Z28 swap for Racing Brake Forged Calipers with Sintered Brake Pads and Carbon Ceramic
 

So I have officially made the switch from the OEM Brembo Calipers and Brembo pads to the Racing Brake Forged two piece calipers for the Carbon Ceramic Rotors. In addition we are using and testing their sintered metallic brake pad. The claim is that with the sintered metallic pad that it will actually cure the fractures that occur on the Carbon Ceramic Rotors and increase overall life of the rotor. I started with just the sintered metallic pads and ran two track days and noticed a significant difference in the overall appearance of the Carbon Ceramic Rotors. Additionally the braking power or brake Bite was significantly different from the OEM pad. We started with keeping the Brembo Calipers and running the Racing Brake Sintered metallic pads. I felt close to a 50% stronger braking capability.

The CC Rotors are ogiginal from the factory and have a full season of 35+ hours of track use and so this will be the perfect test for the sintered pad to determine the claim of using the pad to cure the CC Rotor and actually adding life and usability of the rotor. Included are before and after pictures and you can see that the racing brake sintered pads actually did in fact cure the fractures in the CC Rotor and effectively resurfaced the rotor. I also have gone through and cleared all the vents of debris and powder so coming into our next event we should see even better performance.

I will be posting images of the Calipers and also performance difference from our event in April at Buttonwillow.

Racing Brake 2 piece Forged Calipers
 

Ok so we have replaced the OEM Brembo Calipers with Racingbrake.com 2 piece Forged Calipers. Included are images. I will have more to report on overall braking power and difference in April once we run them in Buttonwillow with the NASA race. For now we just have the esthetