Ceramic Brakes
 

Ok Question on the new 997 Gt3 would you order the Ceramic brakes.???

I track the car at least once a month, dealer swears the new generation is a huge improvement over the last generation. The replacement cost seams to be a huge cost. I drove the S last week with ceramic they were fantastic, but I have always belived in Steel rotors with pagids. you can by alot of rotors and and pads for 8,000.

What are the pad choices for Ceramic? I have never read or looked into them before but just thinking about before order time comes.

any thoughts?

Chris here.

Track my 2005 997s at VIR with the club there and all BMW and PCA events that I can get to.

I have the Gen II ceramics and love them. I understand that they are wear items and will eventually need to be replaced.

I feel that as Porsche puts these on more and more cars the price will come down. Nowhere near steel, but still down.

I had several "long time" track day gurus come check out the system and they were amazed with the number of days on the rotors not a single sign of wear. Not even grooves.

With that said I never had to live with the Gen I so I can't speak to them.

I run the street black pad that came on the car. I have still 70% pad up front and based on advice on this forum will change when near 50%. I have a second set of pads that cost about $500/axle. I run Castrol fluid. There is a more aggressive pad from Porsche that will last longer but are less "rotor friendly."

I am #2 on the list for the new GT3 and plan to spec it with the ceramics.

Chris

chris where are you from i am in Raleigh

I live in Hickory.

We have probably passed each other in the paddock numerous times. I will be at the Tarheel BMW event July 8 weekend and at the member days July 22 weekend.

I have the black on black 997s. I would be happy to talk to you about the brakes then.

Hope to see you. Any questions PM me.

Chris

I've heard and read Gen 2 is better, but it still will wear out. The initial purchase is "only" $8,000, but the replacement is more like $20,000 if you can believe that (yes, that's right, $5,000 per rotor). Many that are faced with that reality end up with steel as their 2nd set of rotors.

Losing the weight is nice, but that's a huge price to pay. I'd rather get some aftermarket two piece floating light weight rotors... Not even sure if anyone makes them yet - but I'd have to figure that by the time I wore out the original steel set, there'd be a few good options out there.

yes i will be at the VIR BMW event i am instructing at it in July. i will also be at the member day at the end of July.

i am in #9 white GT3

Nobody has an answer for you at this time. I had GEN I and the rotors went out. The cheapest replacement cost is $5,100 each. There are two pads from Porsche. (black) , (green) the green are only sold by Porsche Motorsports division out of Ca. They come with a warning not to drive on the street with these pads. No many dealers can get them.

You will be taking a chance with the GEN II. Drive them until they start to show signs then replace with irons. At least they are not as costly as the F cars....$8K per rotor.

Assuming the GEN II are better they still will eventually wear out. As Ron & Roberga mentioned the replacement cost is very high. For me I would rather replace the steel rotors or get slotted 2-piece floating rotors for a fraction of the cost.

Unfortunately, 'yes'.

The latest ceramics are claimed to incorporate a lot of development in terms of durability, cooling, and lightness. My guess is the 997GT3 was developed around the PCCBs and, if you want 100% of the car, it needs these brakes - not just for their performance, but for the dynamic benefits of the unsprung weight saving, which contributes to better road manners.

Having said that, if I was going to track the car a lot, I would probably elect for standard brakes, on the basis of cost and consumables.

I'll go for the new 380mm PCCB.
At PDE, the '05 Carrera S cars that they had there logged up to 8,000 "track" miles at Barber Motorsports Park driven by pros to novices, and Barber is a big braking track (lots of trailbraking). A great testbed.
No issues with the PCCB rotors, only pad replacements.

Here is a pic of the new PCCB rotor drilling pattern on the 380mm. (from the new Turbo).
:bigbye:

With all due respect, 8k miles is hardly an exhaustive test. You may need to buy 20k USD of disks at 10k miles.

It boggles me how Porsche are convincing so many people with marketing spin that this is an essential on the GT3 given their past record on this issue.

PCCBs are an order of magnitude above steel in terms of feel and modulation. Having had both, I'm so spoiled with the ceramics, I would unquestionably spec them and take the 'risk'.

If they die an early death, then I'll replace with steel. If they hold up for 8k of track miles as the PDE cars have. . . they'll last my entire ownership of the car.

I have a ceramic engineering background, am familiar with this technology and in fact have patented certain implementations of this technology (for high temperature semiconductor processing applications). Properly executed, these rotors can be everything they are made out to be. . . improperly executed, well, we saw what happened on Gen I.

The new rotors are formed by an entirely different process flow (lost core, monolithic based processing) and formulation (finer carbon fiber structure and more SiC in the final product). I think they may have switched manufacturing facilities as well, but unsure.

Jeff - thanks for the insight. You certainly changed my view on them. I think one thing that would help is some indication from Porsche that under "reasonable" use they will stand behind them. That's probably what still has me concerned - the postings over the past few years of guys that have every now and then do a DE and have had PCCB problems and been told by Porsche - tough luck, you've tracked this car. Now I could see refusing to fix / replace if the car was a dedicated track car / racer...

The beauty of forums like this - good information!

yes i saw NJ GT replaced his ceramics with steel i wonder what the cost would be for the change over ...

it would suck to do in the first year ... i wish they would stand behind their technology ... and stand behind the idea that the track is what the GT3 was intended for!

I wouldn't agree with that, but each to their own etc!