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AutoQuest Motorsports - Titanium Caliper Piston Pucks for the Failed Factory Ceramics
The Issue
We have found that the majority of enthusiastically driven/tracked GT4's and 991 GT3/RS's coming through our shop have failing or failed factory ceramic caliper piston pucks. Regardless of whether the brakes are factory Steel or PCCB calipers, there are factory ceramic pucks screwed to the face of the pistons that serve as a thermal barrier between the pads and the pistons, lessening the heat transfer to the fluid. Due to the intense heat and heat cycles from hard/extended braking, the ceramic pucks are becoming brittle and disintegrating. Early signs of this are cracking or chipping. Broken or lack of ceramic puck material may cause reduced braking effect and additional heat transfer through the pistons and into the fluid. If a large number of the ceramic pucks were to fail this could lead to significant braking issues.
This problem is often overlooked during pad replacement, as technicians are not aware of the issue and are not checking for it. Unfortunately replacement ceramic pucks are not available, Porsche only offers complete replacement calipers. They will only replace the calipers under warranty if the car is running OE pads and rotors. Even if replacement calipers are installed, the issue will ultimately happen again. To prevent spending thousands on new calipers and to solve the issue once and for all....
Titanium Piston Pucks. They offer similar thermal qualities to ceramic pucks but will not fail under repeated heat cycling. Titanium alloy proved to be the best solution, and although expensive it maintains a thermal barrier as compared to stainless steel which allows heat transfer to the fluid.
We have installed them on numerous GT4's and GT3's over the last year with no noticeable change in brake feel or fluid temperature. Our experience has shown this to be a long-term solution, eliminating the need for expensive and repetitive complete caliper replacements.
Fitment:
918 Spyder
991.1/991.2 GT3
991.1/991.2 GT3RS
991.1/991.2 Turbo
991.1/991.2 Turbo S
991 911R
981 GT4
Price:
Front: $57.92 per piston puck (there are 12 of these smaller piston pucks required)
Rear: $58.75 per piston puck (there are 8 of these larger rear piston pucks required)
If you have any questions or are interested in placing an order, please feel free to PM me, email me at john@autoquestms.com, or call me at 484 883 6197 (Cell) or 239 432 1700 (Work, just ask for John). Also, if you are in Florida give me a shout! I'd love to meet up with some of the locals, or those that are visiting the area.
Factory Ceramics - Cracking
Factory Ceramics - Chipping
Factory Ceramics - Breaking
AutoQuest Titanium Replacements
Last edited by AutoQuest Motorsports; 10-25-2017 at 03:22 PM.
Can you show side view of the pucks and how they screw in and show installation video onto Porsche piston?
On my 996 gt3 they ceramic pucks don't have threads nor does the piston. They are pressed fit from facory.
Thank you
Hello tgavem, thanks for chiming in! Attached is a picture I found of the new generation factory piston-puck assemblies so you can see how they are screwed in, as well as a picture of the side of our Titanium replacements.
I do not have an installation video available for these, over time with future installs I may be able to put something like that together. Essentially, once the piston is removed it needs to be held securely and something safe (such as a rubber strap) in order to break the screw loose and swap the puck.
To give you a little background, the previous generation design did have floating pucks. There were replacements for those, but only available only through Porsche Motorsport and not many people knew that. The floating design was a huge pain to keep in place while doing a brake service, and it was a real bummer when you dropped one of those and it broke...Due to the amount of complaints about that over the years, Porsche decided to screw them into the pistons for the new design.
That being said Porsche uses Loctite on the screws, so if you try to break them loose while still in the calipers the pistons will just spin and you'll make no headway. That is why the pistons need to be removed and held in order to break the screws loose, there isn't any way around that. However, it is most certainly time and labor well spent to negate the problem from happening again, and is thousands less than replacing the calipers themselves.
John, do the new titanium pucks include new dust boots since the Pistons have to be removed? If not, what would you suggest we do about the dust boots which are always cracked at this point?
John, do the new titanium pucks include new dust boots since the Pistons have to be removed? If not, what would you suggest we do about the dust boots which are always cracked at this point?
Some other vendors sell high temperature silicone dust boots (just be careful to avoid getting brake fluid on them). I have a set I haven't gotten around to installing yet...
Titanium has the same thermal properties as ceramic?!
That is counter intuitive, thank you for the solution
Indeed it is haha. Titanium Alloy can have similar thermal barrier properties as a comparative ceramic, it all depends on the grade of both. For example, let's look at a comparison of thermal conductivity of various materials. The units are the standard W/m*K and the higher the number the more conductive they are.
Pure Aluminum: 237
Aluminum Alloy 2024-T6: 177
Pure Titanium: 22
Stainless Steel 304: 16
Titanium Alloy Ti6Al4V: 8
Ceramic: 3-60 (depending on type of ceramic – see link
below for details) http://global.kyocera.com/fcworld/ch...rmalcond.html.
If you just look at the thermal conductivity of Pure Titanium it looks worse than that of the most popular T304L Stainless Steel, but Titanium Alloy (Ti6Al4V) has a lower value (more insulating) of one half that of T304L SS. As you can see ceramics have quite a large range of conductivity depending on the type. Best case scenario our pucks have even less thermal conductivity than the OEM ceramic, worst case they quite similar with none of the drawbacks. All ceramics are brittle, which is why they aren't the best material choice for caliper pistons or pucks. Professional race teams use Titanium for the brake caliper pistons because they are tough, light, and insulate better than stainless steel with none of the drawbacks of the ceramic."
Last edited by AutoQuest Motorsports; 09-26-2017 at 07:12 AM.
John, do the new titanium pucks include new dust boots since the Pistons have to be removed? If not, what would you suggest we do about the dust boots which are always cracked at this point?
A lot of owners don't bother with running the dust boots, however we do have an inquiry in with our contacts at Porsche to see if we can get the dust boots themselves for those that want them replaced.
Just had to overnight a set to a fellow in California this past weekend when one of his front pucks disintegrated at the track. Check those piston pucks for warning signs, but even so they can go at any time.
John, can you provide an update on your efforts to source dust boots. I am interested in the pucks, but I want all of the parts to be lined up that I will need and don't expect to reuse my dust boots. Would be nice to know who offers the high temps boots you mentioned as well as whether Porsche is making the OE boots available. I believe that RB offers dust boots (both high temp and standard), but I do not know whether they would fit your pucks. In addition, I don't know where they get their boots.
In addition, it would be nice to know whether Porsche is making available replacement pistons, just in case the installer happens to damage a piston during the install. I do not want to get stuck buying new calipers in that case.
08-26-2017, 04:50 PM
AutoQuest Motorsports - Titanium Caliper Piston Pucks for the Failed Factory Ceramics
