FC Brakes
 

What are the FC guys using for brakes on the circuit? I've got an '87 Turbo II that'll be used for ST1/ST2 events once the build is done and not sure what to use as far as brakes are concerned. Talking with some, they just use the factory TII brakes with Hawk pads or similar... That just doesn't seem enough to keep up with the ST1 cars given their wt/pwr ratios.
Is there another car out there that can utilize the same basic components of the FC that is larger? Example... In my Lexus IS300, I could use the brakes off of a Turbo Supra that were larger and worked fantastic.

Thanks for your input!

-Tyler

How much power and weight are we talking about?

Race weight in the neighborhood of 2500 and whp 400.

Stock TII brakes will do fine.

Hawk pads eat the rotors alive so make sure you have extras lying around.

Depending on your track, 400hp in that weight might be too much into the corners. You are going to need a serous contact patch to keep the power on the pavement.

I use TII 4pots up front and dynalights in the rear (only because I had them). Work dandy on my 2200lb TII powered FB.

I would really try and get below 2200lbs. My FC weighs in at 2200lbs and made 370whp on the S4 13T setup, and it needs to lose some wieght and get down to around 1900lbs. With the FD motor and new setup iwould like to see around 500whp or slightly more.

The stock FC Turbo brakes are indeed fine, but leave off the HAWK pads and pony up the slightly more cash and go with Performance Friction. No racing pad will be rotor friendly, but I have found the PFC's to have higher bite and fade resistance with a cleaner release, seem to dust "less" and are somewhat more rotor friendly than Pagid or Hawk. Love them. Unfortunately they are over $200 a set, sooooo.....

Tire size is a bit of a concern as well. I am currently able to run 17"x10" wide wheels all around, but will likely have to change those for NASA use. On some surfaces it is also helpful to stagger the wheels 17x9 front and 17x10 rear. Obviously running this size costs more in tires, but with the power you really need all the rubber you can get in the rear.

Not sure what your exact setup is, but if I may humbly suggest that if you are just getting started you spend all your attention on the suspension and brakes, do not read street car magazines and really ask questions of people actually racing the cars for advice. will save you from spending $2k on a useless for the track coilover kit or big brake kit that you dont need. As always YMMV

Don

Shooting for 275 front/315ish rear with my home track of Road Atlanta.

Thanks for the heads up. So simple TII blanks and a good set of pads 'ought to be the bee's knees? What about lines, anything that stands out?
And yeah, motor is all ready to go (just sitting on the stand waiting for the chassis to catch up). EVERYTHING I'm doing right now is strictly getting it to its weight, stiffening the chassis, finding the right suspension, and now it looks like I'm set on the brakes. The light weight of the factory brakes along with its 4 piston was a big plus for me; I was just concerned about its actual functionality over the magazine "numbers" of "Ooooo... 4 piston brake calipers!"

What class are you running? With that weight:power it sounds like you'd be in STU of all things with w2w racing... That or a pretty damn quick ST1.

And no worry with magazine garbage. All of my info is from the actual racers themselves to get an actual response as to what works and what doesn't. Don't need to base opinions on which advertisement gives them the most money to say what's the "best".

second that! the other nice thing is that PFC has plenty of compounds to choose from.

the one that works for us is either 18 or 81 (depending on which way up is), they last forever, bite well, rotors hardly wear etc etc

the other one we tested for them was i think was a daytona prototype compound.

I built all my lines using stainless steel 3/16 tubing and -3 braided lines, and use a dual master cylinder pedal assembly with remote reserviors and adjustable bias, soooo, yeah anything I have to say about lines in my car probably wont apply. I am actually changing front brake m/c sizes here soon so the fronts lock up a bit quicker than they can now.
What I do KNOW is that if your using the stock MC/brake booster, the stock brakes front and rear, and PFC pads up front you will have enough braking for most tracks and sessions. If you are running enduros or hard braking courses you will need to pay attention to the cooling and ducting. If allowed water misting works great! Without adjustable bias on tighter courses you might need to use OEM or near OEM pads in the rear, and/or installing a prop valve near the MC
will help rear brake lock-up which is common.

