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OMG...gorgeous! I love that ceramic color. Thanks for the pics Tik!
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'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
I had a wierd but ultimately rewarding experience with the System. I was up running and on track the Wednesday after the release. It was an overcast day temps in the mid 50s. Warmed them up with moderate braking for 10 minutes on the skid pad and 3 gentle laps and then up to speed. As I moved up the brake points to my customary spot I experienced a frightening lack of stopping power including one instance at the end of the straight where I literally stood on the brakes with both feet and all my weight. From there I took it much easier. My guy reached out to AP and they immediately sent a new set of rotors and pads that they pre-bedded. I snuck in one more track day before the scheduled swap. The day was sunny low to mid 70s and it was a complete polar opposite experience. Unbelievable grip, great pedal (which was the case the 1st day as well) and pedal feel consistent throughout the session. My prior setup was stock calipers with upgraded pads and giro-disc rotors which were very effective but the new system puts them to shame. I have been doing track events for 10+ yrs and have never experienced better braking. The best the smart boys could figure out was the reduced tire grip and cold day combined in some wierd metaphysical way to screw things up—at least that’s how I interpreted their more professional explanation. In sum these amazing brakes have significantly reduced brake distances with a noticeable reduction in lap times. The company’s support was top notch and after 6 days on track I can’t recommend these brakes enough.
I had a wierd but ultimately rewarding experience with the System. I was up running and on track the Wednesday after the release. It was an overcast day temps in the mid 50s. Warmed them up with moderate braking for 10 minutes on the skid pad and 3 gentle laps and then up to speed. As I moved up the brake points to my customary spot I experienced a frightening lack of stopping power including one instance at the end of the straight where I literally stood on the brakes with both feet and all my weight. From there I took it much easier. My guy reached out to AP and they immediately sent a new set of rotors and pads that they pre-bedded. I snuck in one more track day before the scheduled swap. The day was sunny low to mid 70s and it was a complete polar opposite experience. Unbelievable grip, great pedal (which was the case the 1st day as well) and pedal feel consistent throughout the session. My prior setup was stock calipers with upgraded pads and giro-disc rotors which were very effective but the new system puts them to shame. I have been doing track events for 10+ yrs and have never experienced better braking. The best the smart boys could figure out was the reduced tire grip and cold day combined in some wierd metaphysical way to screw things up—at least that’s how I interpreted their more professional explanation. In sum these amazing brakes have significantly reduced brake distances with a noticeable reduction in lap times. The company’s support was top notch and after 6 days on track I can’t recommend these brakes enough.
Thanks for the positive feedback, and we're glad they are exceeding your expectations! We heard that you set your personal best lap time on the track with the new brakes, which is awesome. Congrats! If you have any pics, please share them!
Pad and Disc Bed-in
In terms of the initial lack of stopping power, we believe it was a bedding issue. We've also seen some uneven pad deposits and judder on a couple of cars, particularly on the front discs. These are all things that we typically do not see, and I believe they're related to my previous comments in this thread about the size of the discs. The discs in our system are extremely efficient and flow a lot of air. For this application, the discs are large. They had to be larger than the OEM iron discs to make room for the caliper bracket. As mentioned in my previous posts, in terms of actual required heat capacity, our 355x32mm discs on the front of this car would have been ample.
Having such large, efficient discs means that they are running substantially cooler than the OEM units. In order to get the pads and discs hot enough to properly bed them in, they need to have more energy poured into them than what the OEM parts require. That means heat has to be gradually built up into the system, and more stops from higher speeds are required to ultimately establish a nice, even transfer layer of pad material on the discs. In lnirenberg's case, warming the brakes up on the skidpad would not be enough to establish a pad transfer layer on the discs. The pads would not have gotten hot enough for much of the material to stick to the disc face (race pads require considerably more heat than street pads to be bed-in well). With un-bedded discs and pads there is a distinctive lack of bite. As he progressed into a couple of sessions he got them hot enough to establish a pad transfer layer. When he let them cool down and subsequently went out for his second day, the discs and pads were then properly bedded and ready for action...hence the distinctly different feel and the expected/predicted performance.
