Brembo Pad strategy - what's the story?

[JAJ]

So I've seen a bunch of posts on Brembo monobloc calipers and the new bbk's. There's even one on how challenging (or not) it is to change pads. But what's the story on the pads themselves?

For the E9x M3, Brembo makes four different caliper-rotor combinations:

380mm fronts/6 piston calipers
365mm fronts/6 piston calipers

380mm rears/4 piston calipers
345mm rears/4 piston calipers

Presumably they come with pads when you buy them. What pads are they?

If you want to head to the track with them, what pad choices do you have, where do you get them and what do they cost?

I think it's surprising that nobody has commented on this so far - what am I missing?

[SV Concepts]

All brembo kits come with Ferodo pads as far as I know. They are great pads (obviously), though the dust kinda annoys me. That's the price you pay for top-notch performance, though, and it's not like your OEM pads don't produce a TON of dust anyways.

You can replace with Ferodos and just about any other pad. Because Brembo is the OEM choice of AMG, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Porsche, etc, all the pad manufacturers make sizes for their kits in my experience.
We sell replacement pads to our customers all the time when they track their Brembo kits.

Especially the 6 piston kits - those have been OE for all AMG cars for quite a while now, so everyone makes them.

Probably why nobody has commented
Let me know if you have any other questions
JL

[lucid]

Originally Posted by JAJ

I think it's surprising that nobody has commented on this so far - what am I missing?

Could it be that the majority of the folks who drop a huge chunk of money on these kits do it mainly for looks? I haven't seen any track reports with Brembos in the track section of the forum. Did I miss them or were there none?

[OG_M3]

Originally Posted by lucid

Could it be that the majority of the folks who drop a huge chunk of money on these kits do it mainly for looks? I haven't seen any track reports with Brembos in the track section of the forum. Did I miss them or were there none?

^+1

Many many people buy BBK's for the sole purpose of looks and not primarily performance. Just ask yourself, how often you see Brembo's or other BBK's on the "show" car circuit.

However, many aftermarket companies do indeed make pads of different uses for such the 3% of the BBK buyers who do indeed track their cars. I prefer Endless pads and parts since they are tried and tested in Japan's Super GT (like ALMS of the US) and Formula 1. www.endlessusa.com


if you have trouble navigating that site, heres a direct link to pads for your brembo calipers
http://endlessusa.com/product.php?c=brakepad&p=46

[JAJ]

Originally Posted by lucid

Could it be that the majority of the folks who drop a huge chunk of money on these kits do it mainly for looks? I haven't seen any track reports with Brembos in the track section of the forum. Did I miss them or were there none?

I thought KINGLEH had reported on them and that he liked the way his car stopped, or at least slowed down. Maybe it was somebody else.

My original post was to try to get some concrete info on Brembo pads - part numbers, perhaps cross-refs to pad mfg catalogs, something so I could comparison shop with Stoptech or the other 18"-rim-friendly BBK makers.

Stoptech is easy - the 355x35F/355x32R four-wheel kit takes the ST-40 caliper all around and the ST-40 has lots of street and race pads to choose from. I've had Stoptech before - it's a good product.

I am thinking more seriously of getting a BBK and I'm looking hard at Stoptech's competition, like Brembo, maybe AP Racing. It was only when I looked in detail at Brembo that I realized that there's very little said by anyone (including Brembo) about pads. It's like they just don't need any explaining or something. Since I'm not psychic, I need a bit of educating.

Finding RS-19's for the factory brakes was nail-biting enough - finding pads for my BBK shouldn't require nearly as much good luck.

[tszene]

Originally Posted by lucid

Could it be that the majority of the folks who drop a huge chunk of money on these kits do it mainly for looks? I haven't seen any track reports with Brembos in the track section of the forum. Did I miss them or were there none?

i did a couple last year, and i just wrote in there now.