Need Advice, experience & recommendations on Big Brake Kit

[Gullzter]

George have a chat with Calum (synexro). His brake kit seemed really good when i was in his beams. Ive never spoke to him about it though

[Shmed]

Just my 2p, but when I did my research regarding brakes, I found a few things that might be worth sharing. Some of this has been regurgitated from other people, but most has been checked out:

1. There are 2 types of brakes, adhesive and abrasive.
2. Carbotech pads fall into the adhesive category
2a. This means that the pads deposit a 'sticky' material onto the disc during bedding in which then forms the adhesive surface for the pads to bind to
2b. My opinion here, but I can't imagine how grooved or drilled discs would help when using carbotechs
2c. Carbotech pads require new discs, or at least discs which have never been used with an abrasive pad
3. Brakes are most effective just before they lock up
4. Brake bias is only important on a road car to ensure that the front brakes lock up before the rears. How close the gap between front & rear lock up is up to driver preference, but for safety on the road, this should be a decent gap. On the track, the gap should be as small as possible.
5. ABS changes things a bit....

So, if your car is a road car, as long as the bias keeps the fronts locking up before the rears, then you'll be fine. You aren't likely to be pushing brakes hard enough to need maximum braking effectiveness on the road.

If your car is a track car (like mine), then I'd think less about buying brakes that maintain stock bias, and more about controlling the bias for your driving style. I'm considering a brake bias controller for mine, but for now, am happy with the Brembo up front, and the stock rev 2 at the rear. They brake well, and once I fit my wheel sensors to the data logger, I'll be able to monitor brake lock ups to see if front's or rears lock up first, and also what load the car is under when they do lock up.

Data is worth a million forum posts

My 2p .

[synXero]

I had Supra MK4 brakes on the front of mine and RX8 larger discs on the rear with spaced stock calipers. The braking was brilliant, in terms of feel. In terms of absolute stopping efficiency and optimised performance, not so much. The Supra units were heavy, large, and not designed for an MR2. On the other hand they looked great, felt great, and far out-performed even excellent tyres. The fronts locked up way before the rears but this was fine, and actually quite enjoyable for road use.

Braking feel was improved immeasurably, to the point where after under a year of usage I strongly dislike the stock brake feel in the MR2s (the Supra units were swapped off my car pre-sale, so I had a day-to-day comparison).

Would I do Supra units again? Looks wise, feel wise, yes. For a road car, great. As a cost-effective solution, no. As the best solution available, no. For a track car, probably not.

[Keri-WMS]

I'm waiting to hear back from Keri about their kit but on initial looking it's a bit on the small side compared to what I've been looking at. I know this doesn't necessarily mean it wouldn't do the job to the standard I'm after though. So I'm looking forward to Hearing back

I'm just in the process of recoving from losing all my email (inbox) from May '13 >, I'll drop you a PM ASAP, sorry about that! On that subject, if anyone has emailed me since then, could they please re-send it?

In terms of kit sizes, the current WMS SW20 front ones are 298.5/296mm - I've got a 280mm one I'm going to prototype very soon with the intention that it'll fit under the OEM 15" alloys, and I'm also able to do larger kits in the 320-330mm range with a much larger caliper...

[raptor95GTS]

I changed my brakes, they feel great but as said by a few who have actually done some BBK's, I think I should be upsizing the master cylinder to reduce pedal travel (and it's likely got some wear issues in there like most 19yo cars). However, in no way does it actually erm slow down my application of said brakes.

Do stock brakes work ok? Yeah they work ok when they actually work
Does refreshing the stock brakes and fitting carbotecs make it a stopping machine? Yes it does, apparently. But don't forget to wash your wheels after every drive to stop that dust eating your alloys.
Does the cost of the stock refresh plus carbotec pads cost the same as a BBK? A lot closer than some folks make out, esp with the carbotecs at 300quid for the full set and that's every single time you change pads.
Is the ultimate braking performance driven by the available grip from the tyres? Yes, crap tyres aren't going to help stopping distances, bbk means you can do that same stop time after time after time before the brakes overheat. Bigger discs, bigger heatsink.
Does my car try to swap ends every single time I apply the brakes? Nope, not once. Similar sized discs front and rear so keeping with stock balance.
Do BBK's limit wheel choice? Yes they do, with bigger discs and much bigger calipers wheel choice becomes a problem.

has anyone actually read this far of my post to care in any way? I certainly stopped caring about this type of discussion because too many experts on here say I should be dead because I dared to tinker with Toyota's design from the late 80's and how on earth could I possibly improve on the perfection of their design.