Brembo Says Stop Dicking With Its Brakes

Bru

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Obviously, these guys want to sell you a complete system. Still, I know Brembo conversions (CTS-Vs, Vettes, ATS-Vs) on F-Bodies are wildly popular, but I've never seen any quantifiable results that have convinced me to swap calipers. I wish there was an independent test of all of the braking options out there for 4th gens, anyway. I went with more aggressive stock-sized replacement parts when it was time for new stoppers.

Every Brembo braking system, including upgrade kits, is designed for a specific vehicle, on the basis of in-depth analyses of that vehicleā€™s characteristics, including its weight, the arrangement of the elements in the wheel side, the electronics, tires, and the original master cylinder. Brembo braking system upgrades are therefore designed, sized, made, and tested to work perfectly for the vehicle theyā€™re destined for. As such, even using a completely original Brembo braking system on a different car to the one itā€™s been designed for can be risky.

In the world of automobiles, it's normal to make little modifications ā€“ some more creative than others ā€“ to your vehicle with parts from others, adapting them to different purposes than they were designed for. This goes by various names (retro-fitting, personalization, cannibalizing, tuning, and so forth), but it's a whole different ballpark from what we like to call "half-cooking". At Brembo, we believe that mixing different braking components that are not designed for specific cars, is not an ideal solution, and can in some cases be dangerous. We therefore strongly advise against it. But of course, everyone is free to do what he thinks is best for his car and with the Brembo products he has bought, regardless of where they've come from or the car they were originally designed for.

 

Yaj Yak

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THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN RETRO-FITTED AND "HALF-COOKED"


In the world of automobiles, it's normal to make little modifications ā€“ some more creative than others ā€“ to your vehicle with parts from others, adapting them to different purposes than they were designed for. This goes by various names (retro-fitting, personalization, cannibalizing, tuning, and so forth), but it's a whole different ballpark from what we like to call "half-cooking".

At Brembo, we believe that mixing different braking components that are not designed for specific cars, is not an ideal solution, and can in some cases be dangerous. We therefore strongly advise against it. But of course, everyone is free to do what he thinks is best for his car and with the Brembo products he has bought, regardless of where they've come from or the car they were originally designed for.

Using a brake caliper fresh out the Brembo factory, designed for another car, with components of a different character and origin, does not mean you are mixing and matching with it (although, as we've said, we at Brembo advise against it).

However, selling your homemade contraption by passing it off as an original, 100% Brembo system, as if it was a Kit tested and approved by Brembo, and taking advantage of the innocence and good faith of someone who thinks he really is buying a Brembo Kit, is illegal.

So, what we call "half-cooking" is not when a car lover decides to personalize his car's brakes with a mix of components of different origins, in full awareness of what he's doing and taking on all the consequences. It's when a braking system that's only partly original and made with Brembo pieces, is passed off and sold as a 100% Brembo original.

At Brembo, we consider it our duty to point out the differences between this kind of thing, and an upgraded Brembo braking system, designed and tested for a specific automobile. We must protect buyers of Brembo braking systems who cannot spot a completely original Brembo Kit from a homemade one, made with Brembo pieces but without any production engineering, testing, or guarantee of proper functioning.

innnnnteresting.

i also can't believe all the fake stuff in the article. that's crazy. like fake purses
 
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Stink Star

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I mean I get where theyā€™re coming from. They donā€™t want somebody to hack together a system and be disappointed by it and just think ā€œwell brembos suckā€.

But on the other hand, Iā€™m sure any hacked together system is better than stock 4th gen F-body brakes
 

DEEZUZ

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I'll take my red painted oe calipers and down shifting to stop my ass
giphy.gif
 

CMNTMXR57

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Yea, I get where they're coming from, but, yea, no...

These swaps have been done for awhile now with great success.

I want to convert both the GTO and G8. Parts, namely calipers, are straight off 1st Gen CTS-V's, G8 GXP's/SS's, so they are, in a round about way, "designed" for the car it's going on.
 
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Bru

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I mean I get where theyā€™re coming from. They donā€™t want somebody to hack together a system and be diss by it and just think ā€œwell brembos suckā€.

