Stoptech big brake kit

[yan tang]

Does anybody here have any experience with the stoptech big brake kit? If so, what were your impressions and would you do them again if you had another chance or would you go with a different setup?

[Igor Kozlov]

I have stoptechs on my car. ST-40 calipers, 13" 328x28 slotted rotors. I'm very imressed with the quality and rock solid performance. It does stop the car fast. I assume if you don't have ABS they should perform better especially on wet/slippery surface. Brake pedal feels really stiff (i guess it's partially caused by ss brake lines that come with the kit). Honestly I can not compare with other brands because this is the only kit I have used but definitely a big upgrade from stock. The only sad part is when it's time to do maintenance you'd better have some extra cash put aside. I'm in need of new rotors + rotor hats + pads. Thats roughly $1300.. saving money

[yan tang]

Glad to hear they work well. I just needed some reassurance cuz I just dropped two geez on these brakes. I figured if they didn't work well, I should know now so I can cancel the order. I know stoptech has good quality products so I wasn't too concerned. How come it's so much just to replace the rotors and hats? I figured the calipers would be the expensive pieces to replace. I know the pads you can just get from lordco. Hawk makes pads that fit the stoptech calipers in a couple different compounds.  They should be readily available. My brakes will be here in about a week or so, so after I install them i'll write a review with the results with some before and after pics.  Thx for the heads up.

[Remi Raymond]

The stop tech dsm kit was devloped with RRE and IIRC recorded one of the shortest stopping distances they had seen about 5 years ago (on toyo ra-1s, so that helped i'm sure)
I think it was shorter than the evo8/9 distance.

Good choice.

[Kristopher]

I can attest that the SS lines do make a difference even on lesser setups.

And not that it matters much at all, but the Audi allroad has a bigger StopTech kit on it which the previous owner installed. He noted the 4200lb car stops much better and more precise with the uprated brakes. FYI the allroad came with bigger brakes (HP2 calipers) than many of the other A6-chassis cars.

Tom from the CalgDSM club put on ST brakes on his 2g many years ago and was super impressed.

In my opinion if you've outgrown the 1gb DSM brakes on SS lines and a good pad, then there's nothing wrong with dropping the change on a ST kit.

[Igor Kozlov]

How come it's so much just to replace the rotors and hats? I figured the calipers would be the expensive pieces to replace. I know the pads you can just get from lordco. Hawk makes pads that fit the stoptech calipers in a couple different compounds.

From what I found rotors are $230 each and hats $200 USD each. I was actually going to try the new StopTech Street Performance pads. I heared that Hawks in genaral are pretty harsh on the rotors. So yeah, all that plus shippig makes it quie pricey

[yan tang]

so i've had the brakes on the car for about a month or so now, i followed the break in procedure to a tee and as much as i hate to say, i'm not impressed at all.  braking power does feel a bit better, but not what i was expecting.  they look bad ass to the bone and quality is top notch, but as far as performance, my 93 with powerslot rotors front and rear with hawk performance pads seemed to work better.  on top of that, if i leave my car parked for more than 3 days at a time, moisture gets between the rotor and the pad and oxidizes, leaving a deposit on the rotor, so the first couple of drives after being parked for a couple of days, every time i apply the brakes, the whole car shimmies like my rotors are warped until the oxidization gets burnt off.  not impressed at all. 

[Brett Haviland]

nice to know.. thanks for the headsup.

I guess ill be spending all my money on a 94+ awd 2 piston setup for my colt.  luckily my evo already comes with the 2 piston setup.

the gains on the stoptech setup would probably have to be driven on a track HARD before the gains over the stock stuff would become apparent.  Im pretty sure they work better when they are really hot, then when they are under normal conditions.

[yan tang]

The pads that come standard with the kit are pretty mild. They don't need a whole lot of heat before they become effective. One thing I did notice though, during the break in procedure which requires 10 consecutive stops from 100km/hr to almost a dead stop at about 80% breaking effort, the brakes didn't begin to fade until about the 6th hard stop. At that point, I could already smell the brakes and I'm sure they were glowing. I guess that's the major advantage over the stock brakes. With my single piston brakes even with powerslot rotors and hawk pads, after one hard stop, the brakes were already beginning to fade. I definitely wouldn't buy them again if I had to do it again. I'd probably just do a cobra upgrade at less than half the cost. Oh well...at least they look bad ass. 

[KevinBuckham]

Interesting review!  How is the pedal feel?  Are they easy to modulate near lock-up?  Does the pedal feel heavier than stock (need more effort for the same braking force)?

