Brake Upgrade (Discs, Pads, Lines, Fluid)

Dreamer said:
Spending lots of money on discs is a complete waste of time.

Buy Apec discs, which are the best of the oem copys. these will cost you about £130 for all four. Then spend your money on good pads like Pagid Blues for about £250. A much much much better amount of braking that will be good from cold, wont groan and squeel and will take an absolute punishment on the track. Speaking from experience.

There is a seller on ebay called mtec100, send him a message and he will take the discs and put any grooves or drilled holes in any pattern that you ask for a small extra charge. I have used these at the track and they've been excellent. With brakes its primarily about the pads. :)
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Is PAGID RS4-2 the code for the blue pads your referring to?
 
I agree with dreamer, I swapped out some warped OEM ones for Mixtex 'performance' discs which looked identical and similar weight and no difference at all in braking apart from better pedal feel which I think was down to the older discs being worn. Holes in the discs mean they are more likely to crack surely buying the M bumper and piping the air to the discs would be better £££ spent? What I havent quite worked out is if you can lock up your brakes and bring on ABS at 70mph then what other improvment besides pedal feel and brake fade/overheat can be made from bigger discs / better calipers? When the car is new there is zero pedal travel to the brakes coming on. I have never been able to get that back no matter what I do which involved changing discs pads and fluid having said that I have never touched the rears except for bleeding perhaps thats where my little bit of pedal travel is going... would be nice to get that new brake feel again.
 
JasonX - thats right the RS4-2's, an absolutely terrific pad.

yg54sg, your absolutely right about bumper ducting, it would probably cool the discs a hell of a lot more than the drilled holes. Bigger discs and pads will make a difference, but unless you upgrade from the single piston calipers then again, its to marginal to really notice over the benefits of a good pad.
 
The main thing with the better quality pads (like the RS4-2's) is the ability of the pad to take and hold higher temperatures for longer before it starts getting a hot spot and causing brake fade. You'll get a little better bite sometimes and slightly better stopping power, but that's hardly noticeable. All the track people will tell you NOT to go with the drilled discs. They tend to get little cracks around the wholes from the stress. Cracks are never good. If your going with discs and want cooling, slotted would be fine, or like others have said, just a plain vented disc and a high quality pad will do the trick.
 
yg54sg said:
What I havent quite worked out is if you can lock up your brakes and bring on ABS at 70mph then what other improvment besides pedal feel and brake fade/overheat can be made from bigger discs / better calipers? When the car is new there is zero pedal travel to the brakes coming on. I have never been able to get that back no matter what I do which involved changing discs pads and fluid having said that I have never touched the rears except for bleeding perhaps thats where my little bit of pedal travel is going... would be nice to get that new brake feel again.
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Comments on a couple of your points related to brake size and pedal feel

Pedal feel will deteriorate over time as so many components each get a tiny bit of wear and thus slack in them from the bushes in the pedal box, piston in the servo, mastercylinder, slave culinders, etc. etc. Add a bit of sponge in the hoses a minute amount of air and all or any combination reduces the performance.

Bigger brakes - easy. While of course any size brake can likely lock up the wheels at 70 and is perfect for the average A to B driver the larger brake has some physics in it's favour. simply the larger diameter gives greater leverage so less effort for any given stopping force, more pad surface area, so better dissipation of heat, more disk so better dissipation too. Multi piston claipers more even spread of brake force. It's not without good reason that even these days smallish steep hills still advise low gear !!

All that aside the biggest reason most people buy is probably pub bragging rights, though the wheel look, etc :)
 
Came across this... http://www.b1a.co.uk/andy/PF.html

Sounds promising. Anyone heard of PF or had experiencing using their pads and/or discs?

Shame they don't do discs for my brakes.
 
Thanks guys for all your input. I'll probably go with stock disks and a good pad as most suggested as the car is mostly used on the road rather than the track.

