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BBK a good idea?

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So my rear calipers need replacing. I’m thinking to go down the bbk route front and rear. I don’t track the car but do drive it pretty hard on the road. Is a bbk a good idea? I’ve never been over impressed with the oem brakes, and would like an aftermarket option. 
 

If so, which bbk would you recommend for street driving?

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Driving within legal speedlimits, even when "enthusiastically"/"hard"/"canyon runs" will never taxate enough brakes (with exception of long mountain downhill driving), so shouldn't impact getting or not BBK. But possible BBK illeffects, eg. worse wheel fitment/clearance (extra $$$$ to by new wheels (and maybe tires)), not getting enough heat in brakes/loosing bedded layer in daily driving and often BBK pads not having noise and vibration reduction bits like shims and such, thus noise/squealing problems, or bad resistance to eg. road salt for more track oriented kits w/o dustboots and of dual-piece rotors, are much more possible to propagate, way more so then chance of ever hitting stock brake limits.

If you don't track, no need for BBK. If one does drive on public roads to objectively need BBK, imho one's licence should be suspended.

So my recommendation would be to keep using stockers and money better spent elsewhere :). Be it some comfort/visual mods, better and more frequent maintenance. ... or .. start tracking :D (and by time maybe actually need BBK), as it's imho very interesting and fun hobby and i never regret got hooked on, despite now spending lot on it.

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But they certainly look good.
Many of us (myself including) tracked stock car first, then changed front brakes for BBK and changed rear pads only.
I will change rears to BBK as well when my current pads are finished (probably by mid next year after 4-5 more track days), but it would be mainly for cosmetic reasons. a770745bfe4424cfe8d6b5276ee2caa7.jpgb557c450f27a706d0cd92e5ee23b1d81.jpg

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They look good .. and you probably paid for them + wheels .. i guess 1-3K? And from looks side 90% consists of wheels .. that could be bought alone w/o BBK then. BBK for looks .. very few look or notice something behind wheels .. and for most of that simple painting of calipers should do/be much cheaper/won't bring any mentioned drawbacks.

Remember infamous meme of caliper-less front brakes on golf in Fast & Furious movie? When i stumbled upon pic "on internet", yes, it was funny. But watching movie - i simply didn't noticed that fact. Shows how big portion of looks BBK calipers actually may make up in eyes of majority.

It's just like with too wide wheels just for sake of looks. Very few will notice but owner will need to suffer illeffects. Rarely someone looks on width of wheels on car in front, rarely anybody has weird fetish on leaning down to look at width on parked cars. Hence my advise for changes be done with rational thinking/evaluation of price&return/doing homework and learning about possible illeffects too.

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Church I know what you are saying but I’ve just been quoted £1250 for a set of 4 oem calipers by Toyota (I have a feeling the front ones may start with the same issue next). 
 

Considering this is only for calipers, and doesn’t include pads, discs, fitting etc, wouldn’t it be more cost effective in the long run to upgrade to a bbk? As the price isn’t too dis similar from what Toyota have quoted me. 
 

Again, if you have recommendations for street use this is much appreciated.

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Hmm. Wait a sec. Why there was need to change calipers and why all four (not some scamming from dealership by chance)? Or you inquired about retrofitting of OE brembos? Those it makes little sense to buy separately, way too expensive, and by then yes, aftermarket BBK makes more sense to buy, to get as good for less or better for that unjustified price (good deal as option for new car though).

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Church I know what you are saying but I’ve just been quoted £1250 for a set of 4 oem calipers by Toyota (I have a feeling the front ones may start with the same issue next). 
 
Considering this is only for calipers, and doesn’t include pads, discs, fitting etc, wouldn’t it be more cost effective in the long run to upgrade to a bbk? As the price isn’t too dis similar from what Toyota have quoted me. 
 
Again, if you have recommendations for street use this is much appreciated.
Thats way too much. If thats your starting point and cost benchmark, I would go BBK.

Or pick up 2nd hand OEMs.

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I'd advise against retrofitting brakes from other car. Of course, illeffects may matter less for not tracked car, that is not pushed and driven with nannies on, but it still feels wrong thing to do. OE twins brembos IIRC will cost 2.5K for brake part + cost of wheels that will clear them (original IIRC didn't), or extended studs & spacers.

Still, can you tell what issues your brakes had that warrant caliper replacement? Usually most issues can be handled by simple rehaul of brakes. Replacing seals, regreasing, if worn, pad change, sometimes extra bedding, with calipers very rarely getting to state of not usable.

