Brembo Install question

[kye]

Hi All,
I have the possibility to buy front Brembo's for my 98-T, The rotors are 13" by 1.25" wide. Calipers are Brembo 4 piston.

Will these fit the car in standard format or will I need to get special fittings made etc ??

Any advice.

Also I would be putting these on the front but leaving for now the stock brakes on the rear, can this pose any issues?

Thanks,
Kye

 

[docjohn]

You will need brackets to mount them.Ususaly the vendor you buy them from will include these.Your biggest problem will be front wheel clearence, please take some time to use the search feature as to bbk fitment.You can use rear stock brakes just make sure you match the friction characteristics of the pads front to rear.Meaning Since you will have a larger swept area in front you dont' want the fronts to completely overpower the rear pads' grip, so you may need to mix compounds.If you are completly new to these concepts you best chat with Andie Lin at cobalt or Chris Wilson of SOS,ect....

 

[titaniumdave]

You will have some major fitment issues, if it is a 32 mm wide rotor, the caliper will be the F-50. That is a very wide caliper, even with BBK wheels you will need as much as 12mm of spacers for them to clear. Brackets are not hard to make, I can help you. You will have a hard time getting the balance correct with these and stock rear rotors, they can be mated with a set of RB big rotor and offset brackets for the stock calipers with good results.

 

[kye]

Hi Dave, thanks for the offer, thats really kind, We managed to make brackets out of steel and got the brakes on the car, they work well, balance feels great (from my limited knowledge), I put the RB BBK kit on the rear re-using the stock caliper. Although the Brembo's are working fine it was a really hard job, the clearance between the caliper and the wheel spokes is around 3 mm so very close, we are looking at spacing that out a bit but the main problem is that with the hats used we dont get the wheel over the center hub any longer so the weight is on the lugs only, we have a 7mm spacer behind the hat in order to get it to clear the suspension ball at the bottom, most likely next is to shave off some (more) of the precious suspension aluminium and plant a 3 mm spacer in and move the hat/caliper back. anyway with the new CTSC I am happy for the extra stopping power :biggrin: Any other suggestions or angles to look at ? can the centre hub be lengthened to fit into the wheel for example ? Wheels are volk 18" Ce-28's. thanks .. Kye

 

[kye]

OK .. After a lot of chatting with the ever helpful Mark Johnson today I realise that what I have not done is replace the hubcentric rings on the car and therefore i have a gap between hub and wheel ... so with these back on the car and a 3mm spacer behind the hat and a 2 mm in front of the hat I should be able to move the rotor back enough and allow more space between the caliper and the spokes than I have now, with 2mm extra will be around 5mm.

Will post up some pictures when this is all done. Its been an adventure!

//Kye

 

[titaniumdave]

It sounds like you have the wrong hats. I never like to have a spacer behind the hat, always design to get the hat sitting tight against the hub to transfer the braking load through the face, not through the studs. Your set up will lead to premature stud failure...can you remove material off the back of the hat where the rotor mounts to bring that surface farther away from the center line of the car? If you have Brembo drive bobbins this might not be easy...

Don't take away any more material off the lower A arm than the casting marks, once again this is a high load area and you don't want things to fail.

On my set up, I have less than 2 mm clearance behind the wheel spokes and the caliper face, I consider this plenty of clearance. If there is 0.2 mm(0.005") of flex in the system, I have a real problem and need to re-design parts or get different wheels, IMO.

 

[kye]

Dave, thanks. Yes they have bobbins (If I understand what they are...), we are going to try some different hats out, waiting on the DHL from Dali with them. How much clearance did you have between the rotor and the lower A arm joint ?

Thanks,
Kye

 

[ryneen]

You will have some major fitment issues, if it is a 32 mm wide rotor, the caliper will be the F-50. That is a very wide caliper, even with BBK wheels you will need as much as 12mm of spacers for them to clear. Brackets are not hard to make, I can help you. You will have a hard time getting the balance correct with these and stock rear rotors, they can be mated with a set of RB big rotor and offset brackets for the stock calipers with good results.

