Brembo Brakes worth it??

[TGR96]

I disagree completely with your assessment of the brakes. If they were completely inadequate for all cases then everyone who even thought about touching their brake pedal would be clamoring to get Brembos and the simple fact of the matter is that you do not need them. In your case it sounds like paying better attention to the road ahead of you will save you money on brakes as well as learning to not "park" your car with the brakes on if they are hot. In stop and go traffic with hot brakes you need to learn to keep creeping forward every few minutes and not use your brakes when you can as having the pads constantly against the rotors is exactly what is causing the warped brakes.

I've done nearly 3 complete years of autocrossing and 40k street miles on my stock 09 GT calipers, pads, lines, fluids, rotors and aside from a longer pedal travel due to wear and tear I have no desire to change anything out because they lack performance. I also think your brake weight estimates are a bit off. The OEM blanks on the GT500 and Brembo cars are not two piece rotors and weigh a decent bit more than the 12.4" rotors and the 13.2" rotors found in the 05-10 GT's and the new base GT's. I also have not warped my rotors despite abusing them in ways I'm sure your stop and go traffic couldn't hope to abuse them. I've never experienced fade and probably never will. They didn't get hot enough to fade when hot lapping my car for 6 runs straight on a 60 second course on a day that was 95º and 80% humidity. That is far more than adequate for a DD car.

I DO agree with your comment on pads and rotors and would add lines and fluid to that mix as well to really get the most out of the stock system but some common sense driving while in stop and go traffic will also do wonders to keeping your rotors from warping and your pads from hating you.

Sentence in bold it quite true. I didn't have a scale handy, so I wasn't able to weigh them for comparison, but the GT500 rotors are noticeably heavier than the stockers. Even the larger ones that came on my '13 GT.

That being said, after driving around on the GT500 brake set up for a few weeks now, and doing an autocross, I can say that the extra weight is not noticeable from my butt dyno. Car seems just as responsive and handles just as well as it did with the smaller stock set up. I am pleased with the upgrade, and I'm glad I did it.

 

[Black 5.0]

I have read this entire post and can say that 'bringing up the same thing again' is over rated. This has been an interesting conversation and there's nothing wrong with 'bringing it up again'.

Bare with me here as what I'm about to say may seem silly if not, redundant.

I was thinking to myself through out the conversation on surface contact of the caliper and the rotors. Taking one thing at a time, I wondered, does a single piston in a single piston caliper have the same dimension or over all volume as a 4 or 6 piston caliper? In other words would adding up the dimensions/volumes of the 4 or 6 pistons equal the dimension/volume of a single piston?

It would make sense, to me anyway, that 4 or 6 pistons would cover more surface area of the rotor as the brake pads would be longer than stock due to the piston spread. This would contribute to cooler running brakes as well therefore less fade. Larger rotor size would also contribute to cooler running brakes as well. As I said, this may be redundant to most.

Being that I'm not an engineer but, just a retired mechanic, what I said is how I understand an advantage in the multi-piston caliper/larger rotor.

But, back to my original question about piston dimension/volume. It would seem reasonable to me that adding the volume of the 4 or 6 pistons together would equal the dimension/volume of the single piston. Is this the case or, do they add to the dimension/volume of multi-piston calipers? Even I think this seems like a silly question but, their it is.

 

[Godzirra]

Some singles have quite a bit of volume and some multi pistons don't add too much extra volume if at all but they add good even pad pressure for more even heat distribution

 

[Black 5.0]

I was thinking, in a three dimensional total volume as it pertains to a piston versus 4 or 6. In the back of my mind I was thinking that having 4 or six pistons with a total dimension/volume exceeding that of a single, stock piston would have it's advantages but, wasn't sure if it's done this way by the manufacturers.

I have had Brembo's on two different stangs. The '01 Bullitt and a '11 GT so, more than 10 years experience with running these brakes. I'm back to the stock system in my '13 and I definitely notice the difference even just running around the street. The pedal is much more mushy feeling and I have to clamp down harder on the pedal. This, I'm sure, has a lot to do with somewhat weak and expanding brake lines and to some extent, single pistons. This kind of lead to my original query. That, and trying to add another dimension as to why it is good to upgrade your brakes regardless of how you drive your car.

I was also interested in the conversation about the ABS module being different in a GT500 than stock and the affect it may have upgrading to the Brembo [GT 500] package. It's not a consideration that came to mind as I'm interested in doing this upgrade to mine. Are the two modules different in construction or are they just programmed different? Can the difference be programmed into the stock module or, is it even necessary?

 

[Whiskey11]

The stock floating calipers are two pistons up front and a single in the rear. The 4 piston Brembos have less piston area than the two piston does and the added brake torque comes from the larger diameter rotors and a slightly larger pad. The extra torque does nothing for you over the stock setup on even the stickiest of street tires (ask me how I know? ) so the only advantages are going to be heat tolerance, pad selection, heat dissipation and pad wear. Most of that wont be used or needed in a street vehicle with a decent pad, lines and fluid setup but is critical on a car that sees any road course duty. Where more pistons comes in handy is pad wear under hard braking. You get a flatter pad wear with more pistons by virtue of spreading brake force over more points.

 

[Digital_Synapse]

I know technology improves over time, or should improve over time, but the stock GT brakes are 13 inches is not a bad deal. You have to remember the Cobra R in 2000 had 13 inch Brembos and everybody was like oh yeah those the best brakes ever. It also had a 385 hp 5.4 L motor people lost their shit about, "it's a race car!" Now we have a 5.0 with over 400 hp stock and it's daily driver not a race car. It puts things in perspective.

 

[swedensky]

Well I hope it's worth it cause I'm picking up a set of 4 piston gt brembos for my base gt tomorrow

 

[Digital_Synapse]

My stock '05 gt brakes faded after 2 100-30mph stops. The brembos I have now fade in 5 130-30mph "emergency" stops. The stock brembos are still not track worthy, but upgraded brembos beat the piss out of upgraded base brakes all day every day

 

[rebus]

I didn't have a scale handy, so I wasn't able to weigh them for comparison, but the GT500 rotors are noticeably heavier than the stockers. Even the larger ones that came on my '13 GT.

Rotors are 6 lbs heavier per side, calipers are 1 lb lighter for a total of 5 lbs heavier per side compared to 05-12. I installed GT500 brakes because I heat checked my stock rotors and was surprised how quickly they faded driving mountain roads with a 4,000' elevation change. The 14" rotor is a much larger heat sink with that 6 extra lbs of iron. No more fading, or heat checking, well worth it for my use. No fun losing your brakes on winding mountain roads.

 

[swedensky]

Picked these up today..used calipers pads and rotors plus new dust shields and new brembo rotors unused. I'm gonna PowderCoat them but I'm super excited even if its more for vanity than performance!!



Sorry bad pic, cell phone, garage, trunk, etc..