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44 minutes ago, Church said:

Hmm. Wait a sec. Why there was need to change calipers and why all four (not some scamming from dealership by chance)? Or you inquired about retrofitting of OE brembos? Those it makes little sense to buy separately, way too expensive, and by then yes, aftermarket BBK makes more sense to buy, to get as good for less or better for that unjustified price (good deal as option for new car though).

The rear calipers need changing as they are aggressively dragging. I have had them taken apart and reworked but the same issue returned about 4 weeks later. I was advised the only other option is to replace the calipers, as it is probably a problem with the pistons. 
 

The reason for replacing the front as well is I can feel them starting to drag, and best to be proactive and get all done at the same time. The £1250 quote was for oem standard callipers, not brembo. It seems a crazy price to me. 

Sti front brembos wouldn’t solve my problem as the main issue is the rear calipers. Also not overly keen on 2nd hand oems, as they may be more prone to a similar problem in the future.

 

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To me it sounds like case of brake overhaul. And i don't think it's any inherent issue of OE brake design. Rather common design, used in many if not most cars for stock brakes. And if anything, our fronts are same as on wrx (IIRC 2005?) and rears from legacy gt. But i don't see many complaining about stock twins or wrx or legacy their brakes wise or major recalls with them.

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16 minutes ago, Church said:

To me it sounds like case of brake overhaul. And i don't think it's any inherent issue of OE brake design. Rather common design, used in many if not most cars for stock brakes. And if anything, our fronts are same as on wrx (IIRC 2005?) and rears from legacy gt. But i don't see many complaining about stock twins or wrx or legacy their brakes wise or major recalls with them.

I think you might be right. I’ve managed to find a company online who are local to myself, and include a painting service with a caliper overhaul. The best of both worlds!

This maybe a newbie question but do the oem calipers have one pot or more?

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IIRC one pot rears, two pot fronts. Common for OE brakes of that size. It shouldn't matter much for daily driving how much pots there are, as many pots are more only for more even press very large pads, and it's fronts that do most job, but redundant pots will complify design, add failure points, rise manufacturing costs.

BTW, if it may come handy, part numbers for rubber seals sets are for front SU003-04523 and for rear SU003-04098. Also worth using right greases for right uses. For example not all greases are ok on rubber, not all where high temps.

As for situation in general, piston sticking (i guess what you meant with aggressively dragging), seizing, not knocking back, in most cases it might be from improper lubrication (on eg. slider pins) and/or dust build-up in calipers (eg. where pad "ears" go). It might be some issue with piston or caliper scratched/deformed (eg. by high temps burning off dust seals and crap/dust getting in there) and alike, but imho way less probable. And usually issue happens with just one brake, easily locateable by comparing temps of brakes, so changing all four sounds like (expensive) overkill. Also just slight squaling here and there during slow driving is not always any big issue. If really seized and that brake assembly overheated by past reasonable from constant pad drag, then it's big issue needing to fix, i doubt in happening at all the brakes though.

I'd just take to competent shop and tell to change seals & dust boots, thoroughly clean with appropriate chemicals, brush wire and alike tools calipers, properly grease where and with what needed and call it done. OK, ok, and tell them extra to inspect rears, voicing your concerns and that list (of whatever done 4 weeks ago) made issue reappear. Even if one caliper needs to be replaced, it should cost .. a bit less then four and certainly less then BBK, no? :)

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I think you might be right. I’ve managed to find a company online who are local to myself, and include a painting service with a caliper overhaul. The best of both worlds!
This maybe a newbie question but do the oem calipers have one pot or more?
Why dont you try to get a similar quote from your nearest Subaru dealer for a full set replacement and check if it comes any cheaper as they use it on other cars. I suspect it's a rarely replaced part and toyota GB are asking for the part from IM and applying a mark up. Worth double checking just to be sure.

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You can probably pick up refurbed calipers on an exchange basis. I have looked on Brakes International. They don't seem to have any at present but might be worth an email to them. sales@brakesint.co.uk

I can't see why you can't get your existing rears refurbed in all honesty. My rears have done 144K miles. They do have some issues with raised bits of pad at times causing them to squeak at low speeds, but I've just learnt to ignore it. It's not a problem as such. The trouble is with BBK, is that you don't need to change the rears, so you'd be better off either refurbing or replacing just the rears if you have to. I'm running AP 4 pots up front (Reyland kit for £1500), they are brilliant to be fair, already done 40K miles on them and still have plenty left on pads and discs. I do a lot of track work and competition though. For road driving, even driving the car hard, OEM are perfectly up to the job. The only time I've found them a little lacking was driving hard on Alpine descents but it's not like I do that often! 

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I have front calipers (including part worn oem pads), and also front oem disks if you need them.