But on the other hand, Iā€™m sure any hacked together system is better than stock 4th gen F-body brakes

I wouldn't be so sure. You could easily throw off proportioning and make the system as a whole less effective by adding massive front calipers, or emptying the master into the front calipers - bigger calipers require more volume. My guess is that anyone who upgrades and feels a night-and-day difference is likely feeling the improvements of new parts (going from worn garbage) versus purely from the parts upgrade.
 
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Bru

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Yea, I get where they're coming from, but, yea, no...

These swaps have been done for awhile now with great success.

I want to convert both the GTO and G8. Parts, namely calipers, are straight off 1st Gen CTS-V's, G8 GXP's/SS's, so they are, in a round about way, "designed" for the car it's going on.

Define "great success".
 

Yaj Yak

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CMNTMXR57

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Right, no deaths yet... :D

I mean, I don't think any of them have data to support their claims , but those that I know have done it, all pretty much summarize it as "why didn't I do this sooner..."

One thing, if you plan on tracking the car, Brembo's (or other similar style setup), allow for quick pad compound changes. Just pop the two pins out, take out the sheetmetal cover/silencer gizmo, and the pads come right out. So you can drive to the track on one setup, quick change over to a higher temp compound, race, then swap back for the drive home. :D I know that doesn't address rotors, but, it does make life easier.
 

Yaj Yak

Gladys
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Right, no deaths yet... :D

I mean, I don't think any of them have data to support their claims , but those that I know have done it, all pretty much summarize it as "why didn't I do this sooner..."

One thing, if you plan on tracking the car, Brembo's (or other similar style setup), allow for quick pad compound changes. Just pop the two pins out, take out the sheetmetal cover/silencer gizmo, and the pads come right out. So you can drive to the track on one setup, quick change over to a higher temp compound, race, then swap back for the drive home. :D I know that doesn't address rotors, but, it does make life easier.


but you have to remember that "why didn't I do this sooner" can come from what Bru Bru is saying- the new parts themselves over worn out junk...

ooooorrrr the unconscious desire to "make sense" of paying money/spending time & energy- to perform that update. anyone paying that coin and putting the time in to make that update, is also subconciously going to look at it through happy-glasses and say it's better.
 

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If you can attach an OEM style caliper/Brembo to the OEM mounting location without having to use weird brackets or spacers, you will be perfectly fine. That usually only works on applications that came with base brakes and you're upgrading to the "sport" brake package of that particular model.

Brake pad technology is pretty good these days, you can take a stock system pretty damn far but they're pretty expensive and they dust like a MF.
 

WhiteKnuckle

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Last year I learned a lot about brakes. I pretty much fucked up a lot of shit doing hpde days. Once I had street pads on that wore out in 3 sessions. I wrecked a set of power stop drilled rotors that they said would be fine on the track. They werenā€™t, they were heat cracked and chipped after one day. I boiled my brake fluid on the track (motul 600), that was a scary experience.
I still donā€™t know if I have it right but after all that I upgraded my 4 piston brembos to the six pistons that come standard with the hellcats. Iā€™m keeping the oem ā€œhellcatā€ two piece rotors for the street and have some bigger cheapo iron rotors from centric for the track ($55 ea so if I have to throw them away after a couple track days it beats spending $800 for the oem rotors).
Also put in castrol srf for fluid. SRF is $75 per liter! Unfortunately the last track day of the year was cold and rainy so I didnā€™t get to really test the new set up yet.
 

nytebyte

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I had a leaky piston on one of my original Cobra front brake calipers. Instead of rebuilding it, I decided to replace both in the front with the Brembo 4-piston caliper kit (same as what's on the Cobra R). The Brembo brakes work perfectly fine and are easier to modulate while driving, although the pedal feels slightly softer than with the stock PBR calipers. The only thing I probably should do is to upgrade the pads on the rear to something a bit more aggressive just to balance out the braking a bit more.
 

Thirdgen89GTA

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I'm sure my C5 brake swap is better than the 10.5" single piston iron calipers that came on my car originally. lol. A single 120mph+ hard stop was enough to fade the brakes completely. Hell, even a 70mph limited touring session at Road America was enough to soften the pedal with the factory brakes.

Now I have the 12.75" C5 brakes and stopping from big numbers is easy and most importantly, repeatable.


Then again.

My Focus RS has Brembo front calipers, but ford OEM rear calipers. Sure the discs are bigger in back, but the rears really aren't a 'performance' system or a Brembo part.

So, Ford? Stop dicking with Brembo's brakes.
 
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