Zac692069 said:

i like this thread. my thoughts, bigger brakes mean less stress on the brake system and better stopping power. but with good brakes you need good tires!

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Think about less effort to the driver also, on those long circuit runs, their poor feet get tired.

As long as the brake rotor is still in motion, the tire that is contacting the ground is still utilizing static friction, which is a stronger friction, so it would stop faster as long as the wheels are still spinning, this is where the big brakes come into play, to give the largest amount of braking power on the absolute brink of locking the wheels up.

so basically what knochgoon24 said.

I stopped reading this thread a few posts in because I had already determined my input: whoever in this thread is saying better brakes won't make better circuit times is an absolute idiot. BRAKE FADE. Your brakes mean nothing when you stomp the mushy pedal and nothing happens. /thread.

alright well you managed to confuse the hell of out me.


in simplest terms IF THE CARS ARE BOTH EXACTLY THE SAME, no matter what tires u got on that, and the brakes are the only difference, yes i believe the car with better brakes would do a tad better. a tad here and a tad there adds up man believe me.

why?

well alot of stuff comes into play man. depends on how many times you gonna go around that track and what are the speeds you will be able to achieve on your fastest lap.


check it. if your going relatively fast down a straight away and theres a sharp ass right turn ahead(IF YOU KNOW THE TRACK VERY WELL) you will be able to measure just when u gotta start breaking to get the best turn possible through that corner. if you have shitty brakes yes you'll have to start breaking sooner. if you have a nice setup for brakes you can essentially brake later.


this isnt ####ing rocket science man you'll obviously be able to cover more ground with the good breaks since you'll stop later while the dude with the stock breaks will have to start slowing down sooner.

idk whos right cause you guys started adding a bunch of crazy shit into a simple question. but i can assure you that if you race a duplicate of yourself in the same car except with different brakes, you'll do a little better. it wont make much of a difference though.


if your going around that track 50 times your gonna rape the other guy cause he wont have breaks by the end of the race . always remember that the best mod is the driver though. I've seen some stock cars rape modded cars just cause the one in the stock is godly at driving.

If it's a brake upgrade and not a downgrade, they must be better.

There are too many variables to consider even if you are just talking about 1 single stop:
First, what car are you comparing? If it's 2 stock Z06's on slicks or 2 Plymouth Horizons on snow tires, you will get different results from brakes that are bigger, fade less, are more consistent etc.

At what speed is this stop from? When my GSX was stock I could fade out the pads from a 40mph stop on garbage Wearever pads to the point they barely worked.(Never buy those) Another GSX with only better pads would have had much better performance.

Does the upgrade do anything to improve on brake bias front to rear, or even side to side? If you aren't using each 4 of your tires traction to their limit then you are giving up braking performance. I have experienced crappy left to right bias due to crappy floating calipers that will lock up one side, while the tire on the other side has a lot of traction remaining.

Has the abs been upgraded, removed, etc?

The argument is so unclear of specifics that you will never get a good answer to your question. You are better off just trying to understand what upgrades are out there and how they will impact braking performance. Then you can have a logical conversation instead of a heated argument.

It's pretty simple - all things being equal and with tires of a racing breed (yes, tires are a huge determining factor for the limits of a brake system), a better brake set up will help lap times. With that said, the term "better" can be argued all day. The less time you spend pressing the brake pedal around the track, the more speed you should theoretically be able to keep (ie. shorter braking distances).

And as others have said, there is little reason to spend tons of money on a brake kit if you're only planning on running street tires. That's like buying a huge turbo and only running 18 lbs of boost.

I DID absolutely oversimplify it... But for a reason. Often times things get explained in SO MUCH detail, with such an eye on technical specs and such, that people just don't understand it, and worse, often misunderstand it.
in john and my original discussion, I tried to aim it at the average driver, who while driving aggressively, most likely will never see track time.

I also think (I didn't go back and re-read my post) that I covered (or at least sort of spoke about) fade and brake upgrades. But again, for the people I was aiming at you should know that fade will never be an issue.

at this point, please dont get me wrong, there are some very very legit reasons for someone that doesnt NEED the larger brakes (IE someone who doesn't track the car or drive it hard enough to fade them)

If you like the look, IMO, visual mods are NOT something that people should write off, go ahead and get them, I think a nice set of Gold Brembos look SWEET!. I know I get a hell of a lot more pleasure out of driving a car that looks badass than I do one that looks like a garbage can, unless it's a sweet sleeper miata with an ls1 or something . If you get that out of breath feeling when you see a HUGE brembo/stoptech/whatever caliper, go for it, if I had the spare cash to blow, I'd do that in a heartbeat!!!

