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View Full Version : Best Big brake kit?



sleepy ep3
03-15-2011, 03:41 PM
Looking into options. So far, the best deal seems to be the Wilwood setup on Corsport. Any opinions? Budget is $1000 and under. Only looking to upgrade front set for now.

Zzyzx
03-15-2011, 04:22 PM
Best for what? Are you trying to stop the car in a shorter distance or are you having heat issues.

talonXracer
03-15-2011, 04:37 PM
The best bang for the buck upgrade for brakes would be typeS brakes for the average enthusiast, OEM quality and availability of replacement parts.

sleepy ep3
03-15-2011, 06:25 PM
Well, my local track has a very short runoff area. I had trouble stopping in time with the stock rotors with upgraded pads. I'm not really a fan of hitting the sand trap, plus I have a few extra bucks so I figured it was time for an upgrade. I would like any and all opinions, BUT ONLY if you have experience on the subject. I don't want to hear some bullshit that you read in super street because they are trying to sell parts and advertising.

talonXracer
03-15-2011, 06:30 PM
what do you mean by "trouble stopping in time", what were the brake symptoms? Did you just loose traction? Did it feel like the pedal hit a stop and wouldnt produce any more braking force? Did the pedal feel like mush?

sleepy ep3
03-15-2011, 08:24 PM
what do you mean by "trouble stopping in time", what were the brake symptoms? Did you just loose traction? Did it feel like the pedal hit a stop and wouldnt produce any more braking force? Did the pedal feel like mush?

Pretty much. The pedal wasn't mushy at all, I had a steady firm feel to it, but I just wasn't scrubbing off speed fast enough. I had to combine the e brake and normal braking at the very end of the track. I don't think the stock rotor size and pad contact area are providing enough friction. That's the reason I want to try a larger set up. The Wilwood kit provides a larger rotor and pad, with being compatible with all the stock master cylinder and abs. I would imagine that most kits retain the oe equipment, but the price seems right.

doubledouble
03-15-2011, 08:50 PM
Pretty much. The pedal wasn't mushy at all, I had a steady firm feel to it, but I just wasn't scrubbing off speed fast enough. I had to combine the e brake and normal braking at the very end of the track. I don't think the stock rotor size and pad contact area are providing enough friction. That's the reason I want to try a larger set up. The Wilwood kit provides a larger rotor and pad, with being compatible with all the stock master cylinder and abs. I would imagine that most kits retain the oe equipment, but the price seems right.


A lot of poor stopping power has to do with tire choice. What are you running?

doubledouble
03-15-2011, 09:07 PM
Pretty much. The pedal wasn't mushy at all, I had a steady firm feel to it, but I just wasn't scrubbing off speed fast enough. I had to combine the e brake and normal braking at the very end of the track. I don't think the stock rotor size and pad contact area are providing enough friction. That's the reason I want to try a larger set up. The Wilwood kit provides a larger rotor and pad, with being compatible with all the stock master cylinder and abs. I would imagine that most kits retain the oe equipment, but the price seems right.


A lot of poor stopping power has to do with tire choice. What are you running?

talonXracer
03-16-2011, 05:03 AM
Pretty much. The pedal wasn't mushy at all, I had a steady firm feel to it, but I just wasn't scrubbing off speed fast enough. I had to combine the e brake and normal braking at the very end of the track. I don't think the stock rotor size and pad contact area are providing enough friction. That's the reason I want to try a larger set up. The Wilwood kit provides a larger rotor and pad, with being compatible with all the stock master cylinder and abs. I would imagine that most kits retain the oe equipment, but the price seems right.

Sounds like your pads need upgrading on the first.

sure the willwoods look nice, but you WILL NOT stop ANY QUICKER than the stock brakes, but you will be able to brake at the same level for more than one stop without heating and loosing braking force due to heat soak.

