mdrums

+1 !!!!

JRitt@essex

The biggest factor in justifying the price difference is cost per mile. That's what it boils down to IMO. At the pro level, AP Racing discs have won championships in F1, NASCAR Cup, IMSA, V8 Supercar, Super GT, DTM, World Challenge, etc. They are widely regarded as the superior choice vs. anything else on the planet. At the club level/aftermarket, our discs have been proven to last longer and take more abuse than anything on the market. We've had fleet customers switch from other suppliers (including Girodisc) to our discs and find that they are seeing 2-3 times the track miles out of a set of a AP Racing J Hook Iron. When you run the math the additional initial investment becomes an obvious bargain.

Also keep in mind that although our initial 2-piece AP Racing disc package price is higher, our spare iron prices are almost identical to Girodisc (theirs are $525 per disc, and ours are $599). That difference is quickly made up when you factor wear rates and longevity into the mix.

Can we guarantee that you’re going to get twice the life out of our discs vs. any competitor? No. Based on a mountain of evidence we have from customer cars however, it’s a fairly safe assumption that you are not going to find discs that last any longer than ours, run cooler, or that perform any better. You also aren’t going to see Girodiscs on a NASCAR Cup or F1 car anytime soon. At the elite level, AP Racing is chosen for a reason.

If our discs run cooler than other options (which they do), they’re also going to save you money on pad wear. A disc that runs hotter may eat a set of pads in 4 track days, whereas our system could allow you squeeze out 5 or 6 days under the same conditions. The fewer times you change the pads, the more you save. Cooler discs lead to cooler pads, which leads to cooler calipers and less boiled brake fluid. Your brake system overall is going to see less wear and tear with superior discs, which is going to save you money over the long haul.

We’ve had fleet customers like Exotics Racing in Vegas get 10,000 track miles out of a single set of our discs. Here’s a Porsche GT3 customer who got the equivalent of 70+ track days out of our J Hook discs:
https://www.essexparts.com/news-blog...g-j-hook-discs

Here’s an e92 M3 customer who recently got 5 years and 50,000 miles out of our discs in combined road/track use:
https://www.essexparts.com/news-blog...cing-brake-kit

Residual value also comes into play. The AP Racing brand is one of the most highly respected brands in racing, and our products hold their value extremely well long-term since they’ve been proven time and again. It’s typical for our brake components to change hands on the used market at 65-70% of their original retail price, whereas many other brands often trade below 50%. That residual value difference alone makes up for the small initial purchase price difference between our products and other brands when you pull them and try to sell them on the used market when you part with the car. If you try to sell your GT2RS on the used market with the discs installed, the AP Racing name would be further testament to the quality of the parts you used on the car/no corners cut, etc.

If you look at the customer feedback on our blog, or ask someone at the track if our products are worth what they paid, you will hear a definitive ‘yes.’ Most of our customers tell us our brake products were one of best, if not the most valuable, modification they’ve made to their car. I can honestly (and proudly) say that I don’t know of a single customer of ours who has run our product on their track car and said it wasn’t worth at least what they paid for it. You can see lots of other similar feedback here:

https://www.essexparts.com/news-blog

Service also factors in. Essex has been in business since the early 1980's, and we have the best customer service in the game. Our team has well over a century of combined motorsport experience. If you have a problem, we jump all over it and bend over backwards to keep our customers happy.

My suggestion to those weighing their options is to look a little further down the road. Most of our customers own their car for about five years before moving on to the next one. Our systems have proven themselves to be the best value across the full ownership period. Yes, the initial purchase price on our products tend to be a slightly higher, but when you run the numbers over that full ownership period the initial cost difference is a drop in the bucket compared to the upside. We don’t make price-point products, we make the best products, and they are particularly befitting of a car like the GT2RS.

Thanks for your consideration, and don't hesitate with any other questions!

RDCR

Plus the AP discs look a lot cooler, that's worth the extra $ right there!

JRitt@essex

Truth! Cars like these have tremendous presence, and AP Racing Discs definitely don't hurt the cool factor or street cred. Here they are on a vibrant 3RS that formerly wore PCCB:

mdrums

Thanks Jeff....how do your steel rotors outlast or what makes them last longer other steel rotors....says Girodisc?

JRitt@essex

There are quite a few factors that would make one iron disc outlast another iron disc. Saying that all iron discs are created equal would be no different than saying that a GT3 is no different from a Honda Civic because they both have four wheels!

