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Notaricer

Cheap BBK swap

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Okay guys, this is my first post but I have been on the scene for a while and would like to put forward some information for other people on a budget. If people could offer guidance or confirm that I’m taking everything into account I possibly could, then that would also be great!

 

So essentially, if people don’t know, there is a bracket kit from the USA that allows you to put on a brand new set of brembos that are from US specific cars, but at a low price. I had assumed that this would never work for anyone based in the UK, as import fees and the international shipping would discount the thought of even going down that route. Not to mention, maintenance costs for discs and pads would have to come from the US.

 

Anyway, I bit the bullet and decided to purchase this kit (it has not yet come) due to the fact that it is still a cheap option - as opposed to going for an aftermarket kit, or even swapping the scooby brembos over.

Both front brembo calipers have come from ACdelco/GM, and have totalled to £300 - this is not including import fees; I am yet to be hit with them. But for arguments sake, I’m paying £400 for a brand new set of 4 pot brembos. The discs required come from an 04 STi, which would be the case for people doing the scooby swap. If purchasing these calipers, you would need to buy the pins and carriers separately (about £30 for a set).

 

Next up is the brackets from ctsvbrakeswap. For the 4 pot upgrade (they do a 6 pot one too) it is $220 + $35 for intl. shipping. So $255 plus taxes will easily be £275. So we’re talking about £700 so far. The discs are about £150 for a decent grooved pair.

 

The pads have been the hardest part to find. I think this calliper is the same as the Volvo S60 R and V70 R.... I’ve managed to find some ferodo DS2500’s for thag calliper (I’m just waiting on confirmation of sizes).

 

So just to be on the safe side it’s about £1000 for this whole kit. If anyone has done this swap in the UK, or anyone knows anything about where I could source different pads from that would be great. It has been a nightmare to come close to anything.

 

If anyone has raised eyebrows as to why I have made this very difficult for myself when I could settle for going down the scooby route (which I worked out to be around £1500), there are a few reasons: Everything is brand new, but cheaper than an aftermarket kit. Once I have a hold of these brackets, I can then make a CAD drawing to then get some machined for people that would like to take this route even cheaper than I have - if that is something people are interested in?

 

Guys, please don’t talk about brake bias, or anything alike, as we already have heard about this on every BBK topic. The point of this post is that if anyone is savvy with parts coming from different cars that would fit this kit (especially if they can be sourced from the UK), as well as open up the market to find parts from different places, it would make this swap more comforting to people as they have more options to take and are not restricted to what pads they want to buy for example. And it would evidently be cheaper. This is also for people that have taken the same route as me that would like to give their feedback with running the setup!

 

Cheers,

 

Gaz

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Why not talk about brake bias? Shifting it by random caliper swap from other cars will make braking worse or dangerous depending on direction and extent. Brakes are from most important things in any car. Cheaper way to get brembo logo on calipers but paying for that with compromising braking seems wrong thing to do. And endorcing this swap for others - even more so wrong. So despite your asking not to bring that up again, i feel obligation to so that less tech savvy persons won't follow this route just because they didn't do complete homework and looked at price of specific mod only. You decided that it's ok for you, fine. But it would be nice to not convince more people to compromise their brakes, even if car will never see track, but having car to be able to do reliable emergency stops on public roads is no less important.

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Wondering what size disks you're going to be running with this setup? 

For a brembo conversion that seems pretty good but I'm not sure it's worth the bother against the ksport 8pot.

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[mention]Church [/mention] I don’t require your theoretical skepticism, to which there is a simple solution for. If you feel you’re not happy with the brake bias, simply adjust your cross shaft by screwing it in and out to imbalance the two bars (front and rear). Or better yet buy a balance bar so you can adjust from within the cabin. I’ve seen your arguments towards brake bias repeatedly. They just seem to attack the decisions of others, whilst just regurgitating information that everyone understands. Like i said, the topic of brake bias has been extensively covered, and I as well as others understand the implications of changing setups like this. There is no need to go over this again. If people have questions regarding this, they can make their own post, and I’m sure you would be more than happy to put your two pence in.