A Cobra caliper setup tends to feel a bit stiffer and require more pedal force than the factory 2G setup. (Comparing the same Hawk pad compound and probably the same as an actual Corvette C4 or Mustang.)  Modulation seems good and probably better than factory, but nothing spectacular.  (I'd love to try a decent 4 piston setup to compare against.) The heat handling ability is way beyond the stock 2G bits though.

[yan tang]

the pedal feels a little stiffer than stock and does require more effort to stop.  when hammered on, they do bite, but like i stated, not to what i was expecting.  i like a pedal that doesn't require much pedal effort to stop.  my wife's mazda 5 brakes absolutely amazing, it doesn't require huge pedal effort and comes to a stop surprisingly fast.  when braking near lock up, they aren't hard to modulate at all.  i think it might be the fact that i have to apply more pedal pressure than before that's making me feel like they're not working as good they really are, who knows.  i guess until i drive another car with a different big brake kit, i won't really have anything to compare them to.  i'll keep you guys updated as i put some more mileage on them

[Brett Haviland]

get a bigger diameter master cylinder yan....  Thats what the colt guys do when they go to the duel piston calipers and have the smaller colt 1.5L master cyl still.

I think you might be able to swap in a 3000 GT/ stealth turbo master cylinder and that should bring the pedal up a bit and make it require less effort to do the same braking.

the 3000 GT cylinder has the cylinder mounted directly to it, as opposed the the separated resivor like the DSM's use but im pretty sure you can adapt the dsm lines to the 3000 GT cylinder.  Not 100% on that tho.

[John Hartman]

Yan, good review and thanx for being honest.

I read a great great article in GRM a few months(years? ago).  Or was it in Turbo?  Or SCC?  either way, I remember that it was from a reputable source(and author).

They did a stage 1-2-3 on 2 different cars I think.  Stage 1 was good condition working stock brakes.  Stage 2 was stock brakes with better quality performance pads, fluid and brake lines.  Stage 3 was either Baer or Stoptech "big" brakes.

they were not ready for the findings they had either.  The stage 2 was the best overall brake setup.  It was easier to modulate, it had shorter stopping distances, it had great front to rear balance and it was alot cheaper.  The stage 3 was a bit better after many many hard stops as the rotors had more heat capacity(more metal), and they look absolutely stunning of course    They found the pedal feel to be too hard really as it had no real "feel" to it.  The author was a good autox and road course guy so he knew what he was doing, not just some magazine writer.

[Lowell Foo]

Depends how the different brakes systems were tested.  If you like racing in parking lots, then stock brakes with upgraded pads may work best.  Quick to warm up, OEM brake bias and hydraulic ratios.   Having driven Stoptech 13 and 14" kits I will say they are definitely good value, but will need higher speeds to really appreciate them. 

http://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/comparisons/04q4/supercar_challenge-comparison_tests

The EVO in this competition had its factory Brembos upgraded to 14" Stoptechs. 

And here`s Matt at Mission Raceway: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6k_GrJrOyWc

Evo 9, stock turbo, bolt ons and RG Tune.  Stock Brembos with race pads, fluid and brake ducts.  The factory red coating on the calipers has turned almost black from extreme heat, and this car only makes around 260whp. 

[KevinBuckham]

Depends how the different brakes systems were tested.  If you like racing in parking lots, then stock brakes with upgraded pads may work best.  Quick to warm up, OEM brake bias and hydraulic ratios.   Having driven Stoptech 13 and 14" kits I will say they are definitely good value, but will need higher speeds to really appreciate them. 

Responding as someone who has raced in parking lots, stock brakes with upgraded pads are barely good enough.  They do get up to temperature quickly, and are able to haul the car down repeatedly, but the maintenance on them becomes a nightmare.  I would re-lube the slider and lock pins after every event, and replacing them quite frequently.  I also became sick of lighting the rubber dust boots on fire, but that usually took a bit higher speeds than a parking lot.  Even paying attention to the pins, they often would seize leading to badly tapered pads. 

At higher speeds, I'd take a Stoptech kit any day (and over my Cobra setup for the more rigid calipers and the lighter two piece rotors).  Tackling Mission with a factory DSM brake setup seems like a very bad idea.  (Mission is quite infamous for being excessively hard on brakes.)

I've read the same articles that showed an upgraded factory brake system worked best, but that was generally before the suppliers of brake upgrades started to pay attention to bias and hydraulic limitations.   Most of the newer reviews show either about the same stopping performance but with much better fade resistance.  (I'm referring to GRM, and a few online blog/sites, but I do admit they are mostly used for higher speed track use.)