All, I did some searching on here and have not seen any recommendations for a good brake kit. I was planning on going with the steeda 14" kit with 4 piston calipers. I believe the price point is reasonable and it uses the factory ABS.
I also have the steeda competition front fascia so I also plan on running the brake duct when I get the new brakes.
I have also looked at the baer brakes as well as the roush performance kit.
I have sold the Mrs. to spend about 2750 or so, what are the thoughts out there? Does anyone have any experience with these kits?
In the future, I plan on getting about 500-550 hp worth of mods and I want to be able to stop. With that in mind, I will put the brakes in before the HP.
Posts: 2736
Joined: 6/8/2006 From: SF Bay Area Status: offline
I am with Lito here. Doesn't the GT500 now come with 4 piston Brembos? I have them installed for over a year now, and far better than the stockers. Keep in mind, that if you go 13" or larger brakes, your spare tire will likely NOT clear caliper in either outside diameter or depth.
Well "Best brake kit" is a very relative term. You really didn't say what your intensions are for upgrading your brakes, having 500 hp doesn't effect the braking ability of your car the gas pedal controls that.
Best for what application? Are you actually going to use these brakes for a race purpose or just to look good and brag about them in a parking spot? If you are going to use them in a race setting, i.e. open track event, Auto-X then just upgrade your pads and buy a higher temp brake fluid. That costs way less then $2700.
If it is only for show then you have done your research on that and you have stated what you would get. Buy the steeda; you already stated you thought it was a good price for what you want to spend.
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Speed Kills......But so does everything else only slower
ORIGINAL: OkieNGa All, I did some searching on here and have not seen any recommendations for a good brake kit. I was planning on going with the steeda 14" kit with 4 piston calipers. I believe the price point is reasonable and it uses the factory ABS.
I also have the steeda competition front fascia so I also plan on running the brake duct when I get the new brakes.
I have also looked at the baer brakes as well as the roush performance kit.
I have sold the Mrs. to spend about 2750 or so, what are the thoughts out there? Does anyone have any experience with these kits?
In the future, I plan on getting about 500-550 hp worth of mods and I want to be able to stop. With that in mind, I will put the brakes in before the HP.
Hi OkieNGa,
You need to do a little bit of homework and learn what makes your car stop. Some of the best most clearly written factual articles I've seen on the internet can be found on the StopTech site in their white papers, click on this link to go to the StopTech white paper TOC. Once you take the time read, understand and consider what these short articles are explaining you will see some of the people posting here don't know much about brakes. Brakes don't stop your car TIRES do. A BBK cannot reduce the single stop braking distances when tested against the stock brakes assumming they are in good condition to begin with!
Now you have to decide what you think is wrong with your stock brakes and considering what you have learned decide if spending the kind of money a fancy BBK will cost you is worth it or not. For almost any use short of a dedicated road racer you don't need the 4-6 piston calipers with the fancy names painted on them nor do you need gigantic rear brakes. You can get more improved braking performance out of improving your suspension, wheels and tires than ANY BBK on the market bar none.
Stay with me a minute and consider what I think is the best way to go for a street car no matter how much power your engine makes. Upgrade your stock pads to a higher friction pad material like EBC's Yellow 'R' compound pads front and rear. Replace your soft O.E. rubber brake lines with Teflon tubed stainless steel covered brake lines and flush your brake lines and fill with RBF600 or ATE Super Blue or Gold raceing brake fluid. Install spindle mounted brake ducts with a 3" hose and ducts mounted in the nose of the front bumper cover. These brakes will last longer, fade less and more importantly recover much faster than any of the big brake kits installed without cooling. Your car will accellerate faster, handle better and ride better than any car with a BBK installed due to the lower weight of simply upgrading your stock brake system. To top it off your car will also maintain complete compatability with the factory ABS because it is based on the stock calipers and rotors.
I hope this helps you figure out some of the marketing hype and ignorance being put out about the very expensive for the performance gains big brake kits.
Cheers!
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2005 Mineral Grey Mustang GT Coupe, Premium, M5, ICAP, IUP, Active Anti-theft, LoJack
Mods: Gave up trying to make it all fit, but ask if interested!
ORIGINAL: OkieNGa All, I did some searching on here and have not seen any recommendations for a good brake kit. I was planning on going with the steeda 14" kit with 4 piston calipers. I believe the price point is reasonable and it uses the factory ABS.
I also have the steeda competition front fascia so I also plan on running the brake duct when I get the new brakes.
I have also looked at the baer brakes as well as the roush performance kit.
I have sold the Mrs. to spend about 2750 or so, what are the thoughts out there? Does anyone have any experience with these kits?
In the future, I plan on getting about 500-550 hp worth of mods and I want to be able to stop. With that in mind, I will put the brakes in before the HP.
Hi OkieNGa,
All of the BBK's being sold are compatable with your stock ABS and most are relying on the factory ABS to help get their brake balancing right. Few BBK makers actually engineer and size their BBK caliper's piston area and fluid volume requirements to balance properly with the stock master cylinder and rear brake piston area values. Some make a serious effort to get it just right most get close and call it a day which with the fairly fast ABS systems in the S197GT seems to work pretty well based on the GT500, Baer, StopTech, Roush and Saleen and Steeda BBK equipped cars I've test driven. Some work better than others but all of these seem to work fairly well.