Not that it’s anyone’s business, but I would benefit from a forward brake bias due to using the car for drifting. It’s each to their own, and much of a muchness to make a subjective argument as someone may well just want to buy this kit for aesthetics. People buy quick-release steering wheels all the time, and there’s no safety benefit from them on the road

As for ‘endorsing’ the swap, you have interpreted what I have said wrong, or you have used the wrong vocabulary. This is a summary of what I have had to do as well as informing others of costs. If anyone else is looking to carry out this swap, they are more than welcome to ask me questions in relation to it.

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Wondering what size disks you're going to be running with this setup? 
For a brembo conversion that seems pretty good but I'm not sure it's worth the bother against the ksport 8pot.

These are just the 326mm rotors from the STi. You can go for the 6 pot kit they offer, but it’s a bit too much for what I need. They actually do a conversion kit from the 4 to the 6 so if you’re not happy or are looking for a change it’s really easy to swap out. The disc size is the same for both though if I remember correctly.

I will be using this for fast road and light track use. The main problem I’ve been having is heat dissipation. My stock discs have cracked (only on the front). And when I went for uprated discs, they warped. This seems like a sure fire way of going about it, or at least I hope so. I don’t need overkill. I would definitely go for the AP 6 pot kit if 1. I had the money and 2. If it made sense.

Like I said to church, it’s all much of a muchness. I’ll be honest though, I haven’t done much research on the ksports. I feel like because they are a BBK which is more affordable, that they arguably aren’t made to the same quality/standard as the other kits. That’s why I went down the route of picking up a genuine brembo kit from a production car, even though it wasn’t designed for my car - I can make all the necessary tweaks. It has been extensively reviewed and many people seem happy with it. It’s a budget option that I’ve not heard anyone from the UK have explored, but you’re not cheaping out on parts if that makes sense.

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OE brembo calipers are often not that much different from .. well, OE capability brakes :). Brand alone is not only thing characterizing brakes. Brembo makes different line ups of various purpose and price level, from basic kits to race forged calipers comparable to eg. of AP Racing's Radi-CALs. Price scales up in similar way. But so do capabilities.

If you ran into deficiencies of stock brake heat capacity, i'd probably think of BBK that is known to provide such, not just that has branding of upper tier brake manufacturers on it. Also adding brake cooling ducts should help. Logo on calipers doesn't stop car, brakes themselves do. And most blind retrofits from other cars with ensuring just mounting capability and how much they cost can result in worse braking then that of OE brakes. Even if now having 'brembo' on calipers.

Drifting in twins? Good luck, but they are not exactly best fit for that. Main problem being limited max turn angle due limited wheel clearance due wide boxer engine dimensions (for cheaper end you can consider wheel spacers+megan racing tie rod rack ends. won't cost much, but also won't net much of extra angle). Unfortunately most ways to fix that completely are usually too costly (eg. almost complete front suspension replacement with some wisefab kit + some wide body kit due now wider spaced wheels) and can also make car less street legal, or at least compromised for non-drift use (proper drift suspension usually means also very high camber, eg. -4 to -6dg, anti-ackerman geometry, and they usually have pillowball bushings, which don't stand well with winter road salt). With minimum mods/near stock something like old bmw will do better. Twins do very good for normal track use though. But if car is driven hard on limit on track .. i'd certainly wouldn't want to compromise anything in braking. Only something that will really enhance them, even if it may cost more.

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[mention]Church [/mention] I nearly had a stroke reading that

Well first of all, they’re 4 pots. They have a larger surface area of pistons, pads are larger and the disc is larger. If this didn’t have any difference over my current OE brakes I’d be really concerned. Also, this would be reflected in the reviews that I have seen. The fact that some brands are more reputable than others is not my fault. Brembos are the pinnacle, (or at least they’re made out to be; all the top spec cars such as F1 use them) so I wedged my bets on that. I understand that these callipers are not monoblock or forged aluminium or GT callipers. I also understand that there is someone more knowledgeable out there than I am, but you’re assuming that I’ve made the decision to go for this kit based on a sticker when that couldn’t be more far from the truth. The whole point of this is to express bang for buck. I haven’t found out the bang for myself just yet but I digress. This is about having the largest improvement to price ratio. It just happens to be that brembos fell right into that category.

