When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
Carbon ceramics are great! They are great on track, don't spew dust, and don't give up. They also cost $28,000 a set, burn out quicker, and the calipers degrade from the heat and need to be replaced after a season or two. The easy solution is for Porsche to charge $1200 each for them like Corvette ceramic rotors cost, or else change to this AP Racing setup. Honestly, I blame this on Porsche. I'll be putting the APR setup on my GT2 RS when this first set of pads is shot.
Thanks Randy! We just had another black/gold GT2 RS customer install our kit on his car over this past weekend. I'll try to get some pics so you can see how they'll look.
__________________
'09 Carrera 2S, '08 Boxster LE (orange), '91 Acura NSX, Tesla Model 3 Performance, Fiesta ST
Jeff Ritter
Mgr. High Performance Division, Essex Parts Services Essex Designed AP Racing Radi-CAL Competition Brake Kits & 2-piece J Hook Discs Ferodo Racing Brake Pads Spiegler Stainless Steel Brake Lines
704-824-6030 jeff.ritter@essexparts.com
Fun weekend with some interesting company in Homestead as you can see in the pictures.
So I did a bedding procedure when I got the car and then did a 30 min warm up session under yellow with no heavy braking. On the first hot session did a couple easy laps then started hammering it. First session was horrible. Lots of vibration with a weird thumping under heavy braking on the hear brakes that appeared to be ABS. Braking on flat part of track on straight line. Could feel on seats and also noise. Well, that got me scared. Emailed Jeff from Essex parts and in 5 minutes Mike, who designed the brakes was calling me for some advice. Amazing support. After some pictures shared, some reinforcement that all was good, back to track.
As the first day passed and likely bedding improved the vibration improved significantly. It is a little more vibration than what I was used from PCCB on GT3 and GT4 over the last few years. Mike said that was expected. Nothing dramatic and it did decrease with time. But still more than PCCB and I got used to it after couple sessions.
The thumping could still be noticed on the second day. It was not as evident so not sure if I got used to it or indeed decreasing. Always in the same turns with heavy braking, mainly 8. Maybe a little less intense I would say. Could not pinpoint it on VBox video or data. Would love to find a way to figure out what it is.
Braking sensation is very different. I have to brake heavier to have same braking power. There seems to be more travel on the pedal. So it gives more room for modulation. Still braking a little earlier than I used to but think that will change fast as I recalibrate my feet. Lots of adjustment as the weekend passed and interestingly, still dropped 2 seconds on my lap times. No other mod on car since last time.
There is this very interesting swooshing sound when braking that Mike explained is related to the J-hooks. Very interesting. Did not experience any fading. It was around 80 degrees, not sure track temp.
Overall very happy and would like to thank Jeff and Mike for great support throughout the entire process - purchase, working with my shop - Parkhaus - on installation, and “trackside” over the weekend.
Thank you very much, and our pleasure to help! We believe there are a couple potential sources of what people perceive as 'thumping' or 'shuddering'. Our product manager rode in a customer GT3 at VIR on Monday and Tuesday. He said that at the tail end of brake zones he could feel the ABS engaging, and that it engages a bit more aggressively in the GT3 than he has felt in some other cars he's been in or driven with our brakes. If a driver has not been leveraging their brakes fully or not getting into ABS, we can certainly understand how the overall feel would be considerably different for them. We're also seeing more and more people switching to our iron AP Racing system who are coming from carbon ceramic OEM brakes (on this platform and others ZR1, Z06, Audi RS3, Camaro, McLaren, etc.). Carbon ceramic brakes have a smoother overall feel than iron. If you ever ran your finger tip across the surface of a CCM disc, you'd immediately understand (assuming it hadn't yet oxidized due to heat ).
Another factor is pad movement within the caliper. On a racing caliper like ours, the pads move around a bit more than on an OEM setup. The calipers are designed to accept a wide range of pads from numerous manufacturers. The caliper is also designed with a little more space so the pads have room to expand when they heat up to track temps. That is a blessing when choosing pads, but it can create some 'thumping' when the pad shifts from one end of the caliper to the other. We most frequently hear about this when someone goes from reverse to forward, and they sometimes call it a 'clunk'. When the brakes are applied to the spinning disc after a change of direction, the pads are pulled towards the opposite end of the caliper. It can happen at the initiation of a brake event as well though, although that would be a single thud as the pad moves rather than a repeating thud.
We also hear feedback from some customers about a whirring or clicking noise from the J Hook discs. That can occur with OEM or AP calipers. All of the leading edges of the J Hook slots are there for the pads to bite into. When the pad crosses them it can produce a scraping, whirring, or clicking noise. Most people notice it when they drive next to a wall and the sound bounces back to the driver's seat.