The fact you needed to use the Ebrake to stop indicates to me that you have an unballanced brake system that needs more rear bias, not more front bias.(unless the reduction was heat soak up front)

I think the Willwoods had to be the greatest waste of money of any upgrades that I have done, in fact I have nixed the Willwoods and gone BACK to typeS rotors and calipers !!!!!

sleepy ep3
03-16-2011, 08:13 AM
A lot of poor stopping power has to do with tire choice. What are you running?

Falken Azenis 615

Zzyzx
03-16-2011, 08:33 AM
Pretty much. The pedal wasn't mushy at all, I had a steady firm feel to it, but I just wasn't scrubbing off speed fast enough. I had to combine the e brake and normal braking at the very end of the track. I don't think the stock rotor size and pad contact area are providing enough friction. That's the reason I want to try a larger set up. The Wilwood kit provides a larger rotor and pad, with being compatible with all the stock master cylinder and abs. I would imagine that most kits retain the oe equipment, but the price seems right.

1st of, Friction is not subject to surface area. Just Pressure and the coefficient of friction of the materials in question.

Otherwise, this sounds like glazed pads & rotors to me.
have the rotors turned & pick up some new pads, and most importantly bed them properly.

Glazing can happen when you don't bed the pads & rotors right or when you push your brake pads past their normal operating temp. and one of the symptoms is longer stopping distances due to reduced friction (crystallized brake pad materiel has a significantly lower coefficient of friction then the materiel has uncrystallized...)

talonXracer
03-16-2011, 11:42 AM
1st of, Friction is not subject to surface area. Just Pressure and the coefficient of friction of the materials in question.

Otherwise, this sounds like glazed pads & rotors to me.
have the rotors turned & pick up some new pads, and most importantly bed them properly.

Glazing can happen when you don't bed the pads & rotors right or when you push your brake pads past their normal operating temp. and one of the symptoms is longer stopping distances due to reduced friction (crystallized brake pad materiel has a significantly lower coefficient of friction then the materiel has uncrystallized...)


forget my post(other than not getting willwoods except for bling) and listen to the brake guru when he speaks !

Zzyzx
03-16-2011, 01:50 PM
Addendum: Check your brake booster and associated vacuum lines. Replace any that have cracks in them.

sleepy ep3
03-16-2011, 02:01 PM
So what your saying is: that a larger brake setup wouldn't help me stop faster? I have a mid-grade set of ebc's on brand new rotors. I bled the brakes properly. What type of material would be the best? BTW RSX-s stuff wont work, as I am still 4 lug

fobman
03-16-2011, 02:38 PM
love the looks of big brake kits i wish i can afford one lol

Zzyzx
03-16-2011, 03:05 PM
So what your saying is: that a larger brake setup wouldn't help me stop faster? I have a mid-grade set of ebc's on brand new rotors. I bled the brakes properly. What type of material would be the best? BTW RSX-s stuff wont work, as I am still 4 lug

Correct, larger rotors & calipers are not designed to slow the car any faster then OEM, what they do allow for is a greater amount of heat to be absorbed & dissipated; thus allowing you to run the brakes harder longer. As in if you are running in to brake fade issues, larger rotors are a viable option. However since you are having issues at a drag strip, it is highly unlikely that you are overheating the brake system in 1 pass. (given time between runs) Granted if you go to the strip often, the constant heating and cooling of the brakes could be contributing to the glazing issue. And as such you may want to either change brake pad materials to a more track friendly compound or go with Slotted rotors (yes, the one time I recommend slotted rotors is to reduce glazing)

otherwise, drive in stop and go traffic a lot? Ride the brake pedal at all (do you rest your foot on it during normal driving?) Did you follow bedding procedures after you installed the brake pads?

For clarification; Bleeding the brakes is not bedding the pads & rotors

frm_808
03-16-2011, 04:04 PM
Correct, larger rotors & calipers are not designed to slow the car any faster then OEM, what they do allow for is a greater amount of heat to be absorbed & dissipated; thus allowing you to run the brakes harder longer. As in if you are running in to brake fade issues, larger rotors are a viable option. However since you are having issues at a drag strip, it is highly unlikely that you are overheating the brake system in 1 pass. (given time between runs) Granted if you go to the strip often, the constant heating and cooling of the brakes could be contributing to the glazing issue. And as such you may want to either change brake pad materials to a more track friendly compound or go with Slotted rotors (yes, the one time I recommend slotted rotors is to reduce glazing)

otherwise, drive in stop and go traffic a lot? Ride the brake pedal at all (do you rest your foot on it during normal driving?) Did you follow bedding procedures after you installed the brake pads?

