct 5. WAY to tight.

stillen sells all 4 pads and rotors for about 450. That would seem to be the best bet. Check out my homepage for pics.

cya
ryan

Max_5gen

iTrader: (2)

It seems to me though that many of our stock rotors have some sort of surface problems. If you look back on how many owners "babied" their rotors with the same result at the end - you'd also start thinking that something is wrong with rotors not drivers . Those three reasons are important in case of normal rotors not 5th Gen. "special edition". I've replaced my stocks 10k miles back - still going fine with Porterfields brake pads (knock on wood). BTW, pads make world of difference in car's brake behaviour. I noticed that Porterfields behave much more stable under hard conditions - they literally don't change it at all with heat. On the other hand it's harder to make "luxury" stops - they just lock rotors at very low speed < 0.5 km/hr.

Mike.