Trying to bed this system in on the street isn't going to be effective unless you are willing to break the law by a significant margin (which we do not recommend or endorse). We believe the only way to get this system hot enough for them to be bed-in properly will be on the racetrack, or on our bedding machine. As such, our current plan is to include disc bedding as a standard option on our GT3 and GT4 kits. We normally offer this service for $50 per disc, but we will include it at no additional cost. We believe this will make things easier for the owner/driver, and it will ensure that the preparation of the components is consistent (humans can't perform this function as repeatably as a machine, which is why all of the pro race teams use our service!). So when you open your disc boxes, don't think for a second that we sent you used discs.
Does this mean that you should go flat-out on the discs on the very first lap of each session? No. As mentioned previously, you should always do a couple laps increasing your speed. Just like you warm up tires, you want to warm up your brakes to avoid thermal shock to the discs. That will provide the longest life.
If you haven't seen these before, below are a couple of videos we shot about eight years ago on bedding and swapping pads. I did the in-car work in my C5 Z06. Sorry for the poor quality, but this was before high-definition was prevalent on small, handheld cameras and action cams!
At this point we absolutely do not recommend any additional brake ducts on the car. The discs are running plenty cool, and unless integrated properly, brake ducts can create more problems than they solve. Also of note...we'll be heading to VIR on June 4th with Chin Motorsports and a local GT3 customer to log temperature data from our system installed on his car. Testing with and without the OEM brake ducts is something we may look at as well, in an effort to keep disc temps more constant.
The great news about all of the above is that we expect the components in our kit to last a very long time, and there's no way anyone is going to ever fade them. The initial reports all indicate that pad and disc wear is fantastic, and that's what we were anticipating.
Thanks again for your continued support gents. We're going to keep working towards making our systems even easier for you all to implement and use!
Jeff, thanks for the post. Proper bed-in is critical! I spent my entire first session bedding the pads (I opted for your disc bedding when purchasing) - one "throwaway" session is a small price to pay to ensure a great transfer layer that helps the system feel better and last longer!
A couple questions for you:
- You've mentioned before that the disc bedding helps pre-burnish the rotor with the pad material of your choice, but that the pads we receive still need to be bedded. I'm assuming this remains true, or are you bedding both the pads and rotors that ultimately ship out to a customer?
- For those of us that paid $200 for pre-bedding, can we apply that as a credit on pads or something else in the future? :-)
Originally Posted by JRitt@essex
Thanks for the positive feedback, and we're glad they are exceeding your expectations! We heard that you set your personal best lap time on the track with the new brakes, which is awesome. Congrats! If you have any pics, please share them!
Pad and Disc Bed-in
In terms of the initial lack of stopping power, we believe it was a bedding issue. We've also seen some uneven pad deposits and judder on a couple of cars, particularly on the front discs. These are all things that we typically do not see, and I believe they're related to my previous comments in this thread about the size of the discs. The discs in our system are extremely efficient and flow a lot of air. For this application, the discs are large. They had to be larger than the OEM iron discs to make room for the caliper bracket. As mentioned in my previous posts, in terms of actual required heat capacity, our 355x32mm discs on the front of this car would have been ample.
Having such large, efficient discs means that they are running substantially cooler than the OEM units. In order to get the pads and discs hot enough to properly bed them in, they need to have more energy poured into them than what the OEM parts require. That means heat has to be gradually built up into the system, and more stops from higher speeds are required to ultimately establish a nice, even transfer layer of pad material on the discs. In lnirenberg's case, warming the brakes up on the skidpad would not be enough to establish a pad transfer layer on the discs. The pads would not have gotten hot enough for much of the material to stick to the disc face (race pads require considerably more heat than street pads to be bed-in well). With un-bedded discs and pads there is a distinctive lack of bite. As he progressed into a couple of sessions he got them hot enough to establish a pad transfer layer. When he let them cool down and subsequently went out for his second day, the discs and pads were then properly bedded and ready for action...hence the distinctly different feel and the expected/predicted performance.