For clarification; Bleeding the brakes is not bedding the pads & rotors

:hail: Listen to the Guru!

sleepy ep3
03-16-2011, 10:06 PM
Correct, larger rotors & calipers are not designed to slow the car any faster then OEM, what they do allow for is a greater amount of heat to be absorbed & dissipated; thus allowing you to run the brakes harder longer. As in if you are running in to brake fade issues, larger rotors are a viable option. However since you are having issues at a drag strip, it is highly unlikely that you are overheating the brake system in 1 pass. (given time between runs) Granted if you go to the strip often, the constant heating and cooling of the brakes could be contributing to the glazing issue. And as such you may want to either change brake pad materials to a more track friendly compound or go with Slotted rotors (yes, the one time I recommend slotted rotors is to reduce glazing)

otherwise, drive in stop and go traffic a lot? Ride the brake pedal at all (do you rest your foot on it during normal driving?) Did you follow bedding procedures after you installed the brake pads?

For clarification; Bleeding the brakes is not bedding the pads & rotors

I would assume that by bedding the pads and rotors you mean allowing break in time while not riding the brakes? No, I don't ever ride the brakes. The thing is, that I trap about 115-120, and am having to slam on the brakes and hold it there for about 10+seconds. I don't understand how a larger contact area wouldn't help slow down the car. As an example (and no I haven't made up my mind on the subject) the Wilwood set in question offers a 4 piston setup, with a larger pad and 12.19" rotors. Since the contact area is larger, and the pad material better, wouldn't this allow for better braking? I have never had a larger brake setup before, but it seems that this would make sense, as long as the oem master cylinder provided enough pressure to support the 4 piston setup. I'm not sure of the new trap speeds, but I'm positive that they will increase due to me having a much higher amount of power. I haven't finished the build yet, but I'm expecting much more. As I had trouble stopping with the old setup, I'm trying to actually prevent a future issue, rather than go for the "bling" option of larger brakes.

talonXracer
03-17-2011, 06:26 AM
The stock rotors with premium pads already provide enough braking force and will stop in the same distance as the willwoods. Just that the willwoods will allow you to perform that braking for repeated braking(as in road course) because the larger surface area allows the brakes to dissapate the heat far quicker. Brakes only transform momentum into heat, the larger brakes are able to dissapate that transformed heat far easier so they can operate for a longer period before they become heat soaked.

The braking distance is the same EXACT distance with the typeS brakes as I had with the WillWoods, if ya want I can provide an excellent deal on a set of WillWoods.

sleepy ep3
03-17-2011, 07:18 AM
Shoot me a pm with pictures and price

Zzyzx
03-17-2011, 09:04 AM
your dealing with two main reasons why a larger rotor & calipers with more pistons don't mean shorter stops.

1st one being basic physics regarding friction. I'll quote http://www.physlink.com/education/askexperts/ae140.cfm


Question: Why doesn't friction depend on surface area?
Asked by: Elizabeth Stewart

Answer: Although a larger area of contact between two surfaces would create a larger source of frictional forces, it also reduces the pressure between the two surfaces for a given force holding them together. Since pressure equals force divided by the area of contact, it works out that the increase in friction generating area is exactly offset by the reduction in pressure; the resulting frictional forces, then, are dependent only on the frictional coefficient of the materials and the FORCE holding them together.

If you were to increase the force as you increased the area to keep PRESSURE the same, then increasing the area WOULD increase the frictional force between the two surfaces.

