The guy that got his ass chewed off for it was me. I came up with the RL brake setup about two years ago. Let me clarify:
There are many factors to a brake setup. Those of you who believe your NSX brakes are the best thing since sliced bread and want optimal bias, leave the car alone.
The big benefit of the RL calipers guys...is that it is one of the lightest and biggest calipers I've ever come across. its only 7lbs compared to the NSX's almost 14lbs. Its a weight reduction in unsprung weight if you get rotors that are less than a few lbs heavier than stock.
In terms of bias, no one ever said to JUST upgrade the front and leave the rear alone. This is why 4 pot caliper kits for all 4 wheels are like 4,000$ and I was selling the front RL upgrade completeted for under a grand. You will want to upgrade the back either to the 97 spec or via some type of relocator, and with ABS, you can get damn close to optimal bias, but absolutley perfect bias may be just for a stock car, hell going with bigger and way wider wheels and more agressive pads is prone to shift it maybe a percent or two but come on, in terms of fade resistance and weight loss, your lap times are gonna go down. I drive a Civic without ABS, i got a lot more biasing issues to consider than you guys with race designed suspension and ABS which is gonna push the brakes to their limits easier than I can do with my foot.
Oh, and those "stoptech" painted rotors are Brembo calipers from a Porsche 911 turbo from the mid 90s. I just happen to know it by looking at it.
The RL calipers are a radial mount compared to the TL-S which are tabular. Those also have SUCH an offset that the front rotor is gonna need to have an offset of about 0. (super short hat). The RL 4 pot caliper is way better, much better designed pad, and its a better designed caliper. AS good as the TL-S is made by brembo, i do not believe brembo to be the absolute best caliper manufacturer on the planet, I would put Nissin just above them. The RL caliper is made by Advics, a derivitive of Sumitomo (rememer those 300ZX and RX7 aluminum 4 pots?) based in America. It is a better design if you ask me, and the pad is bigger, and uses a more honda-like pad shape with obtuse leading and trailing edges and an overall design that promotes more radial heat distribution. The RL with these brakes is an AWD with electonic diffs, not a FWD, and was way heavier than the TL-S (its over 4000lbs!!!) and being only in automatic, bigger brakes were needed.
Bottom line, the RL caliper rocks and after this many years IS better than the NSX caliper, but you gotta do your homework and/or own testing for those of you who want "100% perfect bias". My civic with 205/45 tires can stop from 60 in under 90 feet with 4 wheel NSX brakes (97 in the front and 91 in the back.) Hows my bias? Pretty bad in the rain!!
