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Jay Bamrah

Brake callipers upgrade

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Hey guys,

 

after turbocharging my car I realised I need better brakes.

 

I have a question, why do so many companies offer front calliper upgrades but not like a set of 4 2 front 2 rear. Would brembo front callipers and stock 1 piston rears ruin the brake balance?

 

any advice I would appreciate a lot as I don’t know what to do with that. Front and rear is a lot of money

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I wouldn’t worry too much about the brake balance. Most people only upgrade the fronts as they do all the work. I’d do as much as you are willing to spend.

But if you can stretch to doing the fronts and rears its money well spent. I did both the fronts and rears and am glad I did as it’s neck snapping under heavy braking.

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2 hours ago, Jay Bamrah said:

I have a question, why do so many companies offer front calliper upgrades but not like a set of 4 2 front 2 rear?

The majority of companies offer both a front & rear kit. 

However you don't need to do the rears, just doing the fronts will be sufficient. 

Rear calipers are mostly just for looks.

2 hours ago, Jay Bamrah said:

Would brembo front callipers and stock 1 piston rears ruin the brake balance?

It depends on which Brembo front calipers you are referring to. 

 

 

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25 minutes ago, Leeky said:

I wouldn’t worry too much about the brake balance. Most people only upgrade the fronts as they do all the work. I’d do as much as you are willing to spend.

But if you can stretch to doing the fronts and rears its money well spent. I did both the fronts and rears and am glad I did as it’s neck snapping under heavy braking.

How much did it cost you? What did you go for

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37 minutes ago, Jay Bamrah said:

How much did it cost you? What did you go for

APRacing (Cosworth Spec) 6pot/355mm floating fronts and matching APRacing 4pot/335mm rears. They cost £4300 from partbox but I was quite lucky that they were doing 20% discount at the time so got them for £3500.

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On 12/29/2021 at 8:39 AM, vanko25 said:

Most of us are running the Reyland AP Racing Kit. 

I had mine for 2 years now on my TD Turbo car and had zero issues with them. 

Been running the car on track with zero fade. 

What’s your rear brake pads and discs 

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I can't see any reason for it. I bought mine with the Reyland discs, I couldn't justify a reason to pay the extra money for the AP. Originally the difference between the 2 were the AP having curved vents within the discs and the Reyland were straight so the APs would have better heat management but Reyland now offer a curved vent option for another £50 IIRC.

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@Jay Bamrah In response to your other post I have the reyland 330mm kit on the front, OEM on the back except for Carbotec XP10 pads.

Regarding the difference between AP and Reyland, as mentioned above it was curved vanes, but now Reyland have curved vanes. After a bit of discussion with @will300 we have come to the conclusion that the AP's last a little longer, but on the flip side I do use a very aggressive pad, so its hard to quantify.

 

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15 hours ago, Si316 said:

I'm running the K-system pro kit on the front of mine. It uses Renault clio RS 3 brembo calipers with stock discs.

I'm pretty impressed with the kit after afew track days, not had any fade but granted im no pro. For the money though i think its great.

https://k-system.pro/en/product/bbkgt86brz4potbrembo/

Have you got any pictures of them fitted to your car? hard to judge the size of the calipers without a wheel.

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Thank you Si! It looks like a very good cost effective option.

It uses stock brake discs and pads? (stock sizes, could be different brands/pad materials)

How much did they charge for shipping?

How hard was the install?

 

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Ideally you'd want a floating disc with a fixed caliper like that, otherwise you may start to see the effects of pad knock-back/knock-off after cornering - i.e. a long brake pedal for the initial pedal press after a corner. It can depend a lot on the age and quality of the hub, piston seals, and whether or not there are any anti-knock-back springs in the caliper (unusual on road cars).

If you're unfamiliar with pad knock-back, what happens is when you corner there will be a certain amount of flex in the hub and a certain amount of run-out from the hub and disc that contribute to the disc running slightly off-axis, and that pushes the pad and pistons slightly further back into the caliper. The next time you press the brake pedal you have to overcome this extra distance before the pads are making good contact on the disc again, which can be a bit disconcerting. We see it all the time in the Caterhams and a lot of people get used to giving the pedal a light brush with their left foot along the straights. The ideal solution is a floating disc or caliper (standard road car calipers 'float' on sliders) to accomodate for the flexing.

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2 hours ago, Shad said:

Ideally you'd want a floating disc with a fixed caliper like that, otherwise you may start to see the effects of pad knock-back/knock-off after cornering - i.e. a long brake pedal for the initial pedal press after a corner. It can depend a lot on the age and quality of the hub, piston seals, and whether or not there are any anti-knock-back springs in the caliper (unusual on road cars).

If you're unfamiliar with pad knock-back, what happens is when you corner there will be a certain amount of flex in the hub and a certain amount of run-out from the hub and disc that contribute to the disc running slightly off-axis, and that pushes the pad and pistons slightly further back into the caliper. The next time you press the brake pedal you have to overcome this extra distance before the pads are making good contact on the disc again, which can be a bit disconcerting. We see it all the time in the Caterhams and a lot of people get used to giving the pedal a light brush with their left foot along the straights. The ideal solution is a floating disc or caliper (standard road car calipers 'float' on sliders) to accomodate for the flexing.

Interesting stuff, my mate with a Clio RS3 has just upgraded to bigger 2 piece disks. Being radial mount it gives me the option to upgrade the disks in the future to a 2 piece style and maybe go bigger diameter. I'm the limiting factor at the moment so may be a while before i start to see issues.

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