My friend just bought that porsche kit for his s5, and is going to run ebc Yellowstuff with take off Pirelli slicks…wouldn’t listen to me when I told him those pads suck for track driving. Will find out in a couple weeks lol
I suppose it will get the job done. But SUV calipers on a car is like using a demolition hammer on a finishing nail. 30-32mm is the correct front rotor width for this platform. 38mm is absurd. Even the RS5 ceramic kit is only 34mm wide.
Speaking from experience, there’s two ways to do this. The cheap way, then you buy Brembo. Or you just start with Brembo or StopTech.
http://images.tapatalk-cdn.com/15/06/05/06f7a5ad6fd5fb4fe4419300f137e05b.jpg
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Yellow stuff pads work for me. I like them and they showed very little wear after 17K miles and four track days.
fixed XD
I dont understand why 38mm would be absurd. For a factory weight s4, you’re talking about over 4000lbs with driver and a tank of gas. 32mm is the minimum. FWIW, even the Boss302 (yeah i talk about this car a lot :D) factory 355 rotors are 32mm thick–and this car is under 3700lbs. It’s much lighter than an S4.
The fact that the ceramic option is 34mm is indicative of how huge of a rotor this car really needs. Ceramic rotors have much higher heat capacity than iron, so they can actually get away with being smaller than an iron rotor (http://www.carbonceramicbrake.com/faq-dls.html). Rotor thickness is all about increasing heat capacity of the disc because you get to a point where ventilation cannot keep up with the heat generated from the brakes.
Maybe for a lapping day, 32mm thickness is great (and definitely 380mm preferred). But for a street weight s4 doing anything more than that, I actually beg to differ. The car is under braked. Put the S4 on a tight track with short straights, and you’ll find even a 32mm thick bbk will begin to heat soak.
That said, I too am not a fan of the ECS kit. But I still standby that most off the shelf BBK’s for this car aren’t going to be enough in some situations.
Here’s a great comparison: Z28–similar fatness to an S4. Similar power (if you go stage 2 etc etc).
It uses a 394mm rotor with 36mm thickness - NOW THAT IS A BRAKE. and btw, that is ceramic. Had it been iron, you can bet your dollar it would be 38mm 
It’s rear rotor is 32mm thick for goodness sakes!
So you’d advocate these if money was no object? http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.view&alt=web&id=281277963984&globalID=EBAY-US
lol yup. at that point though, it makes sense to get (or make) a dedicated track car.
My poor buddy with the DD S5 who bought an e36 M3 sedan (pictured in the motorsports seats cage thread) has had awful luck. He got into it for like $15-19k. Did the seats, cage, tires, cooling, subframe reinforce, and a bunch of other track prep work. Last time we went out his coolant hose kept falling off and he missed a bunch of sessions after his aftermarket radiator gave out. Then he gets home and finds out the block is cracked. $9000 for a new one refurbished from the junkyard.
honestly, 20k to 30k build a track car sounds about right.
As for prev maintenance, yup, lots of stuff to do when you’re beating on your car that hard at the circuit.
But therein lies the difference. Your buddy has a track car. And granted, so do you. However, for all the other guys who take their B8 S4 to the race track, they have a car that happens to see the track–not a track car. For the most part, ppl’s s4’s are in no way track prepped, and is likely not competitive when put into their own racing classes (unless one swaps out seats + puts in real suspension + spherical bearings in place of bushings etc etc as you are doing/have done). So in the end, you may be comparing a 30k build for a used car (ok, i’ll give you 40k even)…vs building a new car like an S4 for close to 90 Not to mention, much of the track prep stuff that you can do on an e36, you cannot even do on an s4 without custom parts… 
For me, my car is a total compromise and i get that. I just get out there and have fun with what i got. it’s still a capable platform. But I know i get spanked by e36 track cars all day long 
I look at both the M3 and the S4 as integration platforms. There’s highly developed tuner markets for both and you can plug and play things onto these chassis models. There’s a point of diminishing returns where the car gets so old that things like the block cracking happens. Then you have to move up the value chain into the e46, or at this point the e90.