Trying to bed this system in on the street isn't going to be effective unless you are willing to break the law by a significant margin (which we do not recommend or endorse). We believe the only way to get this system hot enough for them to be bed-in properly will be on the racetrack, or on our bedding machine. As such, our current plan is to include disc bedding as a standard option on our GT3 and GT4 kits. We normally offer this service for $50 per disc, but we will include it at no additional cost. We believe this will make things easier for the owner/driver, and it will ensure that the preparation of the components is consistent (humans can't perform this function as repeatably as a machine, which is why all of the pro race teams use our service!). So when you open your disc boxes, don't think for a second that we sent you used discs.
Does this mean that you should go flat-out on the discs on the very first lap of each session? No. As mentioned previously, you should always do a couple laps increasing your speed. Just like you warm up tires, you want to warm up your brakes to avoid thermal shock to the discs. That will provide the longest life.
If you haven't seen these before, below are a couple of videos we shot about eight years ago on bedding and swapping pads. I did the in-car work in my C5 Z06. Sorry for the poor quality, but this was before high-definition was prevalent on small, handheld cameras and action cams!
At this point we absolutely do not recommend any additional brake ducts on the car. The discs are running plenty cool, and unless integrated properly, brake ducts can create more problems than they solve. Also of note...we'll be heading to VIR on June 4th with Chin Motorsports and a local GT3 customer to log temperature data from our system installed on his car. Testing with and without the OEM brake ducts is something we may look at as well, in an effort to keep disc temps more constant.
The great news about all of the above is that we expect the components in our kit to last a very long time, and there's no way anyone is going to ever fade them. The initial reports all indicate that pad and disc wear is fantastic, and that's what we were anticipating.
Thanks again for your continued support gents. We're going to keep working towards making our systems even easier for you all to implement and use!
Jeff, thanks for the post. Proper bed-in is critical! I spent my entire first session bedding the pads (I opted for your disc bedding when purchasing) - one "throwaway" session is a small price to pay to ensure a great transfer layer that helps the system feel better and last longer!
A couple questions for you:
- You've mentioned before that the disc bedding helps pre-burnish the rotor with the pad material of your choice, but that the pads we receive still need to be bedded. I'm assuming this remains true, or are you bedding both the pads and rotors that ultimately ship out to a customer?
- For those of us that paid $200 for pre-bedding, can we apply that as a credit on pads or something else in the future? :-)
No worries, and yes you are 100% correct Tik! The pre-burnished discs still require a pad bed-in. The first session of the day is a great time to do it in a safe environment. We can bed the pads in as well, but it is a bit more time-consuming and costly. I don't think we'd be able to offer that without an additional charge. I'll look into the numbers and talk with engineering on the topic.
For those who already paid for pre-bedding on the discs (I believe there were two or three of you who did so), yes, we can work something out for a future credit. The complicating factor is that most kit pre-orders were placed through resellers, which makes that situation a bit messier. I'm sure we can sort it out to everyone's satisfaction though. Thanks again gents and enjoy the long weekend!
I absolutely knocked 3/10ths of a second off my previous best lap time at my home track with no other changes than the brakes. I assume it was mostly due to the later brake points but assume the unsprung weight reduction didn’t hurt either. As my car is a track only car I used the bedding procedure that I successfully used on the previous setup but this is clearly a different animal. Had I known I definitely would have opted for pre-bedding. As I am assuming it will be a while before I need need rotors, can pads be pre-bedded and if not is the bedding procedure on replacement pads with existing rotors the same as you describe when everything is new? Away for the weekend but I’ll be at the track Tuesday and I will try to remember my good camera so I can get some nice pics to post. Everything is a learning experience and it is nice to have product support i can count on. It’s not all about the money but in the this case it kinda is because it was not a cheap upgrade but so far worth every penny. Thanks and keep up the great work.