Design is one of the greatest determinants of durability. An immense amount of thought and testing has gone into AP Racing's design, much of that gained through 50+ years at the top level of motorsport. Design dictates how air and heat are stored/absorbed by the disc, and how they move through and are evacuated by the discs. Some design considerations taken into account:

• Number of internal vanes
  • airflow through the disc
  • stability of disc face and resistance to uneven pad deposits and judder
• Shape of internal vanes
  • airflow
• Wall thickness
  • Heat storage / airflow
• Air gap
  • Heat storage / airflow
• Flange thickness
  • Resistance to deformation
  • Overall durability
• Number of hat mounting points
  • Resistance to deformation
  • Overall durability
• Floating mechanism
  • Float in hat vs. float in disc
  • Type of bobbin used/material
• Slot Design (J Hook vs. straight groove)
  • Even distribution of heat
  • Resistance to uneven pad deposits
  • Crack resistance
• Aluminum hat shape and material
  • Long-term durability / resistance to deformation

One of the other large determining factors of durability is metallurgy. AP Racing has been refining their metallurgy for a very long time. It has special additives that make it quite crack resistant and durable, and that formula has been continually revised for half a century now, based on reams of real-world racing data.

Here's a fun fact...Did you know that every car that has won a Formula 1 race since 1967 has had an AP Racing clutch or brake component installed on it? Pretty cool, no?

mdrums

Thanks Jeff... I was wondering about metallurgy plus all the other stuff...

Im going to do a few DE on my pccb... then maybe around Christmas I will swap out to a set of AP steel rotors

orthojoe

When I ran AP rotors on my 991.1 GT3, I got almost 30 track days out of the front rotors using ds1.11 pads out here at the NorCal tracks. The rears never needed to be replaced. I sold the car before they needed replacement and the car had about 80 days on it by then.

On my GT4, the the car was sold before the rotors were worn out

On my RS using the AP calipers and rotors. Only 10 days on them so far, but plenty of life left.

I'm amazed at how long these AP rotors last

krell

I'm running AP J-hook rotors on my .2 GT3 with Race Tech RE-10s. The setup has five days at Road America with three more before the end of the season. At that point I'll do a full inspection and thickness check to see how they wore. Road America is notoriously hard on the braking system so I don't expect to get 30 days on them like some people do running on those weenie race tracks on the west coast!

JRitt@essex

Yes sir. We will be here when you need us. Just make sure your stocking is reinforced if you want to dump these discs into it!

Thanks for the feedback Orthojoe and Krell! Road America is no joke. Watkins Glen is probably the closest rival in terms of being abusive on brakes, so I'd love to see your progress with them. Big Willow is most definitely the 'weeniest' brake track I've ever driven (although Joe lurks mainly in Northern Cali I believe). lol.

JRitt@essex

A few more customer pics for the gents asking about our J Hook discs...first up our PCCB replacements on a stealth GT2RS:






GT3RS out at the track

Mech33

But to be more specific, have you done any internal benchmarking of wear rates against say the AP disc metallurgy and the Girodisc metallurgy? Curious how those compare.

JRitt@essex

If you're asking if we (Essex) have done a metallurgical analysis of our competitor's discs, we have not. It's likely that AP Racing has done so, as that is exactly the sort of thing they do. For example, when AP wanted to take over the Late Model market years ago, they took a Wilwood Superlite caliper (the market leader at the time), and beat it to death on their dyno. They then proceeded to design and manufacture a caliper that was superior in every way possible. There is certainly value in that sort of testing.

What we've seen most at Essex is firsthand customer feedback from those who have used multiple products. On the aftermarket side that includes retail, wholesale, and fleet customers. In North American racing, we (Essex) directly service NASCAR Cup, Xfinity, IMSA, Rolex, World Challenge, NASA, SCCA, USTCC, etc. We have plenty of comparative data from race teams. The same discs used in those series are the same discs we offer our aftermarket customers.

Ultimately though, the proof is in the pudding as they say. You just don't see Corvette, M3, BRZ, and GT3 owners shouting to the world that their AP discs didn't last long enough. More often than not we have people call and ask if they should replace their discs because they've been on the car so long.

JRitt@essex

Late last week we received a pic and some great feedback from yet another 991 GT3 customer, forum member Ascetic. He wrote about our Competition Brake Kit.

"I cannot say enough good things about this kit. I'm coming from an M3 that was plagued with brake fade, and then to PCCBs that didn't have quite the initial bite I wanted. Nor the confidence to really use them. This kit has been a dream. I am able to play around with moving my begin of braking, and modulate during my end of braking easily. If I were to sum up in 2 words - Confidence inspiring. Pedal feel is perfect with the DS1.11s."

JRitt@essex

Here's a shot one of our guys took out at VIR the other week...love this color!