There is also the benefit of how nice the pedal feels. Note, this does NOT mean it stops faster, it just feels a lot more "performance" oriented, which makes the car nicer to drive, which again, is not a bad thing.

But yeah, stopping distance in non heat soak faded situations, is 100% traction limited. Properly adjusted drum brakes will stop just as fast.

PURE SECKSSSSSS FYI



As far as slotted rotors, we all know those will kill pads faster as well

If you are doing canyon runs, you need something to suck up heat.
Anyone reading this post needs to understand what canyon runs are like. Its long term hard acceleration and HARD braking with little time between, and over a long distance. If anything its worse on the brakes than a normal track day.

If you already have the big fixed mount calipers, I would do a set of rotors with the separate center/outer ring, as I BELIEVE that they transfer less heat into the bearing carrier, then I would do some GOOD pads and Motul RBF 600. If you overdrive that, its your technique, not the brakes. Many people go into corners too hot, and end up having to brake a LOT harder than they should, which not only overheats the brakes faster, but IS SLOWER!


Here is the problem you will be faced with..

Pads that hold up to the higher temps, meaning...HIGHER, not just a little bit, generally are noisy, tear up rotors, dusty as hell (and that dust eats the finish on wheels a hell of a lot faster than normal pads) and don't stop very well when cold. This is also a reason you want to go with the cheapest good (oem or the like) rotor you can find (look for a good deal on OEM replacements) since you will be ripping them up in fairly short order.

If you have stock brakes, and you want a killer pedal feel, a lot more fade resistance, and a SICK looking brake setup, and you have $$$$ to spend. Go for it. Pick up a huge BBK.

Just make sure you understand that you can get every bit of the above benefits, except the looks, with normal sized brakes.

and i know that BIGGER brakes do 3 potential things. The larger radius of the rotor means that you don't need as much clamping force to get the same braking force. Larger rotors and larger pads (usually the case with bigger brakes and calipers) increase the area over which a brake pad/rotor are generating heat, so for any given spot on either, the temperature is going to be lower. The third thing is that because these elements are larger, they have more area to dissipate the heat, so they cool quicker between applications. On the track, all of these things mean that you are less likely to fade or boil fluid or cook bearings.

meanwhile there have also been plenty of crashes with big BBK brakes because the driver thought they could stop quicker, however it was the tire that failed first

however, you're also over estimating how the average person drives a 400whp car. The average person doesn't do canyon runs, track days, or anything of the like. They nail the throttle from a standstill, or from a roll, usually in a straight line on some public road. Repeated hard braking, close enough together than it would overheat the brakes, is rare for these people. (sorry for the lengthy post)

I am going to try to simplify this for myself. So from what I understand, if your stock brakes can lock up a set of tires, bigger brakes won't stop you faster...unless you have been braking enough to cause brake fade. If you get brake fade, upgraded brakes will only stop you faster because of their ability to dissipate heat and therefore resist brake fade. The idea that bigger brakes stop you faster is sort of a misconception because upgraded brakes are really only for dissipating heat more effectively and/or changing the "feel" of pressing the brakes.

So, there is no "yes" or "no" answer to these questions:

volkerding95GSX said:

Who's right, do brake upgrades stop you faster or not? do they make you faster around a track or not?

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The answer to both being yes, but only if you have been braking enough to cause the lower quality brake setup to fade, or if the lower quality brakes simply can't lock up the tires in the first place.

Am i right?

Want to settle this argument? how about the OP and his buddy actually go to a track! trust me your WRX brakes are not up to 10 laps. throw some lines and pads in it go back to the track and tell us which performed better.

BTW clbd39 If you want to really learn something about this, go talk to your local FSAE team or read FSAE papers if your school has a team. they will set you straight.

I really think that this thread should be considered as bench racing...

cantgo2fast said:

Want to settle this argument? how about the OP and his buddy actually go to a track! trust me your WRX brakes are not up to 10 laps. throw some lines and pads in it go back to the track and tell us which performed better.

BTW clbd39 If you want to really learn something about this, go talk to your local FSAE team or read FSAE papers if your school has a team. they will set you straight.

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reading>you

clbd39 said:

in john and my original discussion, I tried to aim it at the average driver, who while driving aggressively, most likely will never see track time.

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I don't think john has any mods on his car... if that's the case, i think a race would be no problem , but that's not what the discussion is about

I don't think john has any mods on his car... if that's the case, i think a race would be no problem , but that's not what the discussion is about[/QUOTE]



Did you just say I'm stock??

volkerding95GSX said:

I don't think john has any mods on his car... if that's the case, i think a race would be no problem , but that's not what the discussion is about

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Did you just say I'm stock??

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sorry john, ok your car in its modded state is as fast as mine was stock... (for now at least, i'll help with your new installs if you need)