ghoffman

I think DJWorm stated it well. The best statement I have heard is they are overkill for the street and way bad for the track. As far as pure street goes, we found that that with the small pads that have a roughly 1:1 aspect ratio, the pads rotate into the rotor and the "worse than worthless" holes act like a cheese grater and really eat the pads fast. I found that I could not go to the supermarket and back with the stock rotors without having to clean the wheels again. With our rotors, it was about 2 or 3 times less dust due to the lack of cheese grater effect. On the track, the small pads do not have the thermal mass necessary and one VERY well known brake company has stated they will not make pads because they consider the stock design so bad they are worried about liability. I ran our rotor (that does fit the stock caliper and is a full 10 pounds+ less each) with the stock caliper for a while in testing but one of biggest issue is cost of the very thin pads. It simply got to be an economic decision to go with a caliper that not only has 21mm thick pads that are $300/axle, but works infinitely better. The PFC zR33 Grand Am caliper we use cost about 4 stock pad changes. I still wonder why GM did not use the Brembo off of the CTS-V. It is not as good as the zR33 caliper but it would have been better than the pure junk that PBR supplied.
Normally in all engineering trade studies there are pluses and minuses to all decisions, but this PBR "system" has no positive aspects (well I guess it looks cool). The rotors are all left side, have mass in areas that have no benefit, holes to eat pads, and heavy, flexy calipers that have thin, expensive, limited availability pads, but besides that it is fine.

Track-Addict

Thanks for all the great info guys now here is where the rubber meets the road or should I say the pads meet the rotors.

How much

Stop Tech Kit
Front $
Rear $

Hardbar
Front $
Rear $

Brembo if Avail


Anyone Others

JDIllon

Just as a point or interest, Porterfield has just reduced the price on the ST 43 raybestos Pads they are less than $500.00 for a full set. Short Throw had very good luck with these compared to stock pads and the price before was over 750.00 a set. Porterfield says that they are now in production and that is why the price drop, talk to Tim at Porterfield. I have been running them on the street for the last two weeks and I like them and plan on running them at the Musieum event is SC. They are a little more sensative than the stock set up. According to Mike they were much better than the std. pads. JD

John Shiels

Price probably dropped from competition and who wants to pay 750 for some pads. Doubt they sold many at that price.

The street and track are two different worlds. The you get two different people on the track and that could be two different extremes also.

For the rest of the car the brakes are :o From a engineering stand point the backward rotor is something you may expect on a Yugo. That would drive me wild on truck never mind a High Performance 200 MPH vehicle. Kind of like having you underware on backwards, still works but not well. I am sure Porsche is laughing their brains out over this.

They built a street car not a race car so if you take it to the track and do 165 MPH to 30 MPH stops at a track constantly it just won't cut it.

No brainer for a track person to save money in pads to help pay the cost of BBK and then sell your Z brakes to a blinger. Can't wait to see what the Blue Devil has for brakes with 650 HP, better be better

Cobra4B

My $0.02... buy the full Stop-Tech kit as it will end up performing better and paying for itself in consumables, then sell your mint oem setup to the blingy C6 or C5 crowd who wants the looks.

vettemaster1

the stock brakes work fine for autocross!!

DT

I suspect a caliper that uses 30 padlets the size of chicklets that are $50/each

J Ritt

Despite the best intents for the C6Z system, I honestly wouldn't say they're any better than the others from a design standpoint. In other words, you aren't getting that much in terms of performance. My C5Z stock brakes were very nice for a factory system. I used them on a small track twice (SOWS), and they performed admirably. The rotors were plain-faced, directional, and of decent size. The pads had a decent amount of volume, and the pedal felt very nice and firm. They got the job done for street driving, and light track duty. Plenty of T1 guys get by just fine with them.

The goal with the C6Z brakes was to go to a bigger rotor, stiffer caliper, and increased thermal capacity. The issues outlined in this email show that while the intent was there, the execution was not. Therefore, I'd say that for the street, the C6Z brakes could be superior in terms of bite / feel. Although I haven't driven them, fixed calipers typically have a more solid feel than a slider (less flex), and the drilled rotors should give some nice bite on the pad. That said, the only obvious benefit of the C6Z brakes is that they look better.
For track duty, I'd take the C5Z or C6 setup all day. It has more race friction options, non-drilled, proper directional rotors, no finicky pad retention bolts to strip out, less expensive replacement components, etc. Honestly, the only benefit I clearly see of putting a C6Z brake kit on your C5 or C6 is aesthetic. That may be worth $1600 to some people (the going street price), but it's a nice chunk of change.
If you're taking the car to the track, you'd be better off keeping the stock C5 or C6 rear brakes, and upgrading to our front kit for a slightly higher price (for example, $2395 for our four piston front setup). You'd have a much more capable system.

0David_Yu

I'm getting confused here. On this thread, it is stated that the Z runs LEFT hand only rotors and in the other one I started, I stated that it runs RIGHT hand only ones as it was my left one that was shot!

Also others who reported uneven rotor wear have had problems with their left one so it's not just me!

