WhyEven in Stage 1 form a GTI is plenty fast enough to make the standard brakes feel slow witted, spongy and less than confidence inspiring when ‘pressing on’ or as the IAM guys say ‘making progress’.
I’m convinced that just changing the pads, adding some 5.1 fluid and switching to braided hoses would make a positive difference to the feel of the standard brakes, which would return a bit of driver confidence. The standard disks and floating caliper piston sizes of the GTI are fairly large in comparison to other cars. But hugely heavy.
Another well documented and used route is to install the brakes from the R32, which has larger disks and pistons. These have the advantage of being able to use the same wheels, no spacers and in addition to using a better pad, fluid and hoses, would have made a fine upgrade. I thought about this route but I had issues with sourcing.
All cars here in Holland are subject to a fairly heavy purchase tax of between 20% and 45% and then VAT of 19% added, so a R32 here used to start €45K before you even added any options – therefore they are rare and parts not so easy to find. I don’t have access to EKTA and couldn’t name the parts needed to get a VW dealer to source the parts.. and then there was the painting etc.. quite a lot of hassle and again the kit is very heavy. Not a great place to have heavy components.
I’ve previously had very good experience with Stoptech brakes having had an almost identical kit fitted to one of my previous cars which I ran on the track and on the road and went through one set of disks and two sets of pads – the car stopped like i’d ran into a wall, every time – even at Zolder, which is very hard on brakes.
I also looked at the Brembo Granturismo kits, but didn’t like the design of them. I researched the Volkswagen Racing kit and the ECS Porsche monoblock kit as well. I probably would have bought the Volkswagen Racing kit if it were not for the fact that the performance house that does the modifications on my cars likes to source the equipment that will be used themselves if they are going to fit it and I didn’t realise that Volkswagen Racing were happy to do customer cars, or I’d have taken my car over to the UK to have it done.
So in the end I chose the Stoptech kit. Ease of sourcing, availability of pads, they are light, ease of servicing, the design of the kit (it’s very stiff) and the fact that they are tuned to maintain some semblance of braking balance on a FWD car.
The kit (part number : 83.893.4300.71) comprised of:
- 2 x Stoptech ST-40 Fully forged aluminium calipers - in RED (DOT and TÃœV approved) (only 3.6KG each)
- 2 x Stoptech stainless steel brake lines (DOT and TÃœV approved)
- 2 x Stoptech Billet aluminium hats (DOT and TÃœV approved)
- 2 x Stoptech billet aluminium brackets – T(DOT and TÜV approved)
- 2 x Stoptech AeroRotor Disks in 228 x28 size – non-zinc coated, slotted (DOT and TÜV approved.
The caliper uses a standard FMSI D372 Porsche pad – So, I could have chosen from Pagid, Ferrodo, Hawk etc.. but because this is a road car, I chose the Axxis ULT Carbon/Kevlar pad – it’s got great initial bite and is pretty disk friendly.
At the same time as fitting the brake kit, I had the following done on the rear to try to keep some balance (after all ESP uses the brakes on all four wheels to modulate cornering and if one axle is much stronger and reacts very differently to the other it could feel weird. Plus under strong straight line braking, I don’t like the sensation of the rear wandering about (Mini Cooper S owners know this feeling
) ) :
- Better pads on the rear (I used the stage 1 Stoptech pads - which are Posi Quiet Metallic pads - Stoptech part number : 104.11080)
- Rear Stoptech stainless steel brake lines (Stoptech kit number - 950.33515)
- Motul 5.1 brake fluid
SourcingI used my usual performance outfit, DBM Engineering in Maarssen near Utrecht. I know the guys very well there, they do some amazing fabrication projects for people. (They engineer and run several cars (Nissan R32/R33/R34 GTR Skylines) in the D1 Drift championships and are currently building a Nissan RB26 engined rear wheel drive BMW E36 Coupe GTR for the Dutch Supercar championship).
They are a Stoptech distributor in The Netherlands, so getting them serviced in the future (i.e. new disks) is a doddle. The pads are just normal Porsche type pads, so can be sourced anywhere.
FittingDBM fitted the kit. Fairly straightforward.
The calipers I chose don’t have pad wear, so the pad wear sensor had to be looped, but that was the only modification. They do sell a kit that allows that feature to be enabled on the ST-40 caliper.
The kit is a straight bolt on. The dust/moisture shields at the back do not have to be removed, just bent slightly back.
Now, the obvious thing... the caliper is pretty large (of course this is the point, because pad area and contact patch on the disk and then the disk’s ability to deal with the heat is what makes good feeling reliable brakes) and its width means that it doesn’t fit behind the standard wheels of our cars.
Having done some research and measurement, you need a wheel that has the following dimensions to clear it (just), 18x8 5x112 ET44 – such as the dimensions of the BBS CK wheel.
Or you can add spacers.
On an ET50 or ET51 18x8 wheel, you need 5mm at the minimum.
Diameter of the wheel is less critical, this kit would fit behind a 17†wheel, but the face of the inside of the wheel and its offset from the hub are crucial measurements.
Other versionsThey do a 6 piston version and you could go to a larger 4 piston caliper (ST45) and larger disk if you wanted.
You can order different colours of caliper – they are available in Red, Black, Silver, Blue, Gold and Yellow. And you can have your disks as slotted, drilled or plain and with or without a zinc coating.
They also do rear kits that replace the factory caliper, disk etc.
One interesting option they do is a titanium backing plate that sits between the pad and the caliper that reduces heat transfer from the pads to the pistons for track use – DBM used a set on one of their customer’s cars with excellent effect on the Time Attack event last year at Assen NL.
Plus Points- They just work as you would expect.
- Excellent brake pedal response. No issues when cold.
- The upgrade really provides confidence to drive the car more aggressively/confidently. Now that I’m running on stage 2 spec, the brakes really make the car feel balanced, nicely rounded and competent – instead of one aspect of its performance overshadowing another.
- They look excellent and match the colour of the rear calipers well.
- You can recoup some of your investment if you remove them and sell them on before selling the car – there is always a market for this stuff.
- They are light, strong, well engineered and bolt straight onto the car with no modification.
Minus Points- The pads can squeal a little, but it doesn’t bother me.
- You can’t use standard 18 VW wheels without modification.
- Price : They may be cheaper to source in the UK. Here they’re about 2200 Euros delivered (including the rear hoses and then two sets of Pads) and then there is the fitting charge.
SummaryAn excellent, safety enhancing, confidence inspiring upgrade.
