Well,
After loads of grief from coworkers, friends, and forum members over the last six months of owning this car, I finally got around to installing my brake kit this past weekend. Being the "StopTech Guy with no StopTech's" was getting a bit tiresome. We did my car, installed a front kit on a coworker's STi, and detailed another friend's Mustang Cobra. The weather was typical SoCal perfect at about 76 deg, and it was a great day for being a car dork.

The kit I installed is our ST-60 six piston front, and ST-40 four piston rear. I decided to go with black for durability reasons. The black paint tends to hold up better than anything else under heavy track use.

I'll try to be as objective with my impressions as I possibly can...

Overall, my street driving impression is very favorable. The pedal feel change is the most significant difference vs. stock. The stock brakes were very good in terms of pedal feel vs. many other stock brakes I've driven. In fact, I would say the stock brakes on this car are better in a number of ways vs. most other slider systems I've ever tried. I had also previously installed our SS lines on the car, which had definitely helped. That said, the pedal feel with the full kit is on a whole different level. Pedal travel is very short, and you can really feel what's going on at the wheel ends as you approach and get into ABS intervention. There's less compliance everywhere, and the pedal feels outstanding.

The pads we ship with this kit are not my favorites however (Hawk Performance Ceramic). In our kits we try to ship a pad that performs very well and keeps most of our customers happy, which these pads do. It's all about tradeoffs with pads, and these pads do offer excellent stopping distances, good modulation, reasonable amounts of noise/dust/rotor wear. I tend to like something with a bit more initial bite though. I don't care if it dusts a lot, makes a bit of noise, etc. Therefore, I'm probably going to try Pagid Sport Blue in the near future, which should give me a little more of what I like (at the expense of noise, dust, and rotor wear).

The kit feels awesome overall, and I'm very much looking forward to getting it on the track in a couple of weeks with my slicks and some race friction! Bombing into turns from high speeds, and braking at the last possible moment lap after lap on sticky rubber really never gets old...

The install is very straightforward, and isn't a problem if you just read the directions. The only part of the process that isn't "bolt-on" is the need to slightly shave off some material around the lower ball joint. What needs to come off is only about 2-3mm tops. Basically, there's an extra little ridge on the outer edge that needs to be blended back into the rest of the arm. If you just take down that little ridge and make it vertically flush, that will give you enough clearance. We just used a standard air compressor with a die grinder and carbide cutting tool, and it was very straightforward. I am no fabricator, and I had no problem performing this task. You could do it by hand with a milled curved-tooth file (something like this http://www.amazon.com/Nicholson-2101.../dp/B0002FSETW ). Just take your time, gradually take off material, and throw the rotor on to check clearance...piece of cake. There's no impact on structural integrity, and all of this is detailed in our instructions. The reason I bring it up, is that I recently had an incident with a shop doing an install that didn't shave this ridge down far enough. The result was contact between the arm and the rotor on the customer's car...caused a host of not-so-good issues. I'll have to take additional pics when I do my duct install. I meant to do so, but forgot.

Below are some pics. From an aesthetic standpoint, the black calipers fade away a bit behind the black wheel centers, but they do fill the wheels up nicely. The calipers will show up a little more on my silver track wheels. You do immediately notice the huge rotors as soon as you glance at the car though, and it's funny to watch people in traffic curiously looking at them when they pull up next to you. I thought about red calipers, but as I mentioned above, the black looks nicer in the long run under track use. Also, I was never crazy about the red/yellow "Ronald McDonald" look with my car...MY Z owners with mod red interiors please forgive me for that.

Front wheel= ST-60 six piston caliper with 14" rotor / 18" Kinesis K28

Rear wheel= ST-40 four piston caliper with 14" rotor / 18" Kinesis K28

 

Install looks great. Also noticed that it appears that you have the Toyo T1-R tires? Am most interested in how you like them compared to the F1's that come with the car.
ciao,
Ed

 

Jeff, your car looks great. Happy racin!

 

That looks really terrific, and I'm glad you were able to use your companys "meat and potatos" products on your Z06 at last!

Can you tell me if the new brakes were noticeably lighter than the stock brake components? I'm assuming they are/were, but you can absolutely confirm this for us. Thanks, and congratulations!

 

 

Looks good, I also just finished installing my big brake kit from you guys. (thanks for rushing them out to me) I will be giving these brakes the "test" at Watkins Glen Mon/Tue so I will report back with my impressions as well. I am really looking forward to it as these brakes look very beefy to say the least.
The last time I was at the Glen I basically melted the powder coat off my stock calipers and glazed my Wilwood pads, then instantly lost brake pedal turning into turn 9. Not fun, that blue guard rail came much closer than I care for so it was time to step up to your product.
Although I do wish I was told about the red calipers not holding up colorwise as much as the black ones, but I will live with that (no pun intended) as long as they do the job asked of them.

I'll jump back in here on Wednesday with a track report

 

Doug,
I'm very jealous...that is my favorite track. That blue wall is intimidating though...so close to the edge of the tarmac.
I think you're really going to enjoy the brakes out there. Just get a good cool down on them after each session, and keep your foot off the pedal when you come to a complete stop in the pits. I don't want to hear you on our tech line on Wed. talking about uneven pad deposits and pedal vibrations! You will be able to really stomp all over them though...can't wait to hear your thoughts.

No need to worry Doug...we're talking about degrees of color change here, and red across all manufacturers will have more apparent color change than black. We've done extensive testing on our paint, and we've found it to be more durable than anything else we compared against. It's actually really interesting to watch it change. It will get darker, than sort of bounce back a bit as it cools...then get another shade darker, etc. It will happen gradually over time if the calipers are continually taken to extreme temps on the track. Unfortunately, there's really no magical solution right now. We believe we've done the best we can given current technology, and it's something we've spent a lot of time on.

