If it were stock brakes they would have faded and I reckon I would have been doing at least 60 and had little to no steering ability.

Do yourselves (and anyone else in your car) a favour and get some premos

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I will highly doubt that our stock brakes would fade from a single stop between 100-40

that is laughable!

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Fade or otherwise, bottom line, stock brakes are total and absolute crap compared to an upgraded package.

This was something I had trouble comprehending a while ago and was corrected by those who knew better. I always thought that bigger/better brakes would stop a car quicker, but apparently this is not necessarily the case. 

If the stock brakes are able to activate the car's ABS system, then apparently bigger brakes won't actually make the car stop any quicker. And these days, most factory brakes are able to activate the ABS.

The advantage of bigger brakes, I understand, is when a) you are travelling at faster speeds when your stock brakes may NOT be capable of activating the ABS and b) of, course, when repeated heavy stops are required. There is plenty of good info around and, from memory, both the Brembo and DBA websites have some useful stuff on this very issue. Hope that helps? 

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If a car is fitted with abs ofcourse the factory brakes will cause it to work, the abs system was designed to stop you from locking it up. Bigger brakes WILL pull the car up quicker who ever told you other wise is a twit, you don't slam on your brakes everytime you use them do you. Cause that's 'pretty much the only way you'll get them to lock up.

If bigger brakes didn't do anything on abs equipped car's then why the hell do FPV's have monstor 6 piston brembo's on them, why do so many peole fit these massive brakes to modded car's. Simply because they work.

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Mate, YOU had better get your facts straight as you are WRONG.

Bigger brakes WILL NOT stop you quicker. This has been discussed and several experts have all agreed that this is FACT.

The reasons they fit big brembo's to FPV/HSV/Etc is due to their resistance to fade. The buyers of these type of cars like to have a performance car that can stop from 200-0 10x in a row, where stock brakes would be fried. They are also fitted for looks, as big calipers infer that a car is fast.

F1 cars and Indy cars are a different story as they have downforce that increases the need of clamping force.

If you had 2 T side by side with the same weight, tyres and road surface and one had 8spot AP racing brakes and the other had stock brakes. From 80km/h if both jumped on the brakes in an emergency stop, they would both pull up the same. If you did it 10 times in a row, the AP equiped car would stop better than the stock one due to heat

Im not looking to start and argument here i just want to ask a couple of questions.. How do brakes work? They convert the kinetic energy that the car has into heat. The brakes have to absorb that heat. So obviously bigger brakes have less fade on repeated stops. Now for a single stop you have "x" amount of kinetic energy from a car weighing "z" weight a "y" speed. So if the only thing that is changed is the amount of energy the braking system can absorb surely this must equate to a shorter stopping distance? (all other things being equal ie car speed/wieght/tyre condition and road condition? assuming in both cases the tyre are at the limit of adhesion?)

If the tyres are at the limit, then that is the maximum braking force that can be applied. It is the tyres that will shorten the distance, not the brakes as it will come down to traction, not braking force.

so if the tyres are at there limit and one car has the ability to convert the kinetic energy at a faster rate than the other why wouldnt this shorten the stopping distance? You obviously cannot apply any more braking force without breaking traction but your still converting that energy to heat. Bigger discs and pads =more suface area to convert heat = energy dissapated in a shorter time?

Mate, YOU had better get your facts straight as you are WRONG.

Bigger brakes WILL NOT stop you quicker.  This has been discussed and several experts have all agreed that this is FACT.

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Thanks Zap, I'm with you on this one (now, after much discussion on this forum and doing some of my own research!). I thought Mr XRQTOR was going in a little strongly, I was gonna say that he was pretty brave calling a few professional drivers and brake sellers 'twits'!!

If there's one thing I've learned on this forum, it's not to go in with both guns blazing unless you are 110% sure of your facts! You may at least have looked up the Brembo site I pointed you to before launching in mate, I'm pretty sure that that's one of the sources I found that said outright that bigger brakes do not stop you quicker under normal circumstances. Faster speeds and repeated stops are, of course, a different matter.

so if the tyres are at there limit and one car has the ability to convert the kinetic energy at a faster rate than the other why wouldnt this shorten the stopping distance? You obviously cannot apply any more braking force without breaking traction but your still converting that energy to heat. Bigger discs and pads =more suface area to convert heat = energy dissapated in a shorter time?

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No matter how well your barkes can absorb heat and cycle that enery through, your tyres are only able to maintain that transfer of energy at their maximum friction coeffecient, tyres are the limiting factor not brakes!

hiddeous,

This is th eonly advantage of bigger brakes is their ability to handle heat better, but stock brakes will also handle the heat, just not as much.

The clamping force only needs to be enough to lock the wheels and that is the maximum braking force. Assuming both sets of brakes can do this, then they both exert the same braking potential, it is then down to the traction as to how quickly the car would stop.

Think of it the other way. If you had 155/65/15 cross ply tyres on the AP racing brake car and big slicks on the stock braked car, you would have the opposite problem.

Too much traction for the stock brakes, they may not even have enough pressure to lock the slicks up, yet the AP equiped car would have no traction due to the poor tyres.

Another way to do a comparison, where the AP's would stop the car faster is if both cars had slicks, the AP equiped car WOULD stop quicker as there is more traction due tot he tyres, not the brakes.

For the info of those who are interested, and XRQTOR in particular, this is taken from the FAQ section of the Brembo website:

"At the speeds that stopping distance is generally measured from (60 to 70mph), the test is primarily testing the tire's grip on the pavement. As delivered from the manufacturer, nearly all vehicles are able to engage the ABS or lock the wheels at these speeds. Therefore, an increase in braking power will do nothing to stop the vehicle in a shorter distance. For this reason, we do not record stopping distances at this time. The Brembo systems will show their greatest advantages when braking from higher speeds, or when tasked with repeated heavy braking. The increased braking torque provides for maximum deceleration at speed, and the ability to absorb and quickly dissipate the intense heat generated during repeated braking insures that the braking system will perform at the same high level each time."

Speed also comes into this, stock brakes will not activate ABS at 200km/h, no matter how hard you jump on them. Larger brakes may very well activate ABS at these speeds.

Standard brakes at standard speeds work well, and you are wasting money on bigger brakes. Do a track day or be somewhat naughty and break the speed limit, then the bigger brakes come into play.

For those with 20 something tyres, lowered, modded up to the hilt, with massive brakes and sh*t Wanli tyres, sorry but you have wasted your money, because are as an important factor in the braking efficiency as the braking system itself.

Scotty

Edited October 12, 200620 yr by Kimberley Scott