Big brake kits BBK’s

I will admit for 90% of the driving I do the Stoptech BBK is way overkill. Part of my mindset was like OP's mindset, I was like "screw it." The $1500 that I got it for brand new was hard to pass up too.

IMHO better, more efficient safey modifications are never a bad thing

Agreed and there’s no such thing as to much brake from another “racer”. Once you go off in a brake zone that changes your mind set. And i can only see the stock brakes being adequate for a novice or someone new to the sport as they are very easy to overwhelm even with a completely gutted ST due to the tq vectoring..

the metric of success is that you complete the whole session or race without fade. if you can survive that you could have done it with less.... but how much less. the ideal racecar falls apart in every way as it crosses the finish line.

On my first track day ever I was at Gingerman and during one of my sessions I was getting the brakes way too hot and was getting some extreme fade. After going down the longest straight I pressed the brake pedal and... nothing. No abs engagement and barely any pedal feel or deceleration. Ended up going off the track and into the sandpit; luckily there is a ton of runoff but it was definitley a brown seat moment. After changing out the pads for Carbotech xp8s, adding high temp fluid and getting some more track time I went back and still had issues to the point where I could only get one 10/10ths lap before having to take a cooldown lap and this included bleeding the brakes in the middle of the day. Needless to say after this season I invested in a bbk and some ducting so hopefully that fixes those issues and I can finally have confidence on track.

what else could that $1500 get you. better tires or suspension or even power adders would yield better performance for a LONG time before before a BBK could help. seat time being the number one ultimate thing people don't add.

I'm seconds per lap faster in a 160whp bmw on 200 treadware tires with stock sizes brakes than I was a decade ago in a 300whp evo 8 with big brakes and track tires. the better you get the less you need the brakes.

Why do you think a race car should be falling apart as it crosses the finish line? What is the reasoning behind that?

Before I had my brakes I had, Dunlop Direzza Z3s, big turbo, and coilovers. So I already covered that basis lol

I have a street car that I may track occasionally. Everything I have bought for the car is overkill. More brakes are better than less brakes especially when you need them.

How this turned into a race setup thread idk. It’s interesting nonetheless lol.

in that case they make the perfect product for you: https://ebay.to/2uSQCYy

meets or exceeds your use case.

I don’t think they’ll fit over my Wilwoods

I don’t think I could possibly agree less with what your saying, first off having a reliable car to get seat time in is huge, cool down laps are a waist of your money to get into the event and your valuable seat time.. the best mods I did 1) save for seat time, 2) upgrade the brakes 3) better tires.. not including saftey and a containment seat. Tires are progressive and even when you cook shitty tires you still are left with a drivable car it will just push... with no brakes you will go off or even worse crash your car then have zero seat time when your trying to fix your mistake. In all of the years I’ve Ben doing hpde’s, time attack, and bspec I’ve never heard that mentality ever before that brakes arnt a good upgrade on a car then needs it desperately bad with even a driver with little experience. What series do you race in? I’ll be running bspec this year at the Glen which I see you run at, if you have your scca competition license there will be a few other seats to rent as well? I’ll also be there with SCDA in the end of April!

I couldn’t agree more, the last thing that even develops a good driver is lack of confidence in the equipment your in.. I ran 2 days on stock brakes with hawk hp+ pads and motul rbf600 fluid and my braking point was changing every lap. Absolutely zero consistency and that’s the WORST thing u can have for not only driver progression, saftey, and w2w racing.. if you can’t use reference points for brake zones how could you ever race competitively expecially at at track like the Glen where you have such high speed to low speed brake zones like turn 1 and the bus stop smh

I own a champcar team and have raced for the best part of a decade with trackday, drag, and autoX since the 90s. heading to NCM in a few weeks then on the glen.

notice that I said sufficient brakes to meet the need. I'm not against brake upgrades, but I see people buying big brake kits with street pads when all that they needed was the right pad and nothing more. If you can't detect fade you're going to end up off track with any setup. I run PFC08 pads with cryo-treated rotors on OEM size equipment without any fade from 8 to 24 hour races.

The fiesta ST is a light car with large factory brakes for the size. I hesitate to say I'd even upgrade pads beyond OEM if I was to run track day, I'd probably just bring another set in case and do fluid. maybe a set of something like hawk DTC60s if I'm being frisky on track and chasing some giants.

That makes two of us then I’ve been running autoX since before I had my license over 10 years ago, tracking cars for a hand full of years and will be running bspec this year at a couple tracks as well as filling sponsorship obligations for product testing and development with the ST. The stock system was so inadequate that every lap was a new experience, no consistency at all with hp+ pads and motul600 I was leaving huge time on the table. As you know better then anyone else the brake zones are the last pace you go looking for seconds, and when your at that point there is no dicking around with unpredictable brake zones due to lack of brake. I run a bbk with dtc-60’s for pads and still want more consistent brakes. I wouldn’t recommend anything more then pads and fluid to a novice. But anything about that bbk, pads, fluid, SS lines and more seat time. Stock struts are suppressingly good with swift springs or insert your brand for your driving style but the brakes are not up to par with the tq vectoring system which is extremely intrusive with sticky tires. Guess we will have to agree to disagree 🤷‍♂️

There seems to be a lot of genital waving going on here, if you catch my drift

Nope just two people who have a lot of seat time with two different views is all. People are aloud to disagree and no one attacked anyone else. All fair play!

If only it was like that more often

You MUST know by now that any BBK is best suited for track racing - it was only natural to have the conversation drift that way.

No one is buying BBK's to use them on the street at their full potential.

I'll speculate on behalf of the member you're quoting.

If you're not using up 100% of the available 'meat on the bone' for each item (ie brakes with pad life, rotor thermal mass, or even the amount of gas you keep on board) then you've left time on the table as lighter = faster (given every other variable remains the same).

The point of racing is to be first - if you're packing around a ton (well, maybe a couple hundred pounds) of weight needlessly then you're going to be slower. If you 'time' it so that all of your consumables run out just as you cross the finish, well then you left nothing on the table and were as fast as you could have possibly been (a racers dream!).