Bear 13" Big Brake Kit on race track?

[Mike_GSX]

Hi everybody.

Who of you did already go to the race track (not drag) with a Bear 13" Big Brake Kit?

I would like to know how they work? If they overheat or if they work perfect even under high performance.

thanks a lot

Mike

 

[eclipsegsx1736]

I don't have them, but I did a good deal of research on them. I used to want the kit, too. I also talked to Road Race Engineering about them. The general consensus is that the pistons are too large for the brake master cylinder, and will result in a mush pedal feel. Several people on this board have reported the same problem. At least one even managed to crack one of the rotors. If you road race, try your stock brake setup with some race pads (Porterfield R4E or simliar) and some hi temp fluid. I had absolutely no problems with this setup on a road course, even after long continuous sessions. The track I was running on was notorious for being hard on brakes too. If you still feel you need an upgrade, save up for the StopTech kit (around $1600). The limit of the stock system seems to be the calipers overheating and melting/cracking seals.

 

[FORMONTOYA]

I would agree. Start small before you just dump a lot of money into it without research.

From OEM: upgrade the pads, go to braided lines. Change fluid if you feel the need. Call this stage 1, check it out to see how it reacts for you. The limiting factor will of course be the too small 10" rotors, but depending on how hard you are, it might not effect you.
This should be sufficient for about 90% of the people out there.

The next stage would be a big brake kit such as the Power Slot plus that also come with the caliper relocation brackets.
This should catch the next 5%.

Then for all out...jump up to the bigger rotor/caliper combo, and at $1200-$1500 each end you better be doing some serious braking to make this expenditure worth it.

my .02

 

[suicidal2af]

I would agree. Start small before you just dump a lot of money into it without research.

From OEM: upgrade the pads, go to braided lines. Change fluid if you feel the need. Call this stage 1, check it out to see how it reacts for you. The limiting factor will of course be the too small 10" rotors, but depending on how hard you are, it might not effect you.
This should be sufficient for about 90% of the people out there.

The next stage would be a big brake kit such as the Power Slot plus that also come with the caliper relocation brackets.
This should catch the next 5%.

Then for all out...jump up to the bigger rotor/caliper combo, and at $1200-$1500 each end you better be doing some serious braking to make this expenditure worth it.

my .02

Gonna have to disagree on this.

The first thing you need to think about is what you're using your car for. The person who drives to and from work doesn't really need to worry about it. Pads/lines, call it a day.

Somebody autocrossing would probably want to look into the powerslot plus(formerly AEM) kit with the 2 piston GSX calipers. More rotor gives you more surface area, which directly leads to more cooling.

Massive kits(TCE/Wilwood, stoptech, rotora, etc) are more suited for road racing. Repeatedly slowing down from 100mph+ speeds is hell on brakes. If you're doing okay on the stock setup, you're not going as fast as you could be. Plain and simple.

The main reason I disagree with the above suggestion is that you spend a LOT more money for the same end result. 150 for porterfields, 100 for braided lines.

Then you drop ~500 for the power slot plus kit. It's pretty pointless for a fwd to keep their stock calipers, so now invest another $200 on gsx calipers, and another $150 for the pads for it. We're now up to $1100 into the brake system.

Now we've decided that this still isn't enough. So we drop ANOTHER $1200 into it. We've now spent $2300 on a brake setup. That's a lot of cost that could have been avoided by deciding up front what we want from the car, and just investing the money once. For what we've spent by this point, we could have just gone with the Brembo GT setup and chosen pads to suit what our driving style is.