We’re drifting off topic (pardon the pun) here and getting into semantics. I appreciate the advice for supporting mods for drifting, but this isn’t the topic of discussion.
You’re giving your opinion of what you would do and this isn’t the purpose of what I’m trying to seek out. Surely this is clear?

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3 hours ago, Notaricer said:


These are just the 326mm rotors from the STi. You can go for the 6 pot kit they offer, but it’s a bit too much for what I need. They actually do a conversion kit from the 4 to the 6 so if you’re not happy or are looking for a change it’s really easy to swap out. The disc size is the same for both though if I remember correctly.

I will be using this for fast road and light track use. The main problem I’ve been having is heat dissipation. My stock discs have cracked (only on the front). And when I went for uprated discs, they warped. This seems like a sure fire way of going about it, or at least I hope so. I don’t need overkill. I would definitely go for the AP 6 pot kit if 1. I had the money and 2. If it made sense.

Like I said to church, it’s all much of a muchness. I’ll be honest though, I haven’t done much research on the ksports. I feel like because they are a BBK which is more affordable, that they arguably aren’t made to the same quality/standard as the other kits. That’s why I went down the route of picking up a genuine brembo kit from a production car, even though it wasn’t designed for my car - I can make all the necessary tweaks. It has been extensively reviewed and many people seem happy with it. It’s a budget option that I’ve not heard anyone from the UK have explored, but you’re not cheaping out on parts if that makes sense.

Are those going to fit under stock wheels, or are you not running stock? 

I don't really want to get involved, so I'll just say, 290mm vs 326mm disks gives about 30% more surface area to dissipate heat. That's not insignificant and will certainly help out on track. 

Hope to see you on a trackday at some point! 

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Are those going to fit under stock wheels, or are you not running stock? 
I don't really want to get involved, so I'll just say, 290mm vs 326mm disks gives about 30% more surface area to dissipate heat. That's not insignificant and will certainly help out on track. 
How to see you on a trackday at some point! 

No I’m not running stock wheels. They will fit under most aftermarket 17’s though. I’ve got 18’s so they will clear no problem. I’ll update this post when I’ve ran them in.

Believe it or not though mate, both sets of discs cracked/warped on the road and not on track. You could say I’m a spirited driver and finds some roads worthy of track-like driving. But in all honesty, it’s done that only driving 8/10ths. Hopefully the limiting factor will be me, and not the car - that’ll definitely be the sweet spot

For sure mate! I’ll give you a shout if I book something, which I hope is in the near future.

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Ah yes, the budget option that requires after market wheels 😅. Unfortunately that's the standard for any worthwhile brake upgrade for the 86.

If they were "stock" blank disks that you had issues with in not all that surprised. I only did one trackday with them and had horrible brake judder, got rid of them rapidly. 

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Ah yes, the budget option that requires after market wheels . Unfortunately that's the standard for any worthwhile brake upgrade for the 86.
If they were "stock" blank disks that you had issues with in not all that surprised. I only did one trackday with them and had horrible brake judder, got rid of them rapidly. 

An installation video I watched a while back said in order for it to fit under stock 17’s, you would need to shave the top of the calliper and run spacers which then meant you would also need longer bolts. I guess that’s a budget way of doing things.
Well the last set I had was the EBC Ultimax Slotted with Yellowstuff pads. The brake judder was horrendous; I had to heat them up again to get them to square back up

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I can't help but think your efforts are a little wasted. You can buy a 4 pot brembo BBK in the UK from Godspeed at £999. It sounds identical to what you are doing.

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I can't help but think your efforts are wasted. You can buy a 4 pot brembo BBK in the UK from Godspeed at £999. It sounds identical to what you are doing.

