Now on with the brakes.
First , Since most of you don't know the CUPRA , its important to mention that OEM it comes with the S3 fronts (345mm) and GTI rear's (286mm).
My goal from the beginning was to get the best braking possible with the right front rear balance.
I started reading every post known to man about brake setups on the Mk5 and other platforms , but the real eye opener for me was a 30 minutes phone conversation with the racing teams manager for Seat Sport.
He was also generous enough to put his main engineer on the line and discuss with me the various options available.
The fronts : So after the call with them , i decided to go for the brand that they are using which is AP racing.
here i had a real dilemma between weight and stopping power.
most of the guys i see here in the forums are spending $$$'s to save a LB in wheel weight but don't comprehend how heavy their brake setup is.
with AP racing i had two options.
one is to go with the 5200 series which comprises of 330mm discs with 4 pot calipers and is extremely light at around 14 LBS for the entire setup
the other is to go with the 7400 series which is a 6 pot setup with 362mm discs , but weighs much more at around 30 LBS.
in the end my decision was to go with the better stopping power , also because this is the exact setup used on the Seat Supercopa race cars.
so here it is :
Now for the rears The common upgrade for the mk5 chasis is to go to the S3's 310mm vented discs and calipers
however, in the discussion i had with Seat Sport they were strongly against it on a FWD.
they prefer a much more front bias setup which will help to load the wheels prior to corner entery.
as a matter of fact they are even "downgrading" the brakes on the race cars to the 253mm single piston setup from the lower powered Golfs.
therefore i have decided to stay with my 286mm setup and on a whim i changed the discs to Autotech ones.
i am not sure this will do me any good since they are as heavy as stock ones and the grooving/holes are done in CNC and not as part of the casting process.
but for now they will do.
some pics :
As for brake pads i am currently running Mintex Extreme all around , but will try to play later on also with the options from Pagid (i want to see if i can keep the car in the temp range needed for Pagid blue).
as for wheels, the Lenso D1R which i was running do not clear the front brakes and my main intended wheels are much too wide (were meant for the body kit i will install only later).
therefore i had to find quickly some set of wheels with decent offset and the only thing i could find were nice looking AMG Reps. they are 18X8.5 ET45.
they were painted in Lambo Reventon color and mounted. those are cheap chinese wheels and are temps until i can find something better.
As for tires, i started out with my Toyo R1R at 225x40x18 but will go after the initial tune to my R888 at 255x35x18 all around.
