AutoQuest Motorsports

We have found that the majority of enthusiastically driven/tracked GT4's and 991 GT3/RS's coming through our shop have failing or failed factory ceramic caliper piston pucks. Regardless of whether the brakes are factory Steel or PCCB calipers, there are factory ceramic pucks screwed to the face of the pistons that serve as a thermal barrier between the pads and the pistons, lessening the heat transfer to the fluid. Due to the intense heat and heat cycles from hard/extended braking, the ceramic pucks are becoming brittle and disintegrating. Early signs of this are cracking or chipping. Broken or lack of ceramic puck material may cause reduced braking effect and additional heat transfer through the pistons and into the fluid. If a large number of the ceramic pucks were to fail this could lead to significant braking issues.

This problem is often overlooked during pad replacement, as technicians are not aware of the issue and are not checking for it. Unfortunately replacement ceramic pucks are not available, Porsche only offers complete replacement calipers. They will only replace the calipers under warranty if the car is running OE pads and rotors. Even if replacement calipers are installed, the issue will ultimately happen again. To prevent spending thousands on new calipers and to solve the issue once and for all....


Titanium Piston Pucks. They offer similar thermal qualities to ceramic pucks but will not fail under repeated heat cycling. Titanium alloy proved to be the best solution, and although expensive it maintains a thermal barrier as compared to stainless steel which allows heat transfer to the fluid.

We have installed them on numerous GT4's and GT3's over the last year with no noticeable change in brake feel or fluid temperature. Our experience has shown this to be a long-term solution, eliminating the need for expensive and repetitive complete caliper replacements.

Fitment:

• 918 Spyder
• 991.1/991.2 GT3
• 991.1/991.2 GT3RS
• 991.1/991.2 Turbo
• 991.1/991.2 Turbo S
• 991 911R
• 981 GT4

Price:

Front: $57.92 per piston puck (there are 12 of these smaller piston pucks required)

Rear: $58.75 per piston puck (there are 8 of these larger rear piston pucks required)

If you have any questions or are interested in placing an order, please feel free to PM me, email me at john@autoquestms.com, or call me at 484 883 6197 (Cell) or 239 432 1700 (Work, just ask for John). Also, if you are in Florida give me a shout! I'd love to meet up with some of the locals, or those that are visiting the area.

Mech33

Do these just replace the ceramic pucks themselves, and if so can they be replaced without pulling the piston from the caliper?

If so, nice work!! Been waiting for a nice caliper puck solution for a while now, and I've always wondered why someone doesn't just make a replacement for those little puck parts!

AutoQuest Motorsports

Hey Marty, thanks for chiming in!

That is correct, our Titanium version replaces just the factory ceramic pucks themselves.

To give you a little background, the previous 987/997 generation design had floating pucks. There were replacements for those, but only available only through Porsche Motorsport and not many people knew that. The floating design was a huge pain to keep in place while doing a brake service, and it was a real bummer when you dropped one of those and it broke...Due to the amount of complaints about that over the years, Porsche decided to screw them into the pistons for the new design.

That being said Porsche uses Loctite on those screws, so if you try to break them loose while still in the calipers the pistons will just spin and you'll make no headway. The pistons need to be removed and held in order to break the screws loose, there isn't anyway around that. However, it is most certainly time and labor well spent to negate the problem from happening again, and is thousands less than replacing the calipers themselves.

They're also TITANIUM!

Sorry...I love Titanium haha. It was the only thing that got my fat a** down to minimum weight racing shifter karts with my relationship gut

Mech33

Thanks for the background. Do you think a small impact wrench would be able to take those screws out without removing the pistons?

Or perhaps you could just stick something in between the left and right pistons (such as a pad spreader tool) and apply enough force to the piston surfaces to hold them in place without covering the center of the puck while you unscrew the screw.

AutoQuest Motorsports

It would just spin the piston faster. Plus you really wouldn't want to risk breaking that screw with an impact, that is a bad day haha.

The only efficient and reliable way to remove the screws is to remove the pistons, we wouldn't recommend any other means of removal that might damage the pistons/seals. In addition, attempting to do it that way would likely be unsuccessful and more time consuming than taking the pistons out of the caliper.

Mech33

To me it's more the dread of getting air in the system when draining the calipers and getting brake fluid everywhere if one has to remove the pistons...

AutoQuest Motorsports

Air is no problem properly bled, but the brake fluid is precisely the reason I wouldn't personally do it on my own car and have our tech do it...I'm messy haha.

ExMB

So in reality we are talking about ~$1200 for pucks plus the tech labor for R&R including everything else in regards to parts that goes along with it. I guess someone can look at replacing those calipers completely by themselves with less hassle at almost close to that?

AutoQuest Motorsports

There wouldn't be any additional parts that go along with the job, save for brake fluid.

For your reference, a set of new calipers cost about $3500 plus the labor to replace them. That alone, labor included, is more than double that of the Titaniun puck replacements. Then also keep in mind you would have the same problem repeat itself with new calipers as they still have those same ceramic pucks, leading to duplicate costs in the future.

ExMB

True if you use MSRP pricing (and most get at least PCA discount from their dealer or buy online cheaper) and pay a tech instead of doing it yourself. And if you now follow Porsche guidelines you have a bunch of little itty bitty parts that Porsche claims are one use parts and need to be replaced (again OEM vs other source).

Not arguing but trying to understand the luxury tax pricing. Never heard of AM until you came along.

porscheflat6

These are great and glad to see replacement options.

CDinSing

John,

These look like a good alternative. My calipers were just replaced (warranty thankfully) and I noticed the dust covers were also torn. Does your kit include the dust covers and assuming they will continue to tear down the road and need to be placed are they available separately? Thanks!

Mech33

The challenge here is, if I'm going to have to pull the pistons out anyway, then I'd consider just replacing them with the less expensive stainless steel entire piston replacements that are available for about half the cost and serve the same purpose.

BUT if I could replace these pucks without having to R&R the entire caliper assembly, then these pucks become a much more attractive.

A simple tool that lets you push down on the top of the ceramic puck (by pushing against the caliper on the opposite side) that has enough clearance to let you get the appropriate allen wrench in there to remove the screw would make this WAY more attractive IMO. Just like a normal piston spreader for brake pad changes...

I'd be tempted to just make the tool on the bench out of a few scraps of aluminum...

orthojoe

Has anyone ever seen the rear pucks crack? I thought it only happened on the front.

I'd be interested in getting a set for the front of my gt4 which has cracked.

AutoQuest Motorsports

I'm glad you like them, I appreciate you chiming in : )

We haven't had anyone with that concern before, so the kit doesn't come with them. However, we'll reach out to our contacts at Porsche early this week and see if we can get those separately on a case by case basis. Thanks for asking : )

It isn't as often as the fronts, but we still see the rears fail regularly as well. The middle puck on the second picture above is a failed rear puck.

Give me a call at 484 883 6197 and I'd be happy to get some fronts headed your way, we do have them in stock at the moment