I did have a look at them, and they’re not the same. The ones I have bought are a bigger calliper 4 pot and those callipers on Godspeed allow for 125mm, whereas the the ones I have got allow 170mm pads. I’m guessing that also translates to surface area of the cylinders, meaning they are in fact larger - but I could be wrong; they could just house larger pads.

I did include the cost of the ferodo pads in the price - which are circa £240 on their own. But I’ll let you make your own assumptions.

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16 hours ago, Notaricer said:


These are just the 326mm rotors from the STi. You can go for the 6 pot kit they offer, but it’s a bit too much for what I need. They actually do a conversion kit from the 4 to the 6 so if you’re not happy or are looking for a change it’s really easy to swap out. The disc size is the same for both though if I remember correctly.

I will be using this for fast road and light track use. The main problem I’ve been having is heat dissipation. My stock discs have cracked (only on the front). And when I went for uprated discs, they warped. This seems like a sure fire way of going about it, or at least I hope so. I don’t need overkill. I would definitely go for the AP 6 pot kit if 1. I had the money and 2. If it made sense.

Like I said to church, it’s all much of a muchness. I’ll be honest though, I haven’t done much research on the ksports. I feel like because they are a BBK which is more affordable, that they arguably aren’t made to the same quality/standard as the other kits. That’s why I went down the route of picking up a genuine brembo kit from a production car, even though it wasn’t designed for my car - I can make all the necessary tweaks. It has been extensively reviewed and many people seem happy with it. It’s a budget option that I’ve not heard anyone from the UK have explored, but you’re not cheaping out on parts if that makes sense.

Just to add for the cost and effort I’d have just fitted the ksports.

They maybe on the cheap end of a bbk but just because you bought a brembo caliper off a production car doesn’t make it any better. I’d hazard a guess at most the production stuff is of a poorer quality as it is built down to a price. Maybe if you’d have sourced from a broken Ferrari or something then that’d be different.

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Just to add for the cost and effort I’d have just fitted the ksports.
They maybe on the cheap end of a bbk but just because you bought a brembo caliper off a production car doesn’t make it any better. I’d hazard a guess at most the production stuff is of a poorer quality as it is built down to a price. Maybe if you’d have sourced from a broken Ferrari or something then that’d be different.

That’s your prerogative mate. You’re doing exactly what church is saying that I’m doing - which is rationalising decisions based on labels. Just because a calliper comes off a Ferrari does not mean that is good, which is the same for the approach that I have taken. That’s like me saying that the sky is blue and you arguing with me and saying that it is also blue; It doesn’t make any sense.

The production car this comes off is a Cadillac CTS-V which is high-end car (6.2L supercharged) over in the states as far I’m concerned, if that’s any consolation for you.

Like I said before, this build has had many positive reviews over the water. I will update this thread with my opinions should anyone choose to read.

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High end car, or what might warrant rather more braking - powerful engine + heavy weight, doesn't mean that brakes will be better. There is often in track use context mentioned thing like 'underbraked car', mostly insufficient heat capacity wise. Good example would be big ass SUVs. They weight a LOT .. yet often their brakes are very (relatively) of little heat capacity. They do their job for daily driving for eg. single or two emergency stop, but i guess one can easily boil brakes on those 2+T trucks (especially if with powerful FI engines) with even 5min if not shorter track session or on long downhills. Imho also many american cars in general often are relatively underbraked .. including powerful musclecars, despite their weight of 1.7T.

Even car being 'sporty' doesn't automatically mean very capable brakes. For example, OE brakes wise i seen S2000 mentioned as more underbraked car then twins. Also the older car is .. there imho is trend that older cars also often had less capable heat-capacity wise brakes, despite them (still) being viewed as sporty ones.