Titaniumdave or Doc John,
I'm currently running Brembo BBK's in the front and stock calipers/rotors in the rear. I've been running Carbotech XP8 pads on the front and rear.

I'm thinking of getting a Brembo BBK also for the rear. Should I be running the same pads front and rear or do I need to get a more aggressive pad for the fronts?
thanks,
ryan

 

[FXMDBilly]

You will have some major fitment issues, if it is a 32 mm wide rotor, the caliper will be the F-50. That is a very wide caliper, even with BBK wheels you will need as much as 12mm of spacers for them to clear. Brackets are not hard to make, I can help you. You will have a hard time getting the balance correct with these and stock rear rotors, they can be mated with a set of RB big rotor and offset brackets for the stock calipers with good results.

I beg to differ. Ryneen's car has a very nice balance with his setup listed below:

Titaniumdave or Doc John,
I'm currently running Brembo BBK's in the front and stock calipers/rotors in the rear. I've been running Carbotech XP8 pads on the front and rear.

I'm thinking of getting a Brembo BBK also for the rear. Should I be running the same pads front and rear or do I need to get a more aggressive pad for the fronts?
thanks,
ryan

You will have more rear torque by upgrading the rear to a Brembo BBK. It might or might not be too much but I would either buy a set of XP10's up front (but they aren't as streetable) or preferably a less agressive rear pad, even a street pad, to fix the balance.

When you get the rears, get either the more agressive fronts or less agressive rears, with the XP8's all around and then swap out the pads if you have too much rear bite.

Billy

 

[CL65 Captain]

Billy, I have been very, very surprised how street-able the XP10/8 combo has been on my car. To be honest I think I may go XP10 for both next time.

 

[ryneen]

Thanks Billy for the info. I might just keep the stock rear rotors with XP8's all around and save me a few grand.

Not sure if you ever do HPDE events anymore, now that your race schedule is so busy, but it would be great if you could make it up to the Speedventures Laguna Seca event Aug 22-23? I'm assuming your white NSX won't be ready, but maybe bring out the M3 for a chill weekend? My buddies and our girls are coming out and we're staying in Carmel.
Holla'
Ryan

 

[FXMDBilly]

Billy, I have been very, very surprised how street-able the XP10/8 combo has been on my car. To be honest I think I may go XP10 for both next time.

Cool. I've just had XP10s chew up S2000 rotors a little on the street.

Thanks Billy for the info. I might just keep the stock rear rotors with XP8's all around and save me a few grand.

Not sure if you ever do HPDE events anymore, now that your race schedule is so busy, but it would be great if you could make it up to the Speedventures Laguna Seca event Aug 22-23? I'm assuming your white NSX won't be ready, but maybe bring out the M3 for a chill weekend? My buddies and our girls are coming out and we're staying in Carmel.
Holla'
Ryan

I do, and I have the 22-23rd off. I'm trying to get ahold of Aaron to instruct so I don't have to pay, but he's not responding. I should be able to go up either way and my NSX actually should be done by then!

 

[titaniumdave]

I beg to differ. Ryneen's car has a very nice balance with his setup listed below:

You will have more rear torque by upgrading the rear to a Brembo BBK. It might or might not be too much but I would either buy a set of XP10's up front (but they aren't as streetable) or preferably a less agressive rear pad, even a street pad, to fix the balance.

When you get the rears, get either the more agressive fronts or less agressive rears, with the XP8's all around and then swap out the pads if you have too much rear bite.

Billy

My comment was about F-50 front calipers, which usually have bigger piston than the Lotus/GT calipers. The bigger pistons increase clamping force and in turn torque, which will make balance challenging to achieve. With a Lotus/GT front BBK, you most definitely can achieve excellent balance with different pads. I do agree with Billy, the XP-10 pads are hard on rotors when below operating temps, IMO, and squeal when cold. Might not be the best choice for daily driver, but only takes a minute to swap pads on the Brembo calipers.

 

[docjohn]

I might try going with just the front bbk and using the stock rear calipers with a very heat tolerant agressive pad on the rear before jumping to the bbk rear.To do that right you might need a ballance bar and different wheels ect.