 

Thanks Steve,
I'm going to try and get the stock components on our digital scales later today. I'll post comparisons.

 

the wall comes close at WGI especially when you are early apexing a late apex turn


waiting to see on Monday how these work out. Might be ordering a set for next year....

 

That would be extremely informative. Thank you in advance!

 

So are you using your slotted rotors for HPDE events?
How many events can you get out of them?

Graham

 

Nice, Nice.

Love the matched caliper and wheel color!

I don't think any of us here at LG can say enough great things about StopTech, company, personel, and products. Killer brakes, Killer service and a great bunch of guys to work with.

 

Well, I'm back from the Glen and here is my report on the Stop Techs.....They are fantastic!! I felt so much more confident to run the car harder into the turns than I did with the stock brakes. I was always afraid that my pedal would go right to the floor prior to installing these, so I would let off way before I had to. I noticed without any other changes to the car other than brake ducts, I was able to go from 154 to 157 in the back straight, and gain over 10mph from mid 130's to 146 in the front straight. Just because I would hold it much longer, especially in the front straight where the later part is down hill. I do not have a lap timer in the car, but I would guess I dropped off a fair amount of time from this mod.

I did notice that after some left/rights without braking (like the bus stop) the pedal would grab slightly lower, which I guess is from wheel bearing play opening the pads, but I got used to that in no time. The pads practically look new after 6 - 20 min sections and the rotors look perfect.

I did debate about spending so much on brakes, but it was well worth it. Thanks for a great product
.

 

^ Doug, are you running fronts only?

 

Great review (second review)...thank you!

Any update on those scale weight comparisons of the brakes?

 

Doug,
I'm glad they worked out well for you!

Steve,
I was able to get those weights. These are all in lbs., and they are per corner of the car.
Front
Stock front caliper & pads= 10.16
Stock front rotor= 17.34
Total= 27.5
StopTech front ST-60 caliper, bracket, & pads= 11.86
StopTech front AeroRotor with Hat= 18.0
Total= 29.86
Difference= StopTech is 2.36 lbs. heavier per front corner.
Im actually surprised that we were heavier on the front, as we're typically a wash or less. That said, the tradeoff of a couple of pounds per front corner comes with the benefit of a huge increase in heat capacity on both the rotor and the pad.

As you'll also see below, our four piston ST-40 is about 2 lbs. lighter than our ST-60, so you're only looking at about a pound heavier than stock per front corner if you're running our front-only four piston system. You just won't have quite the pad durability under extended use on the track as you would with the six piston.

Rear
Stock rear caliper= 5.8
Stock rear rotor= 13.46
Total= 19.26
StopTech rear caliper, pad, and bracket= 10.0
StopTech rear rotor and hat= 18
Total= 28
Difference= StopTech is 8.74 lbs. heavier per rear corner.
When I was holding the parts in my hands, I was not terribly surprised that there is a significant weight increase on the rear. The stock rear rotor and caliper are both fairly small. We see the same thing on the Vipers (for which we've sold many, many rear kits). Fortunately, the effect of weight on our car isn't quite as dramatic as it would be on a SOHC Honda Civc for example.

So, as I've said a million times on this forum and others, for pure peformance, run our front kit. IF you need additional heat capacity in the rear (you're burning up pads and cracking rotors left and right), or you simply want the rear kit for aesthetics, by all means get one. That said, there are benefits to a rear kit in terms of feel, time to do work, etc. that are almost intangible. You also have a huge benefit in terms of pad choices with our rear caliper vs. stock, so you can tune carefully for conditions, easy pad changes, etc.

I think the most important thing to keep in mind though, is that the brake system is a means to an end. You don't strip weight off of a car for the sake of stripping weight, you do it so you're quicker. I don't hear too many people whining about the added weight of a turbo or supercharger when they get 100+ more horsepower and end up with a faster car overall. People also go to heavier, wider, larger diameter wheels and tires so they stick better...they put in a heavy roll cage so they're safer, tranny coolers, bigger radiators so they run cooler, etc...this is the exact same thing.

Using Doug's example above, the small weight differences don't matter too much if your overall performance is far superior. If a slight weight penalty means the difference between fading your brakes, having to come in early, and not enjoying your track day vs. pushing your car, having confidence, and carrying more speed all the way around the track, I'll take the weight.

Doug is running all four corners 6 piston front, 4 piston rear.

 

Thanks so much for the detailed weights...you can be sure I'll keep this information in a safe place!

 

I was hoping to see a side by side comparison of the stock brake system versus the Stop Tech. Something like a 70-0 MPH stopping distance to test one time stopping, and a test repeatedly stopping from 70 to test fade. Is this available?

 

MYTTZ06,
This is not something that is easily attainable, and requires quite a bit of effort to set up in a controlled manner. I don't have data on our vette applications readily available, but here is an article that one of oure resellers put together regarding our testing. We perform this battery on each new application that we develop:
http://zeckhausenracing.com/ Click the technical button, then look under general brake tips, Track Testing StopTech kits.

As for stopping distances, you aren't going to see major differences vs. stock. Brakes turn kinetic energy into heat, and tires stop the car. If you want shorter stopping, get stickier tires. Please read this article for a deeper explanation. http://www.stoptech.com/tech_info/wp...formance.shtml

 

I cant offer any technical data, but I can say the difference from stock to the Stop Techs are amazing. I had slicks on the car so I was able to utilize the stopping power fairly well.