So any good shops where I can get the Pagid's shipped to Greece?
Also, I heard very good words on the Ferodo DS2500 pads. A friend who drives a Nissan 350Z and mostly on the track (he goes there every weekend) said he recommended those cause they're good/silent on the road while take a lot of hard braking on the track.
He also told me about the breaking fluid called Motul RBF 600 which with the combination of high pressure lines will give a very good braking feeling even after many rounds/ hot brakes. I know changing fluid is a bit of a waste, but if I'm going to change the lines I will need to bleed the existing fluid anyway thus I was thinking of getting a "high performance" one. But is this Motul fluid (DOT 4) suitable for the Z4?

Any further input would be appreciated!

Last but not least, any shops listing the Apec (OEM copy) disks? I cant seem to find a shop which will send them to Greece.

Also forgot to ask: anyone got the Goodridge lines part numbers for the 3.0Si?
 
Guys, sorry for reviving this thread, but can anyone confirm that the Ferodo DS2500 with part#: FCP1300 (Front) and FCP1301 (Rear) will correctly fit the 3.0Si?

All sites I looked at give this code for all Z4 models (not the Z4M though), but on the other hand I know that the break disc is bigger on the 3.0Si than for example on the 3.0i. Also I found they have different sizes than other brands which even have different codes for the 3.0Si than the 3.0i.. for example:

For the Si...

Front:
EBC redstuff DP31552C -> 155 x 64 x 20 mm
Ferodo DS2500 FCP1300 -> 151,4 x 52,4 x 16,9 mm

Rear:
EBC redstuff DP31289C -> 123 x 45 x 17 mm
Ferodo DS2500 FCP1301 -> 123,2x 39,7x16,6 mm

Any info would be greatly appreciated...
 
Bump.. :oops:
I would love to go with the Ferodos, but the size just doesn't seem right... And this is from the official ferodo catalog...
 
Hi Web, how did you get along with the brake upgrade for the 3.0SI?

Took the Zed to its 1st track day, and brakes were a bit disappointing - fade after a couple of laps ( a friend in an alfa GT 3.2 was there too and his standard brakes were more effective, and lasted longer before fade appeared), and now the discs have some vibration when braking (even if I allowed for decent cool down periods, and did not use handbrake when still). Might have to change the discs, and if that's the case would be interested in knowing possible upgrades for the 3.0SI (yours was the only thread I could find).
 
Hi there. I finally decided yo go with stock discs (actually Zimmerman stock replacements) but got some EBC redstuff pads instead of stock. I haven't been to the track lately but I can say that the braking performance improved a bit mostly in the aspect of repeated breaking over a lengthier time.

If you don't go with the expensive break pad options such as Ferodos DS2500 or Pagids ALONG with changing the brake lines to high pressure ones such as Stoptech Stainless Steel all around I do not believe you will see any major performance upgrade. Concerning the discs I got to understand (from what I got on this thread) that there is minor to no performance improvement.

Just my 2 cents.

As I see that you have the 3.0i and not the 3.0si (which I have) I have read in other threads on this forum that an upgrade is getting the larger calipers and discs from the Si model. Not sure though, you would have to look into it a bit more.

Last but not least, just a tip: try using the google search on the top of the page instead of the forum search, it seems to produce better results.
 
The vibration will be caused by nothing more than pad material build-up on the disc, rather than the disc being warped. I used to get this a lot on my e34 M5, and I was amazed at the amount of owners who did one track day and then went out and bought a new set of discs because they were 'warped' :o

So before you splash out on new discs, give the current ones some time to wear off the deposits you've put on - unfortunately this can take a while, and in one instance took me 1,000 miles (2 weeks). You can speed up the process by braking evenly over a longer braking distance, rather than just pressing them at the last minute during normal driving.
 
Mmm-five, the vibration is not big (and is not felt at london driving speeds) , so I will not rush to change the disks, and will wait to see if the deposits are worn out.

Webpain, I have a 3.0SI coupe, so the cheap upgrade option does not apply. :|
 
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