No idea where NASA or SCCA will class the car, its currently configured as run in the Pikes Peak Hillclimb a couple of months ago, and needs to be lowered, rebalanced, and a few other changes made before it is ready for track use. Between now and then a "medium" ported FD motor will be dropped in place of the S4 13BT and the car setup for the last drift events of the year. I should probably take a look at the NASA/SCCA current rules to see where it "fits", but will cross that bridge when I need to

Good! There is nothing more important initially than just getting the car together, safe, and reliable so you can make laps and learn. Then you can change things as needed. When you just throw a metric assload of parts on a car that may or may not work together you can get yourself in a situation where there are so many things going on that you cant figure out what the problem is or what you really need to do to make it work.

Cheers,
Don

Why run DOT-Rs?

2500# (assuming with driver?) / 400rwhp = 6.25#/hp which means ST1 since you're below 8.7 and above 5.5. Between 2450# and 2550# you get a mod factor of -0.35 go for big slicks (>10.5in wide) at -0.75 for a total of -1.10... you're new target is 6.6#/hp so you can kill some ponies or add some weight and get away from the DOT-Rs.

Or just go for slicks between 9.6in and 10.5in wide... -0.35 + -0.75 + 0.4 = -0.7 ... or a target of 5.5# + 0.7 = 6.2# ... you're almost perfect for these non-DOT slicks.

You can really shed some weight, though, and then you can make a bit less power and really open up your options for what type and size of tire to run...

Good lord. Running stock brakes we completly blow up, melt and start parts on fire with less HP, albeit more weight.

If you are going to run stock rotors and pads you better get the AWR cooling ducts and duct them to the front bumper openings. That at least will give you a few more laps.

I still think you will shell parts and have all sorts of fade. But perhaps the lower weight will get you home safe (figure of speech)

Be sure to run titanium backing plates too.

My FC non-turbo PTD car we set up with Wilwood 12.2" rotors and 6-pot superlites. We have AWR cooling ducts. I am hoping this setup will last a few weekends on pads.

Because with my Turbo go through a set of pads in one mild HPDE weekend.

We run Hawk HT-10s or DTC 60/70s...

Try PFC's. On the 944 F Stock car (lot of weight, low hp) we could go through a set of Pagids in a day at 2nd Creek (very tight hard on brakes). PFC 97's would last several weekends.On the FC turbo I use PFC 97 compound pads, stock calipers (rebuilt) and stock rotors. I have slotted and drilled rotors, but the stocks work decently well. Obviously driver, tires, setup, and tracks all play a role. I have 6-piston superlites as well, but havent fitted them yet, great value for the $ spent.

Not sure what a PTD car is but what tire/weight/etc are you running at at what tracks?

Honestly my biggest problem with my brakes currently is I need a different M/C to inrease brake pressure as it requires a lot of effort to actually lock up the wheel/tire combination I currently use with the master cyl size I currently use.

I have removed the dust boots to keep them from melting into gummy substances,, which is bad for a street car but fine for my pruposes.

Are you killing rotors? pads? calipers? Does anybody make stainless steel replacement pistons for the stock calipers to try to keep the heat out?

I'm just a bit surprised here since the EP cars are _required_ to run stock FC brakes.

More information about this set up? Who supplied the adapter brackets?

I'm looking around 2350# with driver hopefully and even running big slicks we're thinking the stock brakes should hold up okay if we can get enough air to them... I have SL6Rs on my other car (3400+# with driver, 12.8"x32mm vented rotors)... and it looks like it'd be a pain to get wheels to clear those guys.

I dont run EP so I dont remember, but what wheel size are you limited to? I currently run 17" wheels and have a fair amount of room.



As far as SS pistons, I have had a couple sets made locally from SS and drilled wasnt expensive and work very well.

I'm not going to run EP, either. NASA Super Touring. So I don't have a wheel size limit; it's not the diameter I'm worried about, though, it's actually finding room for the caliper before it hits the wheel spokes.

Gotcha- I run FN01RC's for this reason, although OZ, Team Dynamics, and Kosei, etc all make wheels with enough spoke clearance. If you can find a set Racing Hart made some really nice wheels for the SWC Touring Cars that have tons of clearance.

http://store.revolutionbrake.com/marx7genii5l.html

I was poking around and found this kit that uses the lug mount 4 piston Superlites. Not sure which rotors and I've emailed them about that. Looks like a nice upgrade from the 10.9" rotors and since they're Superlites they should use the Type 7420 pads which are pretty darn cheap, too.