Answered by: Paul Walorski, B.A. Physics, Part-time Physics Instructor

the 2nd one is that there are two friction systems within your brakes. The first one is the interaction of the caliper, rotor and brake pad, the 2nd is the interaction between the tire and the road surface. Altering the maximum torque output of one does not change the maximum torque output of the other. And since your tires are (hopefully) the only thing touching the ground; that means they are the only thing that can impart a force the road surface to slow the car down. Meaning increasing the brake torque output of the calipers rotors and pads with out increasing the brake torque output of the tires/road doesn't really gain you much. So we can say that the tire is ultimately the biggest limiting factor on how quickly you can slow a car down, and the rest of the brake system has to work within those constraints.


Funny thing you'll find on those Willwoods (or any BBK builder thats done their homework), the total diameter of all four pistons on one of the calipers will be less the the total diameter of the pistons found on one of the OEM calipers. Meaning the 4 piston calipers will actually generate a lower clamp load for a given input then the OEM calipers will; and with good reason, brake bias. Which is annother problem all together.


Edit: Glazed pads & rotors greatly reduce the coefficient of friction between them, and thus longer stopping distances. So if glazing is the issue you are dealing with its an easy fix, take sand paper to both the rotor & pad to take the glazing off. Problem is, we still need to solve the why its happening. In which my best guess is repeated heating and cooling of the brakes at the drag strip. So, I would recommend going with a more aggressive pad (one with a higher fade temp) and possibly slotted rotors (to scrape any glazing that may occur off of the pads surface).

sleepy ep3
03-18-2011, 11:08 PM
Well, that being said, (appreciate the info) is there a company that makes aftermarket brake master cylinders for the ep? Further, is there a company that has a larger piston area surface than stock? I have tried to find info on this subject, but the info that any sellers have seems to be limited. Most places only have the rotor diameter, etc. I have looked into every kit that I could find, including
Project Mu
Rotora
Spoon
Brembo
Wilwood
Greddy (yes they make bbk's)
T1R
And others that I can't think of right now. I honestly couldn't believe the price of the Spoon calipers when I saw it. $1600??!! That's crazy for just calipers. I know my initial price for doing this was a bit low, the highest I would want to spend would be $1500. Does anyone have any personal experience with a setup that performs excellent? I drag race the ep right now, but I will be doing some auto-x in the future. Please lmk

USAF EP3
03-19-2011, 12:29 AM
Well, that being said, (appreciate the info) is there a company that makes aftermarket brake master cylinders for the ep? Further, is there a company that has a larger piston area surface than stock? I have tried to find info on this subject, but the info that any sellers have seems to be limited. Most places only have the rotor diameter, etc. I have looked into every kit that I could find, including
Project Mu
Rotora
Spoon
Brembo
Wilwood
Greddy (yes they make bbk's)
T1R
And others that I can't think of right now. I honestly couldn't believe the price of the Spoon calipers when I saw it. $1600??!! That's crazy for just calipers. I know my initial price for doing this was a bit low, the highest I would want to spend would be $1500. Does anyone have any personal experience with a setup that performs excellent? I drag race the ep right now, but I will be doing some auto-x in the future. Please lmk

Don't mean to derail from the subject too much but...

Advice from a fellow autox-er to a future autox-er, braking is the LAST thing you want to be doing to get good autox times, if anything it's all about steering input, smoothness and TIRES!!!!

I can't emphasize enough how important tires are in autox-ing. It's the second best mod you can do to improve autox times, first being the driver.

Also, I don't know how much power you're putting down, but if you're doing anything over 250whp in the EP, you won't see it on an autox course. At that power level it would be better suited to road racing/courses. I'm sitting just over 200whp and it's hard to put that power to the ground in such tight spaces. If anything I think I was slightly faster when I had my A3 doing 155whp.

neoamd
03-19-2011, 01:21 AM
Shoot me a pm with pictures and price

Here you go. Buy the extra set of pads too:

http://www.ephatch.com/forum/showthread.php?61666-ROTORA-big-brake-kit!-Tokico-blues-with-Sportline-springs

talonXracer
03-19-2011, 05:48 AM
AGAIN, you will not stop any faster with a 1600$+ big brake setup than with the stock brakes with upgraded pads.

