JRitt@essex

Some shots on the ground...

drdonger

Mech33

JRitt@essex

Thanks! We use a 10.9, high strength, zinc coated bolts to fasten the brackets to the uprights. Also of note, they are made in 'Murica!



Here's a pic that shows how they nest:

JRitt@essex

We do not offer painted or powder-coated calipers. Those finishes do not hold up to our standards under heavy track use. They tend to fade, change color, or crack under intense heat. Sorry!

I prefer the Henry Ford answer, "You can have them in any color you want, as long as it's racing anodized gray."

Tik

My kit is on the way! Very excited to give it a try. Jeff, any reason why you didn't go with a stud to the upright itself? I know the intention is to put these brakes on and then never have to remove the bracket itself, but given how easily the uprights seem to strip, was curious on your thoughts here. I'm thinking years down the road when I want to put the stock PCCBs back on... Might be overkill but thought I'd ask.

JRitt@essex

Thank you very much for the support...we really appreciate it. I don't think you'll be disappointed!

Ideally we would have just bolted the AP Racing calipers directly to the spindle and made a disc with the same 380mm OD as the stock iron. Unfortunately, the AP Racing parts bin doesn't have any calipers with the proper mounting spacing (no other manufacturer does either). The hole centers in the spindle are 225mm apart. The mounting centers in the caliper are 180mm apart. We therefore had to use an adapter bracket to account for that difference, and go with a slightly larger than stock disc to leave some radial space to sandwich the caliper bracket.

Installing our bracket is really no different than installing a stud kit. It's a one-time deal. Once the bracket is on, there won't be any need to take it off. The studs in our bracket will allow for caliper removal without disturbing the bolts going into the upright. Given how robust the Pro5000 Radi-CAL calipers have been proving themselves to be, we don't expect them to even come off of the studs in the bracket very often. We've had these calipers in the field for over three years now on many extremely heavy, fast cars, and we've barely seen any of them back for rebuild. Nor have we sold many spares to rebuild them. The seals are fantastic, the pistons are tough, and they just don't come back for servicing. Given the size of the discs we're using, the power and weight of these cars, etc., the calipers aren't going to be particularly stressed in this application. Honestly, I think one of our kits with 355x32mm discs would likely have no trouble providing fade-free performance on this chassis. For reference, we've had 550 whp Z06's running huge slicks and aero on our 355mm front systems at Watkins Glen and Road America with no fade or issues.

The other option we discussed was to go with from-scratch, custom billet calipers that bolt directly to the spindle. The cost on such a kit would have been closer to $25,000 or $30,000, because the calipers alone would have been $5,000 each. Instead, our engineers got creative and came up with a solution by tweaking off-the-shelf calipers and doing a custom run of discs from an existing casting. By doing so we were able to hold the cost similar to the OEM iron system components. We believe we have achieved all of the performance, convenience, and durability goals we had established for ourselves, so we think it's a win for the customer. Frankly, we probably shouldn't have deliberated on that decision as long as we did, and made everyone here suffer through cracked pistons, painful pad changes, etc.

drdonger

porscheflat6

Randyc151

Clark is the man when it comes to Porsche brakes! Very impressed with this AP Racing setup, too. I'm going to give it a hard look when my Girodiscs are up for replacement. And I believe you have a full system for the Turbo S now, correct?

911therapy

Yep, Clark is the man. I buy all my brake products from him without question and with his advice.

Clark and the team at Essex shipped out this full brake kit for my 991.1 GT3 friday. Cant sleep all weekend waiting on it to arrive. Gonna try to get it installed this week and try them out at Barber next weekend.

JRitt@essex

Exactly! Our system isn't flashy in a 'grab your attention from 50 feet away' sense. However, people tend to freak out a bit when they see the unique design up close and personal. The Radi-CAL calipers are functionally beautiful, and don't look like any other brake caliper anyone has ever seen before. It quickly becomes obvious that there's nothing typical about them, and I believe that makes them a particularly great fit for these special cars.

JRitt@essex

Clark at Apex is definitely an excellent source for our products (including these brake kits), and it's always great to see so much positive feedback about one of our resellers. He is incredibly devoted to customer service, and he always goes to bat for his customers. We certainly never have any reservations about sending customers his way!

JRitt@essex

Thank you very much for your support. We really appreciate it, and we're looking forward to pics and feedback once you've had your way with them at Barber!

JRitt@essex

Gents,

We recently completed some artwork celebrating AP's Pro5000R Radi-CAL calipers. We used a monochromatic style that will look good with a wide variety of decors. The poster dimensions are 24" x 36", and the most popular frame I could find . A preview of the poster can be seen below, and I think it does a great job of conveying our message.

Since many of our brake kit sales go through resellers, we don't have addresses for the actual vehicle owners. We thought about shipping these along with the kits to our resellers, but they don't fit in the standard boxes, and we were concerned about them getting lost in the shuffle and not reaching the owner's hands. If you purchased our brake kit, please shoot me a PM with your full name and home address, and we'll send you one of these posters for your garage or man cave. Thanks!