I remember looking at the internal vanes and they go the oppposite direction to the pattern of the cross-drilled holes so I'm pretty sure it is the left hand one that is "wrong" as the hole pattern is / way at the top of the left rotor, which means the internal vanes are \ way, i.e. wrong.

Geoff17

Jeff, Stop Tech's products are always great. The kit sounds great for the track. What is the impact on daily driving?

Thanks Geoff

HVDT

Why doesn`t i read about other brake company`beside Stop Tech?

What are the expirience`s with AP or brembo`s.
I have on my old car a subaru wrx a big brake kit from AP.
I am a little bit disapointment by this kit with the ferodo ds 2500 brake pads.
After useing pagid bleu (are they avalebel in the US?) they feld better.
But the story here is that the caliper is bending out under hard breaking.
Does people driving with those big brake kits the same experiece on there z 06?
Wat can you recommend me for a big brake kit?
I do a lot of track day`s and i don`t want to wurry about my brake`s

Grtz,Hans

AFVETTE

I just did 42 hard laps at Road America on my OEM Z51 brakes. Aside from some odd discoloration on the rotor's I experienced no issues.

I did leave the safety nannies engaged and ABS and AH kicked on several times.

Can someone tell me how my rotor's look after this hard use?

Before

After


I'm going back to RA in April with new found confidence in me and the car and I suspect I'll push it even harder. Any tips or suggestions on brake tweakes etc?

Tom

jvp

As a very happy StopTech customer, I can say: none at all. When it comes to street driving, rotors are rotors, and calipers are calipers. They'll all, pretty much, do what the driver needs them to. So, really, it boils down to the pads. And in the case of the StopTechs, by default, they come with a Hawk HiPo ceramic pad that works wonderfully on the road.

jas

0David_Yu

I asked in another thread but nobody replied: is there a C6 Z06-specific BBK or are they all C5 kits?

I haven't found any Brembo GT kits listed for the C6 at all, so is everyone fitting C5 ones?

Also, how come no one has produced a 6 pot front caliper yet?

I know the number of pistons doen't necessarily dictate brake performance, but a car like the Z06 deserves at least a 6 pot set-up IMO (and obviously in the opinion of GM's marketing dept. too!).

jvp

The StopTech kit is a 6-pot front/4-pot rear. I don't think it's a "C6 Specific" kit, other than the bracket required to attach the caliper to the spindle. Calipers are calipers are calipers. :-)

jas

0David_Yu

Doh! So it is...:o

Question for Jeff: I presume Stop Tech's kit is a proper street kit, i.e. includes dust seals on the pistons etc.?

I ask as I have owned AP Racing 6 pot kits that didn't.

Also how much would a set of Pagid (yellows) cost for your set up? Does it use a fairly common pad size?

jvp

I'm not Jeff and I don't play him on TV (or the Internet). But, yes, dust seals, etc. The brake lines included with the kit may NOT be TUV-compliant though. I'm not sure about that one. Do you need TUV-compliant parts in UK?

I have a set that ran me near $670 (USD) total. Haven't tried them yet. It isn't a "fairly common" pad size, but there are a large number of pad makers that support it.

jas

0David_Yu

Thanks for the info. Well it looks like a four wheel set will run to nearly as much as my LPE 616bhp kit, but there's no point in going fast if you can't stop!

BTW, Pagids may be a little cheaper here as they are a Euro co.

We don't need TUV parts in the UK.

I know you're not Jeff, hence why I said: a question for Jeff!

J Ritt

To be honest, I can't quite remember myself...I'd need to check. Regardless, they're both the same, and they ideally shouldn't be!

AFVETTE,
Your rotors look fine. I don't see any major cracking. The concentric grooves (rings around the rotor) are typical for a drilled rotor.

Our C6 Z06 is absolutely a specific kit. Our piston sizing is different on this kit than it is for our base or Z51 C6, and the C5 kits. Most of our competitors don't have free reign to size pistons, therefore many compromise and use what they have at their disposal.
Calipers are most definitely not JUST calipers!

Our C6 Z06 kit is a six piston.

Absolutely. All of our kits are designed to be streetable with dust boots/seals, etc. We use common pad shapes in our calipers, so friction is available everywhere. You don't have to come to us for pads. You can see the pad shape here, and the compounds we sell. There are other compound options as well out there, but we don't sell them all: http://www.stoptech.com/products/BBK...riptions.shtml
We sell those Pagid Yellows for our front calipers for $375.
Click on the numbers at the top of that page to see more details on all of the kit components.


You wish you could pull it off buddy! Our SS lines are all DOT compliant. TUV approval is acheived by application. That means a whole kit is tested and approved. You can't just approve all lines...each and every line application would have to be tested for approval. That said, we do have quite a few TUV approved big brake kits for sale in Germany. These kits include our standard SS lines.


For the current owners chiming in, thanks for the nice comments about our products...much appreciated.

J Ritt

The rears are nice to have, but probably not a 'must have' for most people. Our front only kit will be enough for many, and retails for $2795.