In summary, it's not unusual to have some minor NVH with a racing brake system. It's a minor trade-off for the increased performance, durability, flexibility, etc. Once people adjust to the feel, they don't look back. In most cases we see a significant lap time improvement as well (as is the case in this instance). One to two seconds is typical based on what we hear from our customers.
ots of adjustment as the weekend passed and interestingly, still dropped 2 seconds on my lap times. No other mod on car since last time.
That is fantastic...congrats!
ps The car looks stunning...love the color scheme!
Originally Posted by aalencar
Fun weekend with some interesting company in Homestead as you can see in the pictures.
So I did a bedding procedure when I got the car and then did a 30 min warm up session under yellow with no heavy braking. On the first hot session did a couple easy laps then started hammering it. First session was horrible. Lots of vibration with a weird thumping under heavy braking on the hear brakes that appeared to be ABS. Braking on flat part of track on straight line. Could feel on seats and also noise. Well, that got me scared. Emailed Jeff from Essex parts and in 5 minutes Mike, who designed the brakes was calling me for some advice. Amazing support. After some pictures shared, some reinforcement that all was good, back to track.
As the first day passed and likely bedding improved the vibration improved significantly. It is a little more vibration than what I was used from PCCB on GT3 and GT4 over the last few years. Mike said that was expected. Nothing dramatic and it did decrease with time. But still more than PCCB and I got used to it after couple sessions.
The thumping could still be noticed on the second day. It was not as evident so not sure if I got used to it or indeed decreasing. Always in the same turns with heavy braking, mainly 8. Maybe a little less intense I would say. Could not pinpoint it on VBox video or data. Would love to find a way to figure out what it is.
Braking sensation is very different. I have to brake heavier to have same braking power. There seems to be more travel on the pedal. So it gives more room for modulation. Still braking a little earlier than I used to but think that will change fast as I recalibrate my feet. Lots of adjustment as the weekend passed and interestingly, still dropped 2 seconds on my lap times. No other mod on car since last time.
There is this very interesting swooshing sound when braking that Mike explained is related to the J-hooks. Very interesting. Did not experience any fading. It was around 80 degrees, not sure track temp.
Overall very happy and would like to thank Jeff and Mike for great support throughout the entire process - purchase, working with my shop - Parkhaus - on installation, and “trackside” over the weekend.
Thank you very much, and our pleasure to help! We believe there are a couple potential sources of what people perceive as 'thumping' or 'shuddering'. Our product manager rode in a customer GT3 at VIR on Monday and Tuesday. He said that at the tail end of brake zones he could feel the ABS engaging, and that it engages a bit more aggressively in the GT3 than he has felt in some other cars he's been in or driven with our brakes. If a driver has not been leveraging their brakes fully or not getting into ABS, we can certainly understand how the overall feel would be considerably different for them. We're also seeing more and more people switching to our iron AP Racing system who are coming from carbon ceramic OEM brakes (on this platform and others ZR1, Z06, Audi RS3, Camaro, McLaren, etc.). Carbon ceramic brakes have a smoother overall feel than iron. If you ever ran your finger tip across the surface of a CCM disc, you'd immediately understand (assuming it hadn't yet oxidized due to heat ).
Another factor is pad movement within the caliper. On a racing caliper like ours, the pads move around a bit more than on an OEM setup. The calipers are designed to accept a wide range of pads from numerous manufacturers. The caliper is also designed with a little more space so the pads have room to expand when they heat up to track temps. That is a blessing when choosing pads, but it can create some 'thumping' when the pad shifts from one end of the caliper to the other. We most frequently hear about this when someone goes from reverse to forward, and they sometimes call it a 'clunk'. When the brakes are applied to the spinning disc after a change of direction, the pads are pulled towards the opposite end of the caliper. It can happen at the initiation of a brake event as well though, although that would be a single thud as the pad moves rather than a repeating thud.
We also hear feedback from some customers about a whirring or clicking noise from the J Hook discs. That can occur with OEM or AP calipers. All of the leading edges of the J Hook slots are there for the pads to bite into. When the pad crosses them it can produce a scraping, whirring, or clicking noise. Most people notice it when they drive next to a wall and the sound bounces back to the driver's seat.
In summary, it's not unusual to have some minor NVH with a racing brake system. It's a minor trade-off for the increased performance, durability, flexibility, etc. Once people adjust to the feel, they don't look back. In most cases we see a significant lap time improvement as well (as is the case in this instance). One to two seconds is typical based on what we hear from our customers.
That is fantastic...congrats!
ps The car looks stunning...love the color scheme!
Would a slightly milder rear brake pad help in reducing the activation of the rear ABS?