I realize I’m one of the first hobbyists to turn a B8 into a track car. But I also got 5 years of street comfort out of it. Now it’s just a hooligan on the street, lighting off the traction control every time I go over an expansion joint under full throttle.
Block doesn’t have to old to crack, and an old block doesn’t necessarily crack something caused it.
I don’t think anyone is buying a new S4 with the intention of making a dedicated track car. I think the more common scenario is that folks are buying S4’s as cars that can do it all, fall into tracking them, and then convince themselves that I’ve modded and invested enough to keep going. It sounds like that’s where West is at and I think I’m quickly getting there also. Our cars are quite capable, not ideal for the track, but capable and if they started as a good DD and track car combo, they might just make sense as a good still DD and pretty decent track car until a full track conversion can be made.
I have often considered starting anew with an e46 m3, new m3/m4, Porsche of some sort, or the forthcoming m2, but end up deciding that the efficient economic play is to continue investing in my S4. Each of us may see a different path here, and if cost was no object I would buy 2 of the new GT3 RS’s, one to track and one to sleep in at night, but that ain’t happening soon so why not rock our S4’s at the track in the meantime! And sure a fully track prepped m3 may, on occasion (or on multiple occasions), receive a pass, props to that driver and car. I still think the S4 is quite capable, quite fun, and quite competitive, even when it makes it to the tale end of its life as a dedicated track car.
And BTW, I think we’re actually all on the same page here. Tracking a somewhat newer car (on occasion) is bound to be less of a headache than tracking an older car with a mysterious history. Less headache, ease of modding, more modern engineering, less time related failures, more track time, all pluses right?
In the end I know we may all take different paths, and will all have a ton of fun doing so, but I do see some logic in this path too.
//OldSport I’d give you a +karma point if I could but my account is heavily restricted for being such a heretic.
It’s been surprisingly fun to be early in modding this B8 S4. There’s a lot of examples of guys who have gone further than I have with B7 cars. I have to say it’s a bit easier than modding an E90 328i from BMW because the bones are there - you have large wheels, a sports differential, a supercharger, etc. I really haven’t had to do anything twice, except the brakes and that’s because I was tried to do it a BBK cheaply as possible the first time.
The two things that make the B8 great for the track, in spite of the odds, are safety (quattro) and reliability. The consumables are well known quantities: tires and endurance pads every year; rotors every 2 years.
My remaining plans for the car are finite. I need to set the front swaybar to stiff and lower the car 15mm (which should push camber from -2.7 to -3). 034 has another spherical insert for the upper control arms which I already have. I want to do the front lip aero attachment and air split rear valence. That’s pretty much it, period.
A few years down the line I might give David @ Eurocode a call and see what his race motor builds are about. I’m going to guess it’s a $15k job all in for forged pistons and rods, titanium valves and springs, that build head he made for the 3.0TFSI, etc. The engine is not broken so I’m not going to “fix” it yet. I’d hate to trade something reliable for something that has maintenance headaches, or burns oil.
Now, that is a dedicated track car, sweet!
Re your prior post, thanks and agreed on all fronts. I’m very curious to hear more about the Eurocode “built” motors but also generally agree that if you’re at a reliable place and feel the power is decent then this may be a project for down the road. Does anyone have more info on these (it seems like they’ve built at least one)?
West, are the GT-R calipers slightly smaller than the GTs? They didn’t clear the inner barrel, lightly rubbed and left paint transfer with the 19" peelers, but your running 19s with no clearance issues?
https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3741/19222062591_84f8291b7c_b.jpg
It’s close but it doesn’t touch. I started with a 5mm spacer and my BBS wheels so I’m not certain if they’d clear the peelers.
On the Brembo GT kits, I think you can drop in their CCM-R carbon rotors. I’ll find out from my brakes guy. The rotors are 11.1 pounds in 380x34.
12 thousand dollar rotors…wtf :o