T-BAR
03-19-2011, 09:32 AM
As someone with a set of Willwood brakes on my EP3 i agree with Talon, i wish i had ended up just upgrading the pads and rotors like i did in the rear(sts) however they are on there now and i really dont want to spend anymore money on my brake system then I already have.

Use the extra money you would have spent on an expensive kit and use it towards good tyres, imho.

sleepy ep3
03-19-2011, 03:54 PM
Don't mean to derail from the subject too much but...

Advice from a fellow autox-er to a future autox-er, braking is the LAST thing you want to be doing to get good autox times, if anything it's all about steering input, smoothness and TIRES!!!!

I can't emphasize enough how important tires are in autox-ing. It's the second best mod you can do to improve autox times, first being the driver.

Also, I don't know how much power you're putting down, but if you're doing anything over 250whp in the EP, you won't see it on an autox course. At that power level it would be better suited to road racing/courses. I'm sitting just over 200whp and it's hard to put that power to the ground in such tight spaces. If anything I think I was slightly faster when I had my A3 doing 155whp.

I plan to run slicks when I go racing, it's the slowing down part that I'm trying to improve. I plan on doing some road racing, but that's in the future. What is the size of the stock rotor, I don't have one with me. Does anyone know?

bonSaI
03-23-2011, 05:10 PM
i dont understand why people are still confused. the brake guru down there eplained why and what big brakes are for. ill try to add to i for more information.

big break kits are ONLY to help when your using the brakes repeadedly. if anyone here has experienced brake fade you are a candidate for a big brake kit. brake fade is when you hit the brakes and the brake pedal goes to the floor and you have to PUMP the brake to build pressure up to get the car to stop. brake fade is from the brake fluid boiling in the caliper. as you know, (hopefully) liquids cannot be compressed, but air can. when the fluid boils it creates air. the air then acts as something that can be compressed instead of the force going to the pistons and pushing on the pads to squeez the rotors. instead the bubbles are being compressed and taking that energy. you have to pump the brakes to get enough pressure in the line to fully compress the bubbles until they cant be compressed anymore. so theres a brake fade lesson. anyone who has had this happen going into a turn while hard breaking im sure had to change their underwear or get a new car. (hopefully the driver and passengers are still able to read this)

now a big break kit could stop the car faster if the tires could get more grip. the limniting factor is how much grip the tires have to slow the vehicle. now, brake fade comes back because of the grip issue. people put wider tires on their cars. these wider tires have more grip. so then the brakes are working harder because the added grip allows you to hit the brakes harder and stop faster. but oem brakes arent made to push a 235 width tire to their full potention as far as braking goes. they start to get brake fade when your using the brakes hard going into turns every 5-15 seconds using them to stop hard from lets say 90mph to 60mph in lets say 2 seconds. thats about what a good 235 width tire with good brakes will do. but you do that time after time with OEM brakes the brake fluid starts to boils. then the next time you go into a turn you cant stop beczuse the pedal is on the floor. then your going into a turn youve been taking at 60 at maybe 80. a big brake kit would have just saved your life. because they are biggr and have less fluid in each piston. but have more piston they have the same clamping force, but its over a larger area so the heat will disapate much faster. now with a big brake kit, and some high temp fluid you shouldnt ever get brake fade. but in some cases you still could. the hardest thing are your brakes if you drive canyons are the downhill runs where a steep grade is. yea you can haul butt and your 155hp car seems like it has 250hp now. but now your going into turns faster, and the brakes are working against gravity more. brake fade is scary. get a big break kit if you relate to anything i just said.

with autox, a good pad will be sufficent unless the course is longer than 5 minutes lap time. im not sure ive seen one longer than that.

the brake guru is right about the glazzing. get a better pad. at 120 mph you shouldnt be able to put that much force into your brake pedal and not have tires locking up.you really cant put full force to your brakes until under 100. depending tires tires, but over 100mph and hitting your brakes hard is scetchy.