Used for 3.5k miles0c2811e8f4183bea2f6fd4a80ca11a8d.jpg6f01f8e7b45a44fd12f73b0083ef8841.jpg15234dbf890cafa4d2f2cb8fe0f6c4a2.jpg

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I have a set of rear callipers, done less than 15k miles there. I recently bought them to replace one of my seized rear callipers (piston problem) but I fixed the error with the tapping of the brake pedal, degreaser and then mintex slider grease. I am buying a BBK, because on the contrary to church saying you shouldn’t be driving on public roads if a BBK is required, it isn’t about the speed you are going, but the distance at which you want to stop in. I think what people are trying to say is, that these aren’t the fastest of cars, but you want to keep them up to speed longer than other cars. So there are ultimately 2 options: lower the car to grip more around bends, stop later than other cars.

The first thing you should do before investing into a BBK, is to buy Goodridge SS braided lines, drain your fluid and invest into some racing brake fluid (AP is the best). I think that will make the biggest difference into your daily driving. And for the sake of a total of £150 all in all, it could be the fix. Definitely worked for me, pedal is stiff as anything, sure I’ve got EBC discs and yellowstuff pads but it does the job for daily driving and an unmodified engine with only 200bhp.

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43 minutes ago, Notaricer said:

I am buying a BBK, because on the contrary to church saying you shouldn’t be driving on public roads if a BBK is required, it isn’t about the speed you are going, but the distance at which you want to stop in. 

A BBK won't technically decrease your stopping distances - that's down to the pads and the tyres. You could run a BBK with crap pads and tyres and have a longer stopping distances than OEM brakes with mid range pads and tyres. The big advantage of a BBK is increased heat capacity so if you are doing a lot of sequential high speed stops they'll manage that much better with less fade than an OEM set up which will eventually reach a point of overheating and then fading. It's difficult to imagine a situation you'd manage that in on a public road though other than if you were constantly driving high speed alpine esq descents.

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Pads also don't play much role in distances as long as brake assembly as a whole provides enough brake friction/torque to be able to lock wheels. Higher or lesser brakes overall friction will mean just how long pedal travel will go to that same-max-possible-with-tires-installed-point. Once wheels are locked (or as one of variations, ABS is triggered), it doesn't matter how much exactly friction keeps them locked, 100.1% or 300%, you won't stop faster vs what max grip of tires allows.

So only cases when BBK can shorten distance is when previous brakes setup max friction is less then grip of tires, for example scenario of very grippy low threadwear track slicks and stock brakes+stock pads (simplest indicator if you can or cannot lock wheels braking or if you can or cannot trigger ABS), or in less common case, if car is modified (with eg. aero downforce mods, for example fitting big rear wing but no front splitter) in way to noticeably shift grip bias from stock grip bias, thus braking better with brakes bias that is more optimal to such changed grip bias).

Then again to some extent stock brakes can be modified even for these cases, for example with aftermarket higher friction pads to counter former max friction issue with too grippy tires and staggered pads choice (or installing custom biasing valve) for later case.

So advantages of BBK is just as Deacon says - increased heat capacity (and/or better cooling). Brakes are after all device to convert kinetical energy to heat, with finite capacity and specific rate of dissipating acumulated heat. That's where OEM brakes shortcomings are. Not stopping distances. Same distance braking, but for eg. 10min, not 30min long track sessions, prior overheating and starting to loose brake proper functioning for various reasons, if such wording easier to understand. (leaving out less important advantages, eg. in some BBKs wearables are cheaper, many allow weight reduction, and yes, looks & coolness :), as those are secondary to main, heat capacity increase, and can be offset with drawbacks of aftermarket BBKs, such as cost, corrosion issues, noise, worse wheel clearance (and in some cases non road-legality))

And you don't hit that limitation unless you have modded car to differ way past what manufacturer designed it. Tires with twice the grip the stock ones are hardly what manufacturer intended it for and designed all the rest subsystems to work with (eg. suspension and brakes), OR are driving like one shouldn't legally, with on-track like repeatedly full on acceleration overspeeding past limits (take note, that many speed limits are usually posted for average cars/trucks/vans, many if not most of which have even less grip then ours with stock primacies) and then full on braking (risking being rear ended or simply looking a***ole in eyes of others) and repeat that many times, OR overheat during long downhill on mountain road. But even while last one is valid scenario even if driven within speed limits .. aren't people being taught anymore of proper brake use on downhills with engine braking and alike? Even BBK can be overheated on long downhill, though it will last longer, so even with BBK one shouldn't abuse brakes past reasonable.

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