Is it worth uprating UK spec brakes?

Just a quick one guys,

I currently have a Uk spec TT Supra with W58 Gearbox/spec stage 3 clutch and UK spec front and rear big brakes/pads/discs, all fairly new might I add. The car is running just over 400bhp atm.

I was considering fitting some K-sport front and rear kits. 356mm front and rear with 8pots front and 4 pots rear.

My question to you is, is it worth it? Would it make sense to upgrade or would I be better off using the money elsewhere on the car? As there are a few other bits i would like to attend to.

Any advise is as always most appreciated.

Regards

Ashley

If you're spending big money on the car i.e a conversion then yes it's totally worth it, but the uprated spec works great for most high HP Supra's... I only have uprated fronts and jspec rears on 550hp but I still stop reasonably quick without burning the crap out of the brakes

Uk spec brakes are excellent anyway. K sport may be bigger but are they actually better?

I wouldn't consider changing what was once the best factory brake setup in the world for a budget brake kit to be an upgrade.

Put the money towards a 6 speed gearbox.

Chris Wilson fast road pads for your UK brakes and you'll be fine.

For road use I'd be surprised if anyone could cook UK brakes with uprated discs/pads motul fluid and stainless lines. You'd have to be pulling it down from 140+ in rapid succession to render them faded. Wether K-Sport budget end would provide any more braking power or less fade I wouldn't like to put my own money on it.

Thanks guys, very informative.

Priority will be the 6 speed gearbox upgrade.

Whilst I'm here, I know I would need a new clutch for the conversion. However I would also need a TT diff and drive shafts. Would anyone kindly point me in the direction of where I might be able to obtain such items?

Thanks guys, very informative.

 

Priority will be the 6 speed gearbox upgrade.

 

Whilst I'm here, I know I would need a new clutch for the conversion. However I would also need a TT diff and drive shafts. Would anyone kindly point me in the direction of where I might be able to obtain such items?

I would put out a wanted thread for the parts you need. If you need a 6 speed flywheel, I have one for sale.

Ok bud I will do that. Just need to sort out the rest of the kit tomorrow hopefully

Cool. No probs.

The UK Supra brakes are fantastic, if I had the money and the choice was some Brembos or a Getrag... Getrag all day

If you're concerned that the braking performance is poor (drive another car, my Alfa brakes feels terrible compared). Change the brake fluid, Ferodo or Mintex racing pads, some decent disk brakes such as Red-Dot 6-grooves or EBC Ultimaxs. Disk I don't believe have much of an effect on braking though, grooved ones may dissipate heat faster but the power of the caliper and the pad compound is what makes it

If people understood the reason for multiple piston calipers they would question these six and eight pot things. It's just merketing hype. A good stiff 4 pot caliper is fine. Once you need huge long pads wrapped around a huge diameter disc the pad taper wear may demand more than 4 pistons. More pistons give longer pedal travel. If you can use 4 pots, do so. I am lucky to have access to a lot of different calipers, and am fortunate to often find cheap new stock. But I still chose 4 pots for the front of my Skyline, over six or eight pots. I wouldn't consider K Sports an upgrade over stock front calipers myself. OE fixed calipers on quailty cars are usually very good. Chinese ones are usually not stiff, and of iffy quality. The good stuff is called AP, Brembo or Alcon. I consider Willwood low end, and am not a fan, few serious race cars use them, they are cheap for a reason...

The UK Supra brakes are fantastic, if I had the money and the choice was some Brembos or a Getrag... Getrag all day

 

If you're concerned that the braking performance is poor (drive another car, my Alfa brakes feels terrible compared). Change the brake fluid, Ferodo or Mintex racing pads, some decent disk brakes such as Red-Dot 6-grooves or EBC Ultimaxs. Disk I don't believe have much of an effect on braking though, grooved ones may dissipate heat faster but the power of the caliper and the pad compound is what makes it

What makes you think grooved discs dissipate heat faster? Totally incorrect. Unless needed (and I'll leave it to you to research why grooves are added) they make noise and chew up pads faster than plain discs.

You could use water as a brake fluid and temperature to vapour point issues aside it would make no difference to pedal feel or stopping power. Fluids are effectivel incompressible, the reasons for changing to a higher spec fluid are totally down to wet and dry boiling points, and corossion resistance. If the brakes never get hot enough to require a high dry boiling point fluid there's very good reasons not to use it over a more standard fluid.

As for EBC, well, there are probably cars in Bangladesh with hard wood blocks of wood for brake pads, and I might choose them over EBC, I would need to think carefully

What makes you think grooved discs dissipate heat faster? Totally incorrect. Unless needed (and I'll leave it to you to research why grooves are added) they make noise and chew up pads faster than plain discs.

 

You could use water as a brake fluid and temperature to vapour point issues aside it would make no difference to pedal feel or stopping power. Fluids are effectivel incompressible, the reasons for changing to a higher spec fluid are totally down to wet and dry boiling points, and corossion resistance. If the brakes never get hot enough to require a high dry boiling point fluid there's very good reasons not to use it over a more standard fluid.

 

As for EBC, well, there are probably cars in Bangladesh with hard wood blocks of wood for brake pads, and I might choose them over EBC, I would need to think carefully

Very good post. The EBC stuff is awful if anyone has ever used them and Im with Chris on the wooden block being more effective.

Am I right in saying the groves are not for cooling but for preventing air or gasses lifting the pad from the disk Chris?? Does it not have any cooling effect at all?