Ferrari, porsches, mclarens .. they may have often relatively bigger then that of average cars brakes .. but people forget, that most of their buyers are rich people that bought it as status car and/or some GT cruiser and will never take theirs to track (unlike us, with cheap ass toyobarus :)). But such customers will certainly complain if their brakes will squeal like idiot at every traffic light and will work badly at cold stops, hence no matter if car is one of 'supercars' .. their stock pads & fluid are often of normal generic street compounds that won't stand to track abuse, even if supposedly it should be ready to hit the track. Brakes .. and alignment also often is not track-oriented as stock (though such cars often have more means to adjust alignment even in stock trim, eg. adjustable shocks, camber/caster adjustment, not just toe, and so on). Only exception might be some uber-expensive brakes of exotic materials, that can both stand to track abuse & be streetable .. but brakes/pads for such usually cost more then our car costs new, and even most supercars are not equipped with such.

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High end car, or what might warrant rather more braking - powerful engine + heavy weight, doesn't mean that brakes will be better. There is often in track use context mentioned thing like 'underbraked car', mostly insufficient heat capacity wise. Good example would be big ass SUVs. They weight a LOT .. yet often their brakes are very (relatively) of little heat capacity. They do their job for daily driving for eg. single or two emergency stop, but i guess one can easily boil brakes on those 2+T trucks (especially if with powerful FI engines) with even 5min if not shorter track session or on long downhills. Imho also many american cars in general often are relatively underbraked .. including powerful musclecars, despite their weight of 1.7T.
Even car being 'sporty' doesn't automatically mean very capable brakes. For example, OE brakes wise i seen S2000 mentioned as more underbraked car then twins. Also the older car is .. there imho is trend that older cars also often had less capable heat-capacity wise brakes, despite them (still) being viewed as sporty ones.
Ferrari, porsches, mclarens .. they may have often relatively bigger then that of average cars brakes .. but people forget, that most of their buyers are rich people that bought it as status car and/or some GT cruiser and will never take theirs to track (unlike us, with cheap ass toyobarus :)). But such customers will certainly complain if their brakes will squeal like idiot at every traffic light and will work badly at cold stops, hence no matter if car is one of 'supercars' .. their stock pads & fluid are often of normal generic street compounds that won't stand to track abuse, even if supposedly it should be ready to hit the track. Brakes .. and alignment also often is not track-oriented as stock (though such cars often have more means to adjust alignment even in stock trim, eg. adjustable shocks, camber/caster adjustment, not just toe, and so on). Only exception might be some uber-expensive brakes of exotic materials, that can both stand to track abuse & be streetable .. but brakes/pads for such usually cost more then our car costs new, and even most supercars are not equipped with such.

You’re doing it again mate! It doesn’t have any relevance

Your first point which I could just about make out, was very wrong indeed. A car that ‘needs’ heavier braking doesn’t necessarily need to be heavier or faster/more powerful - it’s just the speed at which they want to decelerate. F1 cars are insanely light but require going from 100-0 in less than 2 seconds. The limiting factor is tyres, as to which i have 275s all round. I would also only put ceramic brakes or high performance pads under the category of potential ‘under braking’. Steel discs themselves wouldn’t, in my opinion. Their frictional coefficient decreases as heat increases, whereas ceramics and high performance pads are the opposite. The purpose of discs is to provide a mating surface for the pads and to dissipate the heat generated from the friction caused by the rotation of the wheels.

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1 hour ago, Daninplymouth said:

Just to add for the cost and effort I’d have just fitted the ksports.

They maybe on the cheap end of a bbk but just because you bought a brembo caliper off a production car doesn’t make it any better. I’d hazard a guess at most the production stuff is of a poorer quality as it is built down to a price. Maybe if you’d have sourced from a broken Ferrari or something then that’d be different.

Quite the opposite. Factory fitted equipment is going to be under stricter design criteria, regulation and scrutinsation than the aftermarket industry. You are never going to see K sports fitted to a car out of the factory. I fully expect OEM brembos to outlast your BBK.

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Quite the opposite. Factory fitted equipment is going to be under stricter design criteria, regulation and scrutinsation than the aftermarket industry. You are never going to see K sports fitted to a car out of the factory. I fully expect OEM brembos to outlast your BBK.

