I could accept that a 380 drilled is functionally equivalent to 355 slotted in terms of track durability, given the equal mass.
Well this exceeded my expectations. I weighed my actual kit on my scale. This is a 380x32 rotor with the B8 hat, and the caliper with the mounting bracket and the pads inside of it (dry). This is a massive kit that is a full 7 pounds lighter than OEM.
Brembo RE10 endurance pad. Dollar bill for scale. They are narrower than I expected, but I suppose that is because the same pad has to work with either the 15" rotor (track) or the 14" rotor (street). They look hard as diamonds.
http://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/14/12/15/442b613addad224e7a67dbd6d16974c6.jpg
woooooow that is serious.
Do you have to remove the caliper to swap brake pads?
It’s hard to convey how wide this caliper is. You just pop these two compression pins, and I think the pads will fall out the bottom. The bridge on top is fixed, because it’s a 1 piece monobloc.
nice west, can’t wait to hear your impressions on the track!
Looks good! I’m pondering on an aftermarket kit myself…
How does it get better than your setup? Maybe lighter rotors or something, but those OEM brembo calipers are the tits. Only disadvantage I see is maybe expensive pad replacements?
Expensive pads is one thing (well, actually, it is also a big thing lol - my Carbotech track pads are $400 a set). But all 8 pistons are the same size so I get inconsistent pad wear. Not only do I rotate pads from side to side, but I also need to criss cross the 4 pads on the same caliper in the middle of the day. Quite annoying.
A post mortem on the AP Racing kit: I believe that the floating disc hardware (washers/bolts/bobbins) was insufficient for the level of heat I was generating at the track. When the pads are new and you put a dozen hard stops 80-30 in them, it generates a lot of shaking and shuddering which can be felt through the steering rack. Once the pads wear down a bit, the car operates more normally (Pagids did well with this; Ferodo did not). I think Stillen measured and machined the hats properly, but that the disc was expanding under heat and moving against the caliper on a least one side. Perhaps the caliper mounting bracket couldn’t accommodate this float, either.
AP is sort of the minimum viable brake kit. It gets the job done safely, but the fitment isn’t perfect. This go-around I didn’t want to lose 1 track day to pad bedding.
I should note that the RE10 pads from Brembo are noisy on the street. I bedded them at 7 AM this morning up in Sonoma on an empty highway. The whole setup feels like you dropped an anchor out of the car.
I do know stillen had an issue with the AP radi-cal b8 application, and were recommending using shims on one side.
Yeah there was another kid with a B8 S5 that had the radical and he had the same issue his first day. I think he was all set after that. Known issue.
That’s the funny thing… S4 guys who do track days look at the rs4 setup and say “damn that would be great” then they buy the RS4 setup from the classifieds and love them at the track.
Rs4 guys though are always saying “maybe I need something better” lol
Sounds like same for the RS5 guys.
The only OEM car I’ve seen under $100k that has an aftermarket quality brake kit is the Maserati Ghibli. It has a Brembo GT, exactly. Every other Brembo-supplied OE is down a few notches. Unfortunately that Maserati sucks.
Keep in mind that the stock s4 setup is a joke in terms of track driving. Same crap caliper as the a4 with a slightly larger rotor. At 4000 lbs, fluid and pads won’t cut it from my experience.
But yea, I see your point, grass is always greener. In West’s case, I’m not sure it gets better lol
But for most of us who also DD these cars (west excluded), track driving requires a ton of annoying work - I need to rotate my front pads and x rotate tires after each day, definitely do fluid bleeding between events, and as it looks now - be very mindful of my rear JHM rotors cracking along with my front stoptechs. It also sucks when you kill 50% of your pads during one weekend event (in my case it might have been because of leaving 2nd level of ESC on).
It’s crazy how good these cars are on the track while at the same time being completely out of their elements. RS4/5’s are at least able to survive on stock hardware…but the A/S4’s just don’t cut it in my experience. Maybe guys like Boro who are better able to manage their speed…but beginners like me easily can boil the fluid on the wrong track (this is all extremely track specific which is why it’s hard to compare experiences).
WOW!
Drob - I know you had issues with JHM’s cracking, but you are also cracking your stoptechs?
That’s serioussssss!!!
What pads are you running?
Has anyone run any ducting to their rotors yet?
I haven’t had problems with the JHM’s cracking (I see how the above post could be interpreted that way :-\ ), these pictures are from West. No problems with my stoptech’s that I see. I’ll re-evaluate in the spring after the summer rubber gets put back on.
West ran Pagid endurance pads IIRC.
Haven’t seen anyone with b8 ducting done on the forums…except for psychotic, but he’s moved to the RS5.