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gavin_t

Big brake kit time?

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Hi Burtie178

Back when I did sprints and trackdays while NA, the front discs were fine provided you keep the stints down to 15 to 20mins. Cooling down period in the paddock is also pretty good for the brakes and tyres.

I did change the discs to DBA and various pad combinations, this provided a little better performance but lost some feel over the OEM set up.

I also ran Conti's early on and found they are a good tyre and offer a little more forward grip but not as much lateral, the PS4 is a better all round tyre I found and maybe worth changing to when replacement arrives.

Have fun and enjoy your car, always advice available on here.

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Yes on thing I miss off my list of BBK pros was the brake feel.

Although I am convinced you can make the stock sized brakes work even for Lewis Hamilton with the right discs/pads. One thing you wont have is the rock solid pedal you get with a BBK lap after lap. 

The stock floating caliper is prone to flex and also on a BBK with big discs, the pistons are much smaller meaning the pressure you actually put on the disc via the pad is lower, that plus the caliper is a two piece bolted and quite rigid. The result is rock hard pedal as long as the pads dont fade/melt. 

Even after 3 years mine still impress me so much. 

 

My advice with anyone starting out is to try the stock disc with a decent pad and see how you get on. It will become clear if the stock setup is limiting in some way.

@church heat kills the piston seals too as well as the dust boots. As I said mine started leaking. 

 

Contis are one of my favorite road tyres, but they get hot and wear very quick at the track. I would have had them over the PS4 if I was certain I wouldn't use them on track. 

 

 

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Ade: Hmm, so if i wasn't that happy with PS4 as dual-use tire tracked, and contis (sportcontact, not premiumcontact, right?) are referred as even worse then PS4, then i shouldn't consider them for DD tire that gets few times tracked aswell? I guess that narrows down tire choice for my use specifics to AD08R & "old" PSS. Currently i'm on ultrac vorti 225/45 (on 17x7.5), but not happy with duller feel vs 215/45 PS4 i had before. Not 100% sure if due tire or due less-stretching sizing.

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Street tyres are so much different, I am now in the realms of very high grip and wide tyres and even choosing compounds. When I drive my OH's 86 that is NA, the PS4 seem pretty good all round but would suffer on a dry track day.

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Tubbytommy: my 2 cents - you shouldn't. If you can get hold of PS4S, that is PSS successor (but AFAIK PS4S sold as 17" only in US), then probably different story, but i disliked how almost new PS4 changed after one heavy dry trackday on them (two full tanks driven that day, if indicator of track mileage :)). Weird wear, with lips on outer threadpatches, a bit dropped overall grip, and became rather noisy. I moved in my book PS4 to wet-only-track or good allaround DD tire, but not for dry tracking. Though maybe, just maybe, they may last on track better if used in wide sizing as some use (245-265), but my dry track experience of them stock 215/45 sized doesn't favor them much. Good street tire at wrong type of use.

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2 hours ago, Church said:

Ade: Hmm, so if i wasn't that happy with PS4 as dual-use tire tracked, and contis (sportcontact, not premiumcontact, right?) are referred as even worse then PS4, then i shouldn't consider them for DD tire that gets few times tracked aswell? I guess that narrows down tire choice for my use specifics to AD08R & "old" PSS. Currently i'm on ultrac vorti 225/45 (on 17x7.5), but not happy with duller feel vs 215/45 PS4 i had before. Not 100% sure if due tire or due less-stretching sizing.

I'm not 100% you'll be overly happy with the new AD08RS tyres unless you can still get hold of the AD08R's where you are? They've altered the compound to improve the fuel consumption and it seems that may be at the cost of some of their grip. At the moment I haven't been able to match the lap time I could get on PS4's and have noticed extra understeer. However, so far the AD08RS use I've had has been in very high temperature whereas my best lap time was set in October so it could just be that. 

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Tubbytommy: wait. you got it a bit wrong. They are excellent wet track tyres :). You don't overheat tyres, traction is much better then for those tyres that are designed for most grip and best handling in dry. If lap times you are after and it happens to rain, most probably PS4 will net more grip, speed and control :). It's dry track that imho they don't do well for long, after overheating loosing their edge.

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Burtie178: if "cheap BBK conversion" is fitting from different car used brake set, i advise against. Higher heat capacity is not worth potentially less stable car or longer braking distances due probable brake bias change. I'd much prefer keeping using stock brakes if budget is tight then to retrofit.

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59 minutes ago, Burtie178 said:

Thanks Guys, some good advice.

Will probably replace just the pads and fluid to start off with and see how I get on, with as KevinA mentioned, shorter stints......

Unless a cheap BBK conversion comes up 🙈😂

If you're after a set of decent hybrid road / track pads there was a front and rear set of Project Mu Hc800+ pads on the Facebook sale group for a good price. (Think it was £300 for front and rear but I can't remember 100%)

Tashan also had a bargain Stoptech front BBK listed with a set of brand new PFC.08 endurance pads (amazing pads) for £1000 but I'm not sure if that was snapped up.

May be worth a look. 

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1 hour ago, Church said:

Burtie178: if "cheap BBK conversion" is fitting from different car used brake set, i advise against. Higher heat capacity is not worth potentially less stable car or longer braking distances due probable brake bias change. I'd much prefer keeping using stock brakes if budget is tight then to retrofit.

By cheap I was referring more to a deal, I had came close to buying the Impreza setup until I heard some people’s opinions

I do wonder though if the Brembo upgrade with the Performance pack on the Blue GT86’s are the same callipers? They certainly look very similar

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44 minutes ago, Deacon said:

If you're after a set of decent hybrid road / track pads there was a front and rear set of Project Mu Hc800+ pads on the Facebook sale group for a good price. (Think it was £300 for front and rear but I can't remember 100%)

Tashan also had a bargain Stoptech front BBK listed with a set of brand new PFC.08 endurance pads (amazing pads) for £1000 but I'm not sure if that was snapped up.

May be worth a look. 

Cheers for the info dude, I’ll have a look. There are some Project Mu pads on eBay 0-500, not sure what their rated for 

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Be warned with the HC800+ they can squeal. #becauseracecar

I struggled to fade them but I got really fast wear. They lasted two trackdays for me and covered my OEM wheels with a nice sprinkle of iron particles which etched into the lacquer. 

They are good pads but if you a reasonably hard on brakes, you might be better having a set of track pads and a set of raod pads, which will be cheaper in the long run and give you a nice road experience. 

 

Edit

Evidence:

The white sulfur is from high wear/fade (though as mentioned the stopping power was always spretty good on a stock car with primacies)

36746557722_59b08677c4_b.jpg

 

 

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7 hours ago, Luke said:

What caliper paint did you use? It looks like it's caught fire lol. 

Foliatec it was about the highest temp paint I could find! 300C. 

That was after a few trackdays. The issue of the floating bit of the caliper. It has a larger surface area that conducts heat from the pad  very effectivley, so it gets very hot. You can see at the back where the piston is touching the pad, the paint survived. 

Also RIP to the red rubber grease used on the slider pins. 

 

 

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3 hours ago, Luke said:

Well that seems like a waste of paint unless you go for black in the first place. 

Indeed. I painted them when I got the car and started doing trackdays in it about 3 years later. 

Black also wouldn't work as it chars and flakes off 🤣

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