Once you get over being enamored of pretty BBK's you need to also know there are other issues with going with a BBK aside from the fact that you don't stop any sooner of shorter after spending the money to buy and install them. I forgot to mention that with almost all of the big brake kits you can install easily on an S197GT you will need 18" or larger wheels/tires and even then not all 18" wheels will clear the caliper faces and may require 20" wheel/tires. This wheel clearance problem is pretty much the norm for all 4 or 6 piston calipers on the market as used in BBK's with 13.5" or larger rotors. You have to ask the wheel maker if their wheels fit correctly on a BBK Brand X or GT500 BBK or you may have problems when you try to fit the front wheels to the hubs and hit those shinny new calipers. Even if the BBK maker claims they will fit you had best download and print out the BBK clearance templates and carefully check for yourself to be sure they will clear properly. AFAIK the only BBK that will work with any virtually 18" wheel is Baer's 14" GT Plus Kit which uses the PBR 2-piston calipers from the C5/C6 Corvettes along with larger diam. 2-piece 14" rotors.
Hope this helps some more.
Cheers!
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2005 Mineral Grey Mustang GT Coupe, Premium, M5, ICAP, IUP, Active Anti-theft, LoJack
Mods: Gave up trying to make it all fit, but ask if interested!
the steeda, roush, saleen and stoptech calipers are all the same and are made by stop tech. there is a huge price difference in the name printed on the side but they are all the same at least the 14" 4 pistion caliper kits that people are referring to.
Posts: 1541
Joined: 12/19/2006 From: Northern California Status: offline
I put upgraded pads (Hawk HPS) new rotors (powerslot slotted) because I hot spotted my others and flushed the fluid.
This made a huge difference in the ability to brake. I can stop faster and the pads/rotors don't get hot like they did in the past. It's not as in depth as F1 Fan suggested, but a slightly cheaper way to do it. The initial bite when driving isn't great when they are cold, but after the first brake application, they work much better. I didn't measure before and after but by the seat of the pants gauge, they work much better.
The front rotors can be changed in about 30 minutes. This includes jacking the car up and removing the tires.
Pads took me a longer, but it was a learning experience and I can not change brake pads in about 5 minutes if the calipers are off the car.
Eventually I will get the SS lines and change fluids, but now, this is fine.
ORIGINAL: F1Fan Brakes don't stop your car TIRES do.
go to tirerack.com and read some of the tire tests they do on their bmw 330i cars. i remember in one example they switched the oem goodyear rsa to a kumho summer tire and the car stopped 9' shorter in their 50-0 tests.
< Message edited by timothyrw -- 5/18/2008 7:59:52 AM >
ORIGINAL: F1Fan Brakes don't stop your car TIRES do.
go to tirerack.com and read some of the tire tests they do on their bmw 330i cars. i remember in one example they switched the oem goodyear rsa to a kumho summer tire and the car stopped 9' shorter in their 50-0 tests.
Hi timothyrw,
Proves my point, isn't friction great? I love friction and gravity without them we would not exist.
Cheers!
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2005 Mineral Grey Mustang GT Coupe, Premium, M5, ICAP, IUP, Active Anti-theft, LoJack
Mods: Gave up trying to make it all fit, but ask if interested!
anyone have any idea if a +36mm offset 18x9in wheel will clear those stoptech,roush,saleen,steeda 14" 4 piston kit?
redxls, this doesn't directly answer your question, but I did download the template from Stoptech for their 4 piston calipers and measure it against the stock fanblade wheel (18 x 8.5 w/50 mm offset) and they cleared by 3-4 mm all around. I think a lot depends on the shape of your wheel and I would recommend that you download the template and try it yourself. It only takes about 30 minutes to print out the template, glue it to some thin cardboard (I used a manila folder), cut it out, pull off a wheel and measure:
For me, I found the cost of the Stoptech kit (and variants) to be extremely high in comparison to the GT500 brakes (roughly $1K premium) with no real additional benefit other than the clearance they provide to my stock wheels. In the end, I followed the advice of many on this forum and stuck with stock brakes upgraded with SS lines, >500 degree fluid, and pads.
ORIGINAL: F1Fan Brakes don't stop your car TIRES do.
go to tirerack.com and read some of the tire tests they do on their bmw 330i cars. i remember in one example they switched the oem goodyear rsa to a kumho summer tire and the car stopped 9' shorter in their 50-0 tests.
Hi timothyrw,
Proves my point, isn't friction great? I love friction and gravity without them we would not exist.
Cheers!
F1Fan...man I love reading your posts. I've learned a lot from reading your responses.
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2005 Mustang GT
JLT II CAI, Kooks LTs w/ catted X, FRPP CMCV deletes, FRPP 4.10 gears, Steeda UDPs, FRPP Axle backs, BMR LCAs, BMR Rear Sway Bar, BMR Panhard Bar, Panhard Bar Brace, CHE K member brace, Xcal2, Hurst Shifter, Steeda STB.
ORIGINAL: F1Fan Brakes don't stop your car TIRES do.
go to tirerack.com and read some of the tire tests they do on their bmw 330i cars. i remember in one example they switched the oem goodyear rsa to a kumho summer tire and the car stopped 9' shorter in their 50-0 tests.
Hi timothyrw,
Proves my point, isn't friction great? I love friction and gravity without them we would not exist.
Cheers!
F1Fan...man I love reading your posts. I've learned a lot from reading your responses.
I most definitely agree. I've learned more from one man in the past couple months than I have from all the people my entire life so far as far as car tech goes.
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2007 Mustang GT Premium 18" Black Bullitt DD, BFG KDW2''''s Pro-Kit/D-Specs, Hurst STS, JLTII/B a m a 91 Race!!, Custom straight pipes (muffler delete), Remote Start
Printable Version
Best brake kit - 