Thank you very much, and our pleasure to help! We believe there are a couple potential sources of what people perceive as 'thumping' or 'shuddering'. Our product manager rode in a customer GT3 at VIR on Monday and Tuesday. He said that at the tail end of brake zones he could feel the ABS engaging, and that it engages a bit more aggressively in the GT3 than he has felt in some other cars he's been in or driven with our brakes. If a driver has not been leveraging their brakes fully or not getting into ABS, we can certainly understand how the overall feel would be considerably different for them. We're also seeing more and more people switching to our iron AP Racing system who are coming from carbon ceramic OEM brakes (on this platform and others ZR1, Z06, Audi RS3, Camaro, McLaren, etc.). Carbon ceramic brakes have a smoother overall feel than iron. If you ever ran your finger tip across the surface of a CCM disc, you'd immediately understand (assuming it hadn't yet oxidized due to heat ).
Another factor is pad movement within the caliper. On a racing caliper like ours, the pads move around a bit more than on an OEM setup. The calipers are designed to accept a wide range of pads from numerous manufacturers. The caliper is also designed with a little more space so the pads have room to expand when they heat up to track temps. That is a blessing when choosing pads, but it can create some 'thumping' when the pad shifts from one end of the caliper to the other. We most frequently hear about this when someone goes from reverse to forward, and they sometimes call it a 'clunk'. When the brakes are applied to the spinning disc after a change of direction, the pads are pulled towards the opposite end of the caliper. It can happen at the initiation of a brake event as well though, although that would be a single thud as the pad moves rather than a repeating thud.
We also hear feedback from some customers about a whirring or clicking noise from the J Hook discs. That can occur with OEM or AP calipers. All of the leading edges of the J Hook slots are there for the pads to bite into. When the pad crosses them it can produce a scraping, whirring, or clicking noise. Most people notice it when they drive next to a wall and the sound bounces back to the driver's seat.
In summary, it's not unusual to have some minor NVH with a racing brake system. It's a minor trade-off for the increased performance, durability, flexibility, etc. Once people adjust to the feel, they don't look back. In most cases we see a significant lap time improvement as well (as is the case in this instance). One to two seconds is typical based on what we hear from our customers.
That is fantastic...congrats!
ps The car looks stunning...love the color scheme!
thanks a lot Jeff. I am really happy with switch. Indeed the little drawbacks are minor and just a matter of adjusting.
Maybe you're on the throttle sooner, giving up a bit mid corner, and then carrying more speed out of the corners could easily reduce lap times.
I feel I can modulate brake better and improved trail braking and brake release. Car more stable turning in and earlier on throttle. But want to see what data shows.
Would a slightly milder rear brake pad help in reducing the activation of the rear ABS?
That could work. We've had people go with staggered pad setups on many platforms. For example, the Subaru STI guys sometimes run a higher mu pad in the rear to try to dial out understeer when they trail brake into a turn.
The Ferodo DS2500 in the rear would be the logical choice to experiment with if one is running the DS1.11 on the front. Likewise, DS3.12 front/DS1.11 rear would be a similar stagger. You would effectively be shifting more work onto the front brakes. If anyone has multiple Ferodo pad compounds, it's certainly worth playing with. If you stay within the Ferodo family (DS2500, DS1.11, DS3.12), you have a wide range of mu without having to worry about re-bedding, scrubbing discs, etc. They all play nice together on the disc face.
These situations are always tough from our standpoint. Everyone is on different tires, suspension setups, tracks, have different driving abilities, prefer a different brake feel...the list goes on. There are a ton of variables, which prevents us from making blanket statements about pad choice. We like to start people on the DS1.11 front and rear as the point of departure, since that setup seems to work for a very large number of people across platforms. It's a very user-friendly compound with lots of great attributes. We certainly encourage experimentation to dial things in to taste though. Everyone likes something different with pads.
I had the AP Racing brake kit from Essex for 55k miles and 20 track days on my M3 and the rotors and calipers are so durable. Finally changed the rotors to new ones after all this time (and still had a probably a couple of track days left on them). Is an extremely durable kit and one time, we took a IR surface temperature gun to take after track temperatures and the AP racing rotors were 40% cooler than the current gen M3 iron brakes from the factory. The M3 is a heavy car that is hard on brakes and they have performed flawlessly.
I had the AP Racing brake kit from Essex for 55k miles and 20 track days on my M3 and the rotors and calipers are so durable. Finally changed the rotors to new ones after all this time (and still had a probably a couple of track days left on them). Is an extremely durable kit and one time, we took a IR surface temperature gun to take after track temperatures and the AP racing rotors were 40% cooler than the current gen M3 iron brakes from the factory. The M3 is a heavy car that is hard on brakes and they have performed flawlessly.
Thanks for the positive feedback, and glad they are getting the job done for you FogCity!
So....considering the upgrade. Have a tech inspection on Friday, which will result in new pads up front for COTA, and perhaps the rear as well. If the pucks are cracked, may bite the bullet.
My car is not a track only toy, and I do drive it to work a few days a week, to keep everything lubed up, etc. Is a mix of OEM/Radi-CAL deemed acceptable? If I go all 4 corners, how is this going to behave on the street (after bedding, etc?)
03-28-2019, 11:49 AM
).
