I have an 07 Enthusiast that I take to the track frequently. Burning through front brake pads (Carbotech XP12s) with OEM non-Brembo calipers. (Recent post in this forum. Felt like it would be better to start a new thread for this specific question.)

I have found remanufactured OEM Brembo front calipers for a really good price but cannot find rears. I would like to get these so I will have more pad choices for the track.

Does anyone know if using Brembos on front and OEM non-Brembos on the rear would cause significant brake bias issues that could not be overcome by pad choice?

 

You won't notice a difference.

 

I notice from your other threads you are running a staggered pad compound...next time try running same compound front and rear (eg xp12/xp12 rather than xp12/xp10). Bringing the bias back a bit will even out the wear, and will perform better. I know it is popular and even recommended to run staggered, but I have found no performance benefit to moving additional bias forward on our platform.

 

Oh and to answer your original question, sure you can run it that way in the interim, but do it with the intention of swapping out the rears to brembos sooner than later.

 

Thanks for that tip. In this case, OEM non-Brembo caliper in the rear and Brembo up front, it would certainly make sense not to run less mu in the back since I'm guessing the pad surface area on the rear Brembo is higher than on the non-Brembo.

 

Any particular reason for that?

I have sent an email to the remanufacturer to see where I can get a set of their rears. They show them on their website but they are not a retailer and none of the retailers have them. Seems kind of strange that the retailers do not list the rears.

 

Only to minimize the unknown variables that may arise from running mismatched rotor diameter/brake design/heat capacity/pad compounds/etc (after all your rears will still be single piston floating rotors). It will work though...it is analogous to leaving the OEM brembo rears and swapping to larger bbk front calipers, which plenty of people do.

 

Gotcha.

It is really a strange thing though. I can find remanufactured fronts at good prices from several sources and several retailers at good prices. But I can't find rears anywhere. The places that have them listed have them costing a good bit more than the fronts and when I contact them they say they cannot get them.

Why would there be plenty of front OEM Brembos and no rears?

 

A friend of mine was looking for Brembo's and finally got them from rockautoparts. The fronts were easy to find, and we're just over $300/pr shipped, but he had to check the site every few days for a few months to find rears, and they were $400/pr shipped. They looked great and came with all the hardware, but they're bare aluminum, so plan on some extra cost for paint or powdercoat.

 

Interesting there are none on eBay, they're used to be lots on there when I was looking back in the day.
I'm sure he has that forward bias because he has read where the Z platform brakes are set up a little to heavy on the rear. But if your going to keep the stock rear calipers then I'll agree even them out so the rear can keep up with the fronts but when you go to full Brembo definitely do the stagger again.
I have the full Akebono setup with XP12 fronts and XP10 rears and I can't even get them hot enough in the mountains to really put them to work to their full potential. So I decided to only use them only on the track and used my posi quiets on this last mtn run haaaa mistake....
Everything was going great then all of a sudden I pushed the brake and I wasn't slowing down! Yup melted them a bit so probably going to XP10/XP8 for the norm now.

 

I'll probably leave them bare or paint them myself. I don't care what they look like.

 

My wife's G37S 6MT coupe has the Akebonos. I've threatened to swap them out when she is out of town. She'd never notice the difference.

 

Four months later and I still can't find a pair of remanufactured rears anywhere. Can't find a set of Brembo rears of any sort anywhere. The junk yards and eBay sellers want to sell the whole set and they ALL have them way overpriced.

Still very curious about why there are no rear Brembos out there. I wonder if they are a popular upgrade on some other vehicle.

 

I'd bet people are putting a BBK on the front but leaving the rear Brembos as is. Thus plenty of fronts available on the market. just a guess.

Have you looked at going with the Akebonos instead? The Brembos size-wise aren't that much bigger then standard Z brakes especially on the '06+ models.

 

Sounds like a good guess to me.

My issue has to do with choice of track pads more than performance. In reality, my OEM non-Brembos perform quite well. But about the only pads I can find for track use are Carbotechs. And while they perform well they are pricey and do not last very long at my home track. The Brembos give me a much wider variety of pads to choose from and I'd be willing to give up a bit of performance to save money since the Carbotechs only last about two weekends.

My wife's G37 has the Akebono calipers and they perform quite well on the street so I have thought about getting a set. However, track pad choices for them are not really any better than for the OEM calipers.

 

Wait for a full set to pop up in the classifieds then resell the fronts.

 

I found a single used brembo rear here:
LKQ Online

but that was last year

I think that these calipers are used on other none Nissan cars, I haven't researched it since I found a ugly junkyard full set, that when cleaned up and rebuild works great.

 

What pad are your looking at for the Brembos that is not available for the Akebonos? Just curious as most people seem to love Carbotechs.

I'm currently running Project Mu HC+ Plus but might switch over to Hawk HP+ next time. Granted these are kind of mixed use pads and not true dedicated track pads.

 

Not sure, but remember doing a search for available Akebono track pads and not coming up with much. The reason you can get Carbotechs for them is that Carbotech makes them to order which they will do for just about any brake system they can find backing plates for.

Im a big fan of Carbotech. Performance of the XP10s is excellent. The XP12s are amazing. But my local track is hard on braking in that there are hard braking zones without enough straightaway to allow for adequate cooling. So they get too hot. Lap after lap. Especially the XP12s. The heat does not cause loss of braking performance but two things happen: 1- pad material starts to get deposited on the rotors and vibration with braking gets worse and worse. 2- the pads tend to chunk and crumble a bit under these conditions. As is I get two weekends out of a set of $350+ Carbotechs at Carolina Motorsports Park.

Brake ducts would surely help but there are no _easy_ brake duct solutions for the Z.

None of this happens at VIR and if that was the only track I went to then XP12 pads on my stock calipers work perfectly and I'd never use anything else. I could easily get 4 weekends on the pads at VIR.

Also, Carbotechs have to be bedded on new or clean (cut) rotors.

Porterfield will make R-4 pads for just about anything but they are a good bit more pricey than the Carbotechs. (However, I have heard that they last longer, even at my track).

So what I get with the Brembos is a much wider variety of pad choices. And, for instance, a set of Hawk DT-60 pads is cheaper than a set of Carbotech XP-10s and you can use the same rotors you use with your street pads with the DT-60s. I'll play around with different combos until I find something that is either cheaper or more durable than the Carbotechs. I might not ever find it....but I might.

I have ordered the rebuilt front Brembo calipers. I ordered the high end stainless brake lines from Z1 (with the brass block connectors) along with the OEM Nissan hard lines for Brembo. It should be a very neat and clean install up front. I still cannot find a set of rebuilt rears anywhere. AutoZone on line lists them in stock but when you put then in your 'cart" it says they are not available. Soooooo frustrating . Hawk, for whatever reason, makes their track pads for the OEM non-Brembo rears so I'll be good with Hawk and Carbotech until I can find a set of Brembo rears.

Sorry about the long reply.........but its complicated.

 

I'm a big fan of Raybestos Pads. Wear like iron and strong performance/pedal modulation. Not that it should matter, but they are probably the loudest/dustiest pads out there, though.