Gold star that boy above! They have two functions, some pad material gasses out from the bonding material that holds the friction particles together. This can form a boundary layer that lifts the pads as you say. The grooves vent this gas. Most modern pad binder compounds don't gas like older ones.

In the wet they can help clear surface water, mainly in circuit race sceanarios. Drilled discs do the same and remove mass. In dyno testing the grooves and to a lesser extent the holes increase the mU (friction index) on wet discs barely measurably for the first few mS on initial brake application. Once truly hot the discs vaporize the water anyway. Both grooves (and especially grooves not milled with a ballend cutter) and holes promote cracking and reduce thermal mass. In a formula like F3 a drilled disc used in the wet may be scrap within one race due to thermal shock cracking.

On modern road cars both types are probably 90% bull and a fashion statement, but the marketing department think they promote the fast car image.

Most (usually Taiwanese) after market drilled discs are appalling. A disc designed to have holes in it will be a different casting to a plain one radially drilled after casting by some wonky CNC machine in the far east. Even the castings are usually made from recycled junk

Why thank you

After seeing the effects of (aftermarket) drilled disks on a track car, actually a high spec PRO subaru I will never fit them and will advise against them. The cracking on the disk was scary. Driver was warned but his response was ahh they are always like that, front of the car ended in a grass bank caused by disk failure.

I weighed in about 20 AP drilled discs from Supras and Skylines the other week, due to thermal cracking. Disc explosions are never good

What makes you think grooved discs dissipate heat faster? Totally incorrect. Unless needed (and I'll leave it to you to research why grooves are added) they make noise and chew up pads faster than plain discs.

 

You could use water as a brake fluid and temperature to vapour point issues aside it would make no difference to pedal feel or stopping power. Fluids are effectivel incompressible, the reasons for changing to a higher spec fluid are totally down to wet and dry boiling points, and corossion resistance. If the brakes never get hot enough to require a high dry boiling point fluid there's very good reasons not to use it over a more standard fluid.

 

As for EBC, well, there are probably cars in Bangladesh with hard wood blocks of wood for brake pads, and I might choose them over EBC, I would need to think carefully

More surface area to assist with cooling I guess, but I'm no expert. The next set of disks I buy will be grooved ones so I can see what they're like, I'm expecting them to be noiser & shave the pads down faster but I'd like to give it a try.

And agreed, I'd never recommend EBC pads. Too many pictures of them showing the compound becoming 'unglued' from the pad backing.

 

And agreed, I'd never recommend EBC pads. Too many pictures of them showing the compound becoming 'unglued' from the pad backing.

Cant really make recommendations from pictures. Ive seen loads of pictures of failed ROTA wheels because apparently they have been powder coated. Hasn't stopped me running them on my last two cars and I've been quite impressed with them.

When things go wrong people like to dramatise it and go on a rant, hence why everyone finds out about it and sees pics etc. Unless you have actually run EBC pads you won't know how horrifically bad they feel and how little confidence they give to the driver that the car is going to do what your asking of it.

Cant really make recommendations from pictures. Ive seen loads of pictures of failed ROTA wheels because apparently they have been powder coated. Hasn't stopped me running them on my last two cars and I've been quite impressed with them.

 

When things go wrong people like to dramatise it and go on a rant, hence why everyone finds out about it and sees pics etc. Unless you have actually run EBC pads you won't know how horrifically bad they feel and how little confidence they give to the driver that the car is going to do what your asking of it.

Fair point, I've never used EBC myself (because of the bad stories). I've only ever used Ferodo, Mintex and Brembo without any issues. Brembos are a bit too dusty compared to Mintex and Ferodo but all very good as far as I can tell. When the time comes to renew the pads on my supra I'll be going for Ferodo Racing most likely.

After reading a lot of these comments I must add my bit.

Ive always used UK calipers and as many of you know both me and my brother do a lot of trackdays and heavy braking and I was always happy with the uk's until the pad choice got limited.

Performance friction was the best pads for hard braking and lasted quite a few trackday but they stopped making them.

Then we tried Porterfield, again good after a few hard laps but didn't last long at all, 1 trackday and they were dead.

so both me and my brother (bignum) changed to bigger brakes, he went for brembo I think and he said the brakes were totally amazing, the fact that the peddle had so much feel and bite was scary.

I myself bought K SPORT and use performance friction pads and again over the uk's there is no comparison and the pads are priced about the same as uk spec.

If your doing fast road - trackdays - nurburgring then try a car with bigger brakes and see for yourself how much better the braking is, plus since fitting my K sport ive not had the ABS kick in once but it stops a lot better so work that out.

Doesn't Andy run Brembo F50? How do your brakes compare to his?

For road use I'd be surprised if anyone could cook UK brakes with uprated discs/pads motul fluid and stainless lines. You'd have to be pulling it down from 140+ in rapid succession to render them faded.

I've cooked two sets of CW fast road pads doing exactly that, to the point where they've nearly been on fire, and just crumble apart when you inspect them. Nothing at all wrong with the pads, I was just asking too much of them. Most drivers will never have a problem stopping on them.

I've got a set of Porterfield fast road in at the moment, and a set of Porterfield race to go in shortly. If they don't cut it then I'm going to look at switching to Brembos calipers or biggger so I can run the Performance Friction pads.

 

I've got a set of Porterfield fast road in at the moment, and a set of Porterfield race to go in shortly. If they don't cut it then I'm going to look at switching to Brembos calipers or biggger so I can run the Performance Friction pads.

You won't like the race pads on the road, they make so much noise and don't really work till hot

They make a lot of dust too.