Now that’s something I definitely missed during my considerations! I didn’t even think about that and most definitely appreciate the insight.

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Outlasting not track use wise though, rather whatever daily all-weather driving and also sometimes lacking maintenance may throw at. For example, OE brembos also have single piece rotors .. dual-piece obviously would be better weight wise, in some cases also reduce wearables cost (changing out just outer part).. but cast iron+aluminum have greater chance to have corrosion issues due being electrically dissimilar metals when you splash water with road salt on.Or calipers intended for "OE use" also usually have dust boots around pistons. Race calipers often don't, as track days can burn those dust boots with ease, and also guys tracking theirs often are ok with more regular and costly maintenance/overhauling/replacement if required to keep car in technically good shape. It's not always black and white with OE quality .. as while manufacturers indeed often do much more testing during R&D and Q&A, save a lot with large bulk produce, they still have to make to budget (with marketing bean counters often overruling engineers) and often choose from existing parts bin instead of designing something one car specific. And due 9/10 even sports cars owners driving on public roads only, they also often go for more street oriented design choices when faced compromise.

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Outlasting not track use wise though, rather whatever daily all-weather driving and also sometimes lacking maintenance may throw at. For example, OE brembos also have single piece rotors .. dual-piece obviously would be better weight wise, in some cases also reduce wearables cost (changing out just outer part).. but cast iron+aluminum have greater chance to have corrosion issues due being electrically dissimilar metals when you splash water with road salt on.Or calipers intended for "OE use" also usually have dust boots around pistons. Race calipers often don't, as track days can burn those dust boots with ease, and also guys tracking theirs often are ok with more regular and costly maintenance/overhauling/replacement if required to keep car in technically good shape. It's not always black and white with OE quality .. as while manufacturers indeed often do much more testing during R&D and Q&A, save a lot with large bulk produce, they still have to make to budget (with marketing bean counters often overruling engineers) and often choose from existing parts bin instead of designing something one car specific. And due 9/10 even sports cars owners driving on public roads only, they also often go for more street oriented design choices when faced compromise.

I give up. You’re not arguing a point. It’s like you’re making a rebuttal but not actually arguing any point; just giving me a 101 on race setups. Please leave the thread so that people don’t have to navigate through the waves of nonsense.

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55 minutes ago, Notaricer said:


I give upemoji2363.pngemoji23.png. You’re not arguing a point. It’s like you’re making a rebuttal but not actually arguing any point; just giving me a 101 on race setupsemoji23.png. Please leave the thread so that people don’t have to navigate through the waves of nonsense.

It's ok you will get used to him. Does it to every thread.

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I don't entirely agree with a few of your points. 

As you said, tyres are the limiting factor, totally. But your idea on underbraking is the wrong way around. Underbraked cars cannot dissipate the amount of heat required to repeatedly slow the car. As you said steel disks mu value drops as it heats so they slowly lose braking capacity.

Ceramics have nowhere near the drop off so it's much harder to have an Underbraked ceramic setup. Especially when you consider the amount of heat dissipated increases as the differential between the air and the disk increases. 

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I don't entirely agree with a few of your points. 
As you said, tyres are the limiting factor, totally. But your idea on underbraking is the wrong way around. Underbraked cars cannot dissipate the amount of heat required to repeatedly slow the car. As you said steel disks mu value drops as it heats so they slowly lose braking capacity.
Ceramics have nowhere near the drop off so it's much harder to have an Underbraked ceramic setup. Especially when you consider the amount of heat dissipated increases as the differential between the air and the disk increases. 

Doesn’t that mean overbraked then? If it can’t dissipate the heat then they have been overly used. I thought underbraking meant that you COULDN’T get them up to temp to work correctly. So with ceramics they have a higher operating temperature, so that’s why feedback from braking is slightly delayed. It’s the same with performance pads; they need to be heated up to a certain temp to work effectively. If I’ve got underbraking and overbraking the wrong way round then my apologies. But I still think we agree with each other.

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