I can just send them there incorrect pictures they have online showing the actual brembo calipers. That the worst part, that there pictures show the correct caliper.

 

So the response from Cardone, is about what I expected. They are fit, form, function but not OE. They said they are tooled up calipers so it looks like cardone or someone else if manufacturing them. It make me feel slightly better about them, guess that's why they are so inexpensive.

Unless I get some very negative feedback about them I'll use them, and give some feedback once they are on the car.

 

Not accurate at all. And clearly the oem brembos are worth it if people are still paying 1k+ for them.

Basic economic, an item is worth what the seller and buyer agrees on. So if both seller and buyer agrees that oem brembos are worth 1k, its worth 1k.

 

Only people i know of that would spend a grand on 13 year old brakes that most likely are bad and need to be rebuilt are... well I don't know any full retards like that. Please explain why a sane person would gamble with they're life by buying your old beat up brembos that need to be rebuilt at the same price as brand new Nissan akebonos that are definitely better performing and looking and cost the same with a warranty.

 

Nissan did not downgrade when switching from brembos to the 05 to 07 brakes. They perform just as well.

 

Last i check new akebono are 2k+... you math is off...not the only thing off...

 

That's really interesting. Seems like they'd still work, OK, though, and if they're using the same seals and pistons, there shouldn't be any future issues with rebuilding. Last year I bought a set from NAPA and they were genuine Brembo's at about the same price.

 

Napa and Auto Zone calipers are also just A1 Cardone rebranded, might get lucky but I dont think its worth it. I bet the supply of used calipers just ran out, maybe they are all just getting sold as used on ebay instead.

I wouldn't think it would be legal to just copy the casting but I guess it's fine by now. Cardone seem to be trusted and considering these are essentially new, it looks like the pistons are also new, i'm not to worried about their function. I will try and remove the pistons and clean the internals if needed before painting as it looks like some old fluid, maybe from testing, is still in the caliper.

 

Brand new Akebonos are $1,500 from vendors on this very site. And that includes adapters, calipers, rotors and pads. $1,000 is what used Brembos calipers alone tend to sell for.

Personally I couldn't justify such a high price for used Brembos vs new Akebonos. I think most people are just buying the Brembos because they are in love with the look (recognized brand name + color). And since they were only available on certain models the used market for them remains strong (high demand / low supply).

I have zero complains with how my Akebonos perform on track

Downsides are mentioned here:
The only pad problem I had was the rears were back ordered once... no biggie just requires some better planing on my part (IE: don't wait till the week before another track day before ordering pads)

 

So I finally got the brakes on the car, but I did run into some problems on the way.

UPDATE: Weight savings
The stock 06+ rotor, front caliper, and pads weighed 39.2 lbs per side.
The brembo front caliper, pads, and Z1 2-piece rotor( ~5 lbs lighter than a normal rotor) weighed in at 25.8 lbs
That's 13.4lbs per front wheel, and you can feel it!

The front calipers are A1 Cardone and are equivalent replacement calipers but not true brembos.

The rear calipers are centric rebuilt calipers, they are brembos and came powered coated a nasty gold. It looked like good powder coating but was more brown than gold.




The powder coating was stripped off with paint stripper. Putting the whole caliper in a freezer bag and then covering it in paint stripper worked wonderfully. Only took one application and I let it sit for about an hour. If the powder coating was too thin it wasn't removed by the paint stripper.

I then took the calipers to be media blasted to try and get the last bits off. The media blasting did nothing just turned the powder coat black. I figured if it's going to stay on through that I might as well just paint over it.

Calipers were painted with VHT engine metallic, burnt copper.




I used a brembo stencil for the logo, 3.25in and 2in, with more VHT paint. This was followed with VHT caliper clearcoat. Sorry for the cat tail I swear he needs to be in every picture I take.




Now we get to the fun part, installation! This took two weekends due to the problems encountered, and waiting for parts.

So the A1 Cardone calipers main bolt threads were not tapped correctly. They were the correct diameter and thread pitch but it's like the tap was a little too small or maybe worn out. They needed a 14x1.5 tap, once the threads where retapped, and I got way too much aluminum out, the bolts threaded correctly.

One of the A1 cardone calipers also came with the incorrect pins to hold the pads in place. While they fit, the hole for the hitch pin was not in the correct spot . Didn't realize this until the caliper was already installed, and of course no one carries parts for brembo calipers in store.

Now we can't just blame A1 cardone for the problems, the rears from centric also had problems. I never thought to test fit the hardline but apparently Centric and decided to drill out the seat for it when they rebuilt the caliper. This meant the hard lines normally used with brembos on our cars wouldn't fit.

Lucky Z1 motorsports had shortened banjo bolts so I was able to use the original non brembo style lines for the rear calipers. I also had to lap the rear calipers brake line mounting point. At some point it had been deformed and was not flat enough for the copper crush washers on the banjo bolt to seal.

Once all that was fixed the install went fine. Just got the brakes bedded in tonight so I don't have any long term observations yet. I love them so far, except for the install. They are matched with carbotech AX6 pads and Z1 2-piece rotors.

 

Lots of trouble, but worth the wait, I'm sure, and I'm glad yo finally got it done. Nice work, and they look great on the car.

 

Thanks , definitely worth the wait.

 

That's awesome!

I'm betting they hold up just as well as oem brembos.


On s30 Z's, we use toyota truck 4-piston calipers as upgrades... hahahaha

 

So the reman brembo are not true brembo ?

 

At Least the ones form A1 Cardone are not original brembos. I would expect the ones from Centric to be real rebuilds but they seem to be extremely hard to find. So far they are working great no complaints except for the mounting bolt threads.

 

So here is a good question... If I end up getting some Napa brembos should I give them my core for the $75. If they are not stamped brembo I dont think I would be excited about the swap.

 

For $75 I'd keep the core for sure, unless it's got stripped threads, cracks, etc.

Or, are you asking about the base calipers as cores? They won't take those back - cores have to be the same.

 

I'm talking about these sweet brembos... One of my bleeder screws came out and kept half the aluminum (top) portion of thread with it. Its probably still fine and very usable... But they also came off a car with 210k miles on it so they probably could use a nice rebuild. They have cleaned up pretty nicely though.





I just got new rotors and pads for my base brakes I will keep those, but im still debating what im going to do with these sweet factory brembos.

 

I might take that to a quality machine shop, and have them install a bleeder repair kit.

 

Thats a good idea. I'll see how the rear calipers play out... Took me over an hour to pull the pins holding the pads out they were so stuck in their. Hopefully I can get the other 4 bleeder screws out damage free.