I talked to a guy who mods cars locally here (mostly EVOs), who has a heavily built EVO with stock Brembos. He told me he's seen warped rotors on cars with 1/3 the mileage of his EVO, mostly do to improper brake modulation. I wasn't exactly sure what he meant by this. Is he saying that on corners are quick stops you should pulsate the brakes instead of pressing down all at once?

If anyone has a link they could throw me that goes through proper braking for track applications it would be much appreciated.

Also, what is the theoretical stopping distance for the Z with the 4 wheel stoptech big brake kit?

 

Hi Phile,
I'm not really sure what your Evo friend was referring to. From our experience, it's very rare for a rotor to actually warp. 9 times out of 10, the 'warped rotor' is really a vibration caused by uneven pad deposits. Please read this article for an explanation:http://www.stoptech.com/whitepapers/...otors_myth.htm

I think your Evo guy may be referring to threshold braking. On race cars without ABS, drivers threshold brake. This means that when going into a turn they brake at the maximum possilbe without actually locking up the tires. Flatspotting a tire means just that...you lock the wheel up from rotating, and it slides across the ground on the contact patch of the tire, shredding the tire in that area as it goes. It 'flattens' out the round portion of the tire when the rubber shreds. Then you get a hump, hump, hump when driving...imagine how it would feel if your tires were squares and you'll get the idea. Anyway, if you were to lockup up the brakes in a scenario like this, and they were extremely hot, you could potentially develop an uneven deposit as described in the link I provided above. In other words, while the wheel was locked up the pad would be fused to a single point on the rotor.

Brake modulation refers to the driver interface of control with the brake pedal. Being good a modulating the pedal means that when braking, you can feel what the wheels are doing in contact with the ground, and you can adjust the pressure you apply to make the car do what you want. For example, you can feel the point where the wheels are about to lock up, and then you just hold the pedal right at that point before you do...acheiving the maximum performance. A good big brake kit with stiff calipers helps you do this more easily, because a lot of the slack and frictional losses of a stock system are removed. The result is that the calipers receive a quicker reaction from driver input at the pedal, and more control of that reaction as the braking event continues. That's why good race drivers go nuts over a really good brake setup...it makes them look even better at what they do.
Now, on a car with abs, like your street Z, you will actually be able to acheive maximum braking by allowing the ABS to engage when going into turns. The system can simply react more quickly than you can to what's happening at the wheels. Some people prefer to hold the pedal at the point right before abs engages, because they find it distracting, etc. though. Here's a good article that explains what's happening with ABS when activated on your car: http://www.stoptech.com/whitepapers/...ake_122701.htm

Finally, the biggest determinent of your stopping distances is going to be your tire choice. Sticky tires will help you stop more quickly. The primary benefit of a big brake kit is heat capacity. On a good system, your brakes will feel similar on lap 1 and lap 15 on a road course. On most stock systems, the brakes are a steaming waste of space by lap 15. That's where BBK's shine. Here's a link to our testing procedures that shows stopping distances, etc. StopTech is the ONLY aftermarket BBK company doing anything this thorough. Let me know if you have any other questions, etc. Hopefully this clears things up a bit.
http://zeckhausen.com/Testing_Brakes.htm

 

Thorough answers like this and prompt response to private messages is the reason why I am going with StopTech. Simply amazing.

 

Wow, that was an excellent explanation. I'm sorry I didn't reply sooner (I was gone for the weekend). That helped clear up all of my questions. Very much appreciated!