You don't need giant brakes with track pads to slow a big car down from autobahn speeds if you're driving normally (even autobahn normally), you only need them to prevent overheating and promote long pad life on a race track, where they will get much hotter since depending on the track you could be hauling it down from 100+mph as often as once a minute.

 

I disagree... My dads old Mustang had terrible fading on hardbraking on the autobahn. I'm talking slowing down from 150mph to 50mph because some retarded Harley-gang would "cruise" to the left lane... Even his Mk.IV supra had fading issues. I know better ducting and bigger brakes would have helped there. BTW: AMG Benzos also have 12 piston 400mm brakes. They will never see the track, but they are heavy travelling at high speed. Now on more normal cars I would say these giant ones (like on my dads Z32) is overkill, and negativ in performance... It's just vehicle specific I guess, but I'd never go bigger (heavier) then needed.

Just my $.02 tho,

Riz.

 

It would fade with one good stomp down from 150 to 50? Pad fade or fluid fade?

The main reason for multiple pistons BTW is that by spreading out the clamping force you don't taper wear the pads as fast or bend the backing plates. You can achieve the same clamping force with 1 piston or 100 pistons depending on how the ratios of the pedal travel and cylinder bore sizes are chosen.

Yes you're right, brakes that are too big for your application are just extra rotating and un-sprung mass, the two worst kinds of mass for performance.

 

I was to young back then, but people not used to German autobahns underestimate the hard braking that is done there. Now, that was in a old Mustang GT... I remember reports of the new Shelby GT500 having brakefade after less then one lap on the Nordschleife. American cars aren't realy built for extreme braking useage.

I am aware of that. The bigger the brakepad gets, the longer shape it will have. Since brakecilinders are round the only solution is more smaller cilinders. You also see setups with more pads at each side of the rotor with more squareish dimensions.

Agreed. :-)

 

Heh, I had no brake fade whatsoever with a BMW 116i on the Nordschleife, but it doesn't have any power! There's actually not that many hard braking zones there if you haven't got a lot of power. We did trash the rotors and pads and tires though.

 

brakes that big on that 300zx require a master cylinder and proportioning valve upgrade at the least if they havent already.

most BBK's are fine installed, but the MASSIVE BBK's need some more modification to actually utilize their maximum potential.

i found i NEEDED to use the TII master cylinder when i upgraded my GSL-SE's brakes to TII's up front..... my pedal felt so mushy even after a complete bleeding, caliper rebuild front and rear, and a rebuilt master cylinder, SS lines.

by the time i was done my GSL-SE had a brand new/rebuilt TII braking system minus the stock FB rears.

made so much difference on NASA track days

 

Neither did I in my AE92, but that's also a slooowww car... Nordschleife kicks ***!

I dunno what master cilinder was used, it seems to grip pretty hard though because of the warped rotors. About the bias; It also has the BBK on the rear with the 6-piston calipers and 13" or 14" rotors. I think the bias should be pretty much stock. Ofcoarse I would have installed a bias adjuster anyways, and calculate the brakes.

Riz.