Brake upgrade questions

I'm thinking of upgrading my UK spec brakes.

One of the things you read is not to upset the balance by fitting big fronts & not touching the rears. The thing is I think the UK spec brakes are actually going to perform well enough (I've got the car down to 1420kg & hope to get more off that over time) and I am just upgrading to reduce unsprung weight.

With that in mind is it OK to initially upgrade the fronts only if the kit I go with is pretty much the same size disc/spec as the UK fronts (just a load lighter). I'm thinking the the 13" Brembo Pot kit here.

Also does anyone have the details on how much weight I'd be saving with this setup. I saw a post by Mike B saying his fronts were 6kgs a corner lighter than UK's. MVP show weight of UK vs Brembo as 14.8lbs, but I'm not sure if this is per corner or per axle.

I've searched for weights of UK spec calipers & discs but couldn't find anything.

UK spec front calipers weigh 15lb each (16lb with pads), so per axle is around 32lb. Rear calipers weigh 6lb. Stock front rotors weigh 21lb front, 14lb rear.

Brembo BBK (14" monoblock) weigh 12lbs front calipers, 16lb front rotors, 15lb rear rotors, 8lb rear calipers

The Brembo monoblock is fecking expensive though! £4k or more per set?

Brilliant info Inferno. So if I go with the 13" Brembo BBK I'll shave a tad more.

Also looking at that upgrading the rears will add weight?? I might drop CW a line and see if he can do some of those floating discs he did for Wez for the rear & go with the brembo 13" BBK on the front.

Defo not paying £4k for front brakes , the BBK's come up from time to time on US SF with very little miles on

You know thinking about it, most of the saving is in the rotors, it might be more cost effective to just get CW floating discs all round & put the money a BBK would cost into weight savings in other parts of the car

I am very very happy with the CW floating setup, I use these with Performance Friction pads but they are no longer available

there is definately weight to be saved as the although the front uk 4 pots are good they are quiet heavy, it seems as though one half of the caliper is alloy the other cast iron, dont forget though that if you go up on disc size/thickness the discs do start to get quite heavy due to size, 6kg a corner seems very optimistic, from memory my fronts were about a kilo lighter than stock and the rears about 3kg lighter, i think a lot is mad of the bias issues but there are loads on here running big fronts and uk rears (not necesarily right i know) i think it would become noticable on a track more than fast road use

well if you do upgrade, i got first dibs on your uk's

Just thinking about this again, keep going back to the bell & rotor idea. Wez, does the setup you have use replacement rotors from the Brembo/AP range?

I know Paul used Hi-Spec to make you a bell, would it be possible to use say this AP rotor (http://www.apracing.com/info/products.asp?product=32mm+Thick%2D198mm+P%2EC%2ED%2E+%2D+Floating+%2D+CP3781%2D2056%2F2057_2169_2165) and have Hi-Sepc make a bell to position it in exactly the same place as the OEM disc?

My calcs show theres 3.25kg of rotating mass to be saved per wheel (not bad considering I've just spent a packet on wheels to shed 2kg per wheel)

 

Defo not paying £4k for front brakes

I paid £3270 delivered for my Full Brembo monoblock kit from MVP, thats front and rears, amazing brakes, worth every penny imo, i think the weight saving details are on the MVP site:)

what about the TRD or Tom's brake upgrade... saying that there probly just as expensive as the brembo kits

Would love to see info of a floating disc set up for UK's as well.

Would love to see info of a floating disc set up for UK's as well.

I have a floating using the larger UK calipers and have done for a while now.

pics?

Just thinking about this again, keep going back to the bell & rotor idea. Wez, does the setup you have use replacement rotors from the Brembo/AP range?

Think they are from the AP range, it was all done through CW

I know Paul used Hi-Spec to make you a bell, would it be possible to use say this AP rotor

Was this question directed at me?

I personally wouldnt use Hi-Spec anymore, they used my car many moons ago to make the kits and I was the first MKIV to have a bell/rotor setup from them, prob is thats its solid mount and therefore warped the rotors very easily

pics?

Been asked a couple of times so added to my build thread

http://www.mkivsupra.net/vbb/showpost.php?p=2556063&postcount=273

there awesome looking bits of kit wez

dont look cheap either!

I have a floating using the larger UK calipers and have done for a while now.

Yeah I remember reading that but didn't remember seeing much more info about it. Cheers for putting the pics up. Have you weighed them? Do you have these on the rear too? Would you mind telling us how much they were? Apologies if this is already in your build thread, it is quite long

Yeah I remember reading that but didn't remember seeing much more info about it. Cheers for putting the pics up. Have you weighed them? Do you have these on the rear too? Would you mind telling us how much they were? Apologies if this is already in your build thread, it is quite long

Only on the front, stock discs on the rear with PF pads all round.

Not weighed them as they were fitted along with a few other bits at the same time.

the BBK's come up from time to time on US SF with very little miles on

Be quick mate;):

http://www.supraforums.com/forum/showthread.php?t=565347

.

thats a bargain!

although now that ive had a closer look.... 4 pot fronts? i cant see them being that much better than UK

Think they are from the AP range, it was all done through CW

 

 

 

Was this question directed at me?

 

I personally wouldnt use Hi-Spec anymore, they used my car many moons ago to make the kits and I was the first MKIV to have a bell/rotor setup from them, prob is thats its solid mount and therefore warped the rotors very easily

So there are 2 types of bell/rotor setup, floating & non-floating? Is that why the floating have oval holes?

I knew HS brakes were pretty poor, but I thought the bells Paul had made were pretty good quality.

Do you think the fixed bells the HS made were to blame as in the bell itself was poor quality, or the fact it was a fixed type Wez?

I'm not sure about the Brembos at the mo, it's not the stopping power I'm after, it's the weight & the colour, & as I've painted calipers have come up pretty good I'm thinking I can get the weight saving a lot easier than a full brake setup.

The problem with fixed bell/rotors is the two different metals heat up and contract at different rates causing them to warp, I personally would only use either single piece setups like stock or floating.

Cheers bud, I've pm'd Chris also