I wanted to confirm the AP kit will fit under 19" wheel fitment. I have my new RS inbound and plan to convert it to the AP setup. My track wheels are Forgeline GS1R's and BBS E07's.
I wanted to confirm the AP kit will fit under 19" wheel fitment. I have my new RS inbound and plan to convert it to the AP setup. My track wheels are Forgeline GS1R's and BBS E07's.
Thanks,
Chris.
Hi Chris,
Our friends at Forgeline told us that the GE1R, GS1R, and GA1R in 19x9 +52 will clear without a spacer. That said, the surefire way to check your wheels is with our wheel fitment templates:
The templates will tell you if the brakes will clear or not. When you print them, just check a dimension with a ruler to make sure the printer didn't scale it. Tape or blue them to a piece of cardboard and stick them inside the wheel.
I absolutely knocked 3/10ths of a second off my previous best lap time at my home track with no other changes than the brakes. I assume it was mostly due to the later brake points but assume the unsprung weight reduction didn’t hurt either. As my car is a track only car I used the bedding procedure that I successfully used on the previous setup but this is clearly a different animal. Had I known I definitely would have opted for pre-bedding. As I am assuming it will be a while before I need need rotors, can pads be pre-bedded and if not is the bedding procedure on replacement pads with existing rotors the same as you describe when everything is new? Away for the weekend but I’ll be at the track Tuesday and I will try to remember my good camera so I can get some nice pics to post. Everything is a learning experience and it is nice to have product support i can count on. It’s not all about the money but in the this case it kinda is because it was not a cheap upgrade but so far worth every penny. Thanks and keep up the great work.
Fantastic! You're now the third customer who has set a personal best after installing our kit...very nice!
If you're already running the pads and discs without issue, you likely aren't going to run into any issues at this point. Bedding new pads on a used disc will be similar to when everything is new. The big difference is that you won't have to work as hard to lay down a transfer layer on the discs. The goal with the new pad set on an already bedded disc set would be to seat the pads properly flush with the disc face, and burn off the top layer of pad material. Once they start sticking to the disc face (just after they've started to smell and possibly smoke a little), you can call it quits on the bed-in. If you're using the same pad compound as your previous pad set, you don't have to worry about scraping the discs clean before laying down the fresh pad material.
We're looking forward to seeing the full pics of the car! Thanks again for your support.
Well I just got back from the track and had another great day. Of course I forgot to get pics, the car is up on the lift and coming off a hot day there was a lot of tire chunks on the track and now sticking to the wheels which would not make for good pics. I will wash it and scrape chunks later in the week and hope for my rapidly decaying brain to remember.
Well I just got back from the track and had another great day. Of course I forgot to get pics, the car is up on the lift and coming off a hot day there was a lot of tire chunks on the track and now sticking to the wheels which would not make for good pics. I will wash it and scrape chunks later in the week and hope for my rapidly decaying brain to remember.
Great on the successful track day, and no worries on the pics. It sounds like you need one of these T-shirts!
Hard to get a full view of car with the brakes prominent, best I could do today without the sun at my back. Pile of slag from wheels 1 track day. I am considering saving them up and at the end of the year I should have enough to make my own set of tires.
Hard to get a full view of car with the brakes prominent, best I could do today without the sun at my back. Pile of slag from wheels 1 track day. I am considering saving them up and at the end of the year I should have enough to make my own set of tires.
Awesome! I'm digging the panic button graphics, and nice clag collection.
We attended a fantastic Chin Track Day at VIR yesterday with our local GT3 customer. He ran a bunch of sessions on our brake system and it performed flawlessly. Brake temps were great, pad wear looked excellent, and he didn't have any issues with vibration, bed-in, etc.
I didn't drive the car, but was able to catch a ride. These are definitely incredible machines, and it was a blast ripping through the hills with the engine wailing away at 9k!
We also had a number of other customers out there running our brake kits and 2-piece J Hook discs:
05-24-2018, 12:29 PM