Which size FN01RC and what size tire? Thanks.

17x10 fnt and rear and a weird offset, will take a look at them when I ma at the shop on monday for offset and tire sizes. We also have a pair of Eclipses in with ther FSL6r's on them one uses Rota wheels and other Blitz, will snap a photo or two for you.

I build my own "kits", but if your looking for a kit I have used this guy http://www.tceperformanceproducts.com/ for several kits and have been very pleased. Todd is a real racer and does road and various other forms of racing like hillclimbs including the Pikes Peak in a Sprint car. Solid guy and he will work with you on a custom kit if needed.

Stock rotors and calipers are Ok until you start hard continuous lapping. I had a complete brake failure three years ago at the Edmonton Indy event near 100 mph. A brake duct folded up and I boiled the 600 degree fluid.
I have since built a custom setup using a wilwood directionally vented GT 12.9" x1.25" rotor, willwood hats, superlite 6 calipers polymatrix B pads and the three master cylinder pedal setup. The system is set up to recirculate the brake fluid through the front calipers and it works amazingly well. The pedal is consistent and hard.

I run a 2300 lb FC with 400 rwhp on yokohama slicks on enkei RPF1 rims. You should be able to fit the 230/625/17 slicks up front and the 260/640/17 slicks out back.

Look at my website at www.rxracing.com for some build pics, etc.

-TrentO

I couldn't find any pictures of the brakes or recirculator set up.

Sorry, I didn't mean to infer I had pictures of the brake setup. I just meant I had some general pics on the site.

I built my setup by going through the willwood Catalog and looking for the right hat offset based on where I wanted the rotors to be, based on their thickness. From there I had a machine the hats to fit the wheel hub and then bolt up the rotors. Once that was done I put the pads in the calipers. I had a spare splindle and hub setup I used to bolt everything up and I fit the calipers on the rotors and centered them over the rotor on one axis and spaced them radially from the rotor by lining up the brake pad for optimal contact and allowing 1/8" or so for expansion.

The recirculating setup is straight from the willwood catalog of parts, as is the pedal assembly.
I did go kind of overboard on the calipers as they are the superlight 6 with the shielded pistons.

-Trent

I got my brake setup from fastbrakes.

Brian is a good guy to work with. I think he has a 4-pot and 6-pot wilwood setup engineered for the FC now. I had to shim the brackets some to perfectly center the calipers but it worked out ok.

www.fastbrakes.com

I think with the right weight (probably sub 2500lbs with driver), pad selection, proper ducting, and throw in some titanium backing plates you can make the stock brakes work fairly well. So a properly set up EP car likely has all this engineered and implemented.

We were having brake issues on cars in the 3000lb + comp weight area. Without ducting we would start pads on fire and burn up pads and rotors. With proper ducting, titanium plates we were able to get the setup to last for perhaps a 20min session but beyond that would get fade. If we ran aggressive pads like HT-10s and DTC60s it was better but we would wear out a set of rotors and pads in a weekend.

I am guessing weight has more to do with it than anything else. There just is not that much rotor to sink heat on a stock setup.

Bumping this thread up. I haven't run my stock brake setup yet, due to haltech issues. But I'm going to try it at a HPDE than see how necessary it is. My car is also kinda light, I have to weigh it to know for sure, but its not high on power. I'll also dyno it and put up the results so I can be accurate about the setups. I know a lot of ppl are using the stock brakes, but it just doesnt sit right with me.

That wilwood setup looks good for the price, there's also the AWR kit:
http://store.awrracing.com/products/...our-Wheel.html

Ksport makes a kit, but I wouldn't buy it...

However, there are no brembo/stoptech options. BUT I did learn that you can fit the FD caliper on the FC, so in theory, wouldn't the FD big brake kits work on an fc as well?

What about the porsche big red upgrade? Is anyone racing with that?

I want insane brakes, overkill is good.

edit: who sells these titanium backing plates?
what kind of fluid are you all using?