Larger brakes...revisited
06-10-2002, 07:03 AM
#1
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Join Date: Jul 2001
Posts: 608
Larger brakes...revisited
Ok gang, I've been reading up on the latest brake threads and I have a couple of questions. I'm looking for the most cost-effective solution to increase front rotor size to both fill the 18" wheel well and improve braking. I noticed Fastbrakes has a $450 item that upgrade to 12.2" rotors but using stock calipers. How does this help if the swept area is no different? Does this do anything except make the rotor larger to fill up wheel wells? Are there any trully effective solutions others than better rotors and pads of OEM sizing front and rear that DON'T cost over $2K?
06-10-2002, 07:57 AM
#2
Maxima Pilot
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Beaverton, Oregon
Posts: 1,467
Latest back and forth between Nigel (of
Precision Brakes) and I attached below...and long.
This is the first real kit for the Gen5 apart from the Brembos which go $2.6k...I'm seriously considering it.
This is a modification of the kit another Board member posted on a few weeks ago, he installed it with the Dynalite calipers and one-piece DBA rotors...quite frankly, this is much better -for about $200 bucks more.
Do I smell group deal coming??
From Nigel
I really enjoyed chatting with you the other day - I even dug out some of our old Rally Club magazines. Ahhh ... nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
I probably told you all this already but .... our standard kit for the
Maxima has a 13" x 0.810" one-piece DBA directional-vaned cross-drilled and slotted or slotted only rotor, Wilwood billet dynalite 4 x1.75" pistoncalipers, performance street pads ('D' compound), caliper mounting brackets,stainless steel braided Teflon brake lines and all the mounting hardware.This all comes for $999.00. Changing to a two-piece Wilwood rotor adds $150to the kit price. If you would prefer a heavier rotor, we do the same kitwith a Corvette C4 13" rotor - this rotor provides a much better heatsinkfor the heavier car but does increase the unsprung weight by a few pounds.
Changing the caliper to a Superlight shouldn't affect the price (good choice by the way - not only is the billet Superlight more expensive, we understand it is not as rigid as the cast version). You might consider the possibility of getting more than one set of pads (these are easily changed on a Wilwood caliper). We have found 'D' compound pads get eaten up on a roadracing track and barely last a weekend. The pads get more raceworthy in the following sequence: 'D', 'E', 'C', 'B', 'J' and 'A' compounds. The 'A'
compound is unbelievably aggressive and offers huge stopping power cold or hot but unless the vehicle weighs at least 3300 pounds and the pad is made really hot, it is way too abrasive and will eat your rotors. Used on a stock Ford F150, it annihilated the rotors in 3 months of regular street driving. This pad will show no fade even though the rotor gets red hot. We have had this borne out by one of our customers.
As regards your application: the Wilwood two piece rotor would not be a problem - our recommendation would be for the 1.25" rotor. The
cross-drilling pattern would be a problem. We don't cross-drill here
although we do slot on our milling machine. The standard pattern from
Wilwood is a lot more boring (no pun intended) that the spiral pattern you suggested. I am not sure how long you drive during an autocross event and how hot your rotors get but increasingly, we are hearing stories about cross-drilled rotors cracking and breaking - this seems to happen only during road-racing - autocrossing should be fine. Another possibility is slotting only - it doesn't seem to affect rotor integrity at all and it does help with outgassing and removal of glaze from the pads.
So ... conclusions. My guess is you would like Wilwood 2-piece 12.19 x 1.25 curved vane rotors, Superlight calipers, 'D' pads, 'E' pads and all the other standard stuff to put it all together. The price for this would be $1149.00 plus $64.17 for the 'E' pads. Does this sound like what you want?
This is the first real kit for the Gen5 apart from the Brembos which go $2.6k...I'm seriously considering it.
This is a modification of the kit another Board member posted on a few weeks ago, he installed it with the Dynalite calipers and one-piece DBA rotors...quite frankly, this is much better -for about $200 bucks more.
Do I smell group deal coming??
From Nigel
I really enjoyed chatting with you the other day - I even dug out some of our old Rally Club magazines. Ahhh ... nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
I probably told you all this already but .... our standard kit for the
Maxima has a 13" x 0.810" one-piece DBA directional-vaned cross-drilled and slotted or slotted only rotor, Wilwood billet dynalite 4 x1.75" pistoncalipers, performance street pads ('D' compound), caliper mounting brackets,stainless steel braided Teflon brake lines and all the mounting hardware.This all comes for $999.00. Changing to a two-piece Wilwood rotor adds $150to the kit price. If you would prefer a heavier rotor, we do the same kitwith a Corvette C4 13" rotor - this rotor provides a much better heatsinkfor the heavier car but does increase the unsprung weight by a few pounds.
Changing the caliper to a Superlight shouldn't affect the price (good choice by the way - not only is the billet Superlight more expensive, we understand it is not as rigid as the cast version). You might consider the possibility of getting more than one set of pads (these are easily changed on a Wilwood caliper). We have found 'D' compound pads get eaten up on a roadracing track and barely last a weekend. The pads get more raceworthy in the following sequence: 'D', 'E', 'C', 'B', 'J' and 'A' compounds. The 'A'
compound is unbelievably aggressive and offers huge stopping power cold or hot but unless the vehicle weighs at least 3300 pounds and the pad is made really hot, it is way too abrasive and will eat your rotors. Used on a stock Ford F150, it annihilated the rotors in 3 months of regular street driving. This pad will show no fade even though the rotor gets red hot. We have had this borne out by one of our customers.
As regards your application: the Wilwood two piece rotor would not be a problem - our recommendation would be for the 1.25" rotor. The
cross-drilling pattern would be a problem. We don't cross-drill here
although we do slot on our milling machine. The standard pattern from
Wilwood is a lot more boring (no pun intended) that the spiral pattern you suggested. I am not sure how long you drive during an autocross event and how hot your rotors get but increasingly, we are hearing stories about cross-drilled rotors cracking and breaking - this seems to happen only during road-racing - autocrossing should be fine. Another possibility is slotting only - it doesn't seem to affect rotor integrity at all and it does help with outgassing and removal of glaze from the pads.
So ... conclusions. My guess is you would like Wilwood 2-piece 12.19 x 1.25 curved vane rotors, Superlight calipers, 'D' pads, 'E' pads and all the other standard stuff to put it all together. The price for this would be $1149.00 plus $64.17 for the 'E' pads. Does this sound like what you want?
06-10-2002, 08:28 AM
#3
Donating Maxima.org Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jul 2001
Posts: 608
Re: Latest back and forth between Nigel (of
Good stuff there Galo, keep me in the loop as things progress. My ultimate question will be this: For street driving and possible light auto-x duty, is this upgrade any better functionally than the 4 wheel slotted/drilled rotors with pads deal going around several sites? Again, thanks for the info!
06-10-2002, 12:43 PM
#4
Maxima Pilot
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Beaverton, Oregon
Posts: 1,467
SR...dat's a good question...I really dont know
First one could argue that the stock Maxima brakes are probably good enough for most everyone...but that's not the case for us enthusiasts that drive a wee bit harder than the average Max buyer.
From what I've read here it's really the rotors that seen weak..I've never heard of a Max blowing its calipers nor of suffering from bad pad life ergo the rotor kit seems like a sensible first step.
That said, this kit saves 8-10 lbs from stock which will also improve ride quality, it's overall a much more robust setup -plus those calipers look neat as hell.
Is it worth it? It's a good deal compared to Brembos...if we could get the price down 100 to 150 bucks through a group deal I would do it but...1200 bucks is still a lot of moolah...
From what I've read here it's really the rotors that seen weak..I've never heard of a Max blowing its calipers nor of suffering from bad pad life ergo the rotor kit seems like a sensible first step.
That said, this kit saves 8-10 lbs from stock which will also improve ride quality, it's overall a much more robust setup -plus those calipers look neat as hell.
Is it worth it? It's a good deal compared to Brembos...if we could get the price down 100 to 150 bucks through a group deal I would do it but...1200 bucks is still a lot of moolah...
06-10-2002, 12:53 PM
#5
Senior Member
Join Date: Dec 2001
Location: Riverside, CA
Posts: 597
Larger rotors on stock calipers does help out braking over stock size... The larger your tire gets (18") the more rotational weight it has, right? Well the larger the rotor the more stopping power you have. Like a lever, a small one with 10 pounds of force does ALOT less work then a big one with the same force.
Larger rim + Larger rotor = Equalized
Larger rim + Larger rotor = Equalized
06-10-2002, 01:19 PM
#6
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Join Date: Jul 2001
Posts: 608
Originally posted by melteye
Larger rotors on stock calipers does help out braking over stock size... The larger your tire gets (18") the more rotational weight it has, right? Well the larger the rotor the more stopping power you have. Like a lever, a small one with 10 pounds of force does ALOT less work then a big one with the same force.
Larger rim + Larger rotor = Equalized
Larger rotors on stock calipers does help out braking over stock size... The larger your tire gets (18") the more rotational weight it has, right? Well the larger the rotor the more stopping power you have. Like a lever, a small one with 10 pounds of force does ALOT less work then a big one with the same force.
Larger rim + Larger rotor = Equalized
06-10-2002, 01:26 PM
#7
Senior Member
Join Date: Dec 2001
Location: Riverside, CA
Posts: 597
The calipers power hasn't reached its max point on the stock rotor... If you can lock up the tires then the traction of the tires is less then the braking system itself, there is still room to improve braking on stock calipers... Rotor size and stainless steel lines (SS Lines do a "little bit" for most users, very rarely do they come into extreme play)
06-10-2002, 01:44 PM
#8
Maxima Pilot
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Beaverton, Oregon
Posts: 1,467
Melteye...dunno that I agree...if you can
lock the brakes/skid the tires/activate the ABS, you have reached the point where it's the tires' coefficient of friction with the road that has limited your ability to brake better. Once ur at that limit bigger brakes wont do squat. Bigger brakes are all about REPETITIVE braking, not single haul-downs from scandalously illegal speeds.
Having said that, upgrade the wheels/ties to something much stickier and you start transfering more of that 'limit' to the brakes -which are marginal at best to begin with.
Bottom line: some mods (tires, wheels, suspension, engine work) only point out the overall vehicle's weak areas that need to be upgraded with the next mod...are we here yet?
Having said that, upgrade the wheels/ties to something much stickier and you start transfering more of that 'limit' to the brakes -which are marginal at best to begin with.
Bottom line: some mods (tires, wheels, suspension, engine work) only point out the overall vehicle's weak areas that need to be upgraded with the next mod...are we here yet?
06-10-2002, 01:45 PM
#9
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Posts: 608
Originally posted by melteye
The calipers power hasn't reached its max point on the stock rotor... If you can lock up the tires then the traction of the tires is less then the braking system itself, there is still room to improve braking on stock calipers... Rotor size and stainless steel lines (SS Lines do a "little bit" for most users, very rarely do they come into extreme play)
The calipers power hasn't reached its max point on the stock rotor... If you can lock up the tires then the traction of the tires is less then the braking system itself, there is still room to improve braking on stock calipers... Rotor size and stainless steel lines (SS Lines do a "little bit" for most users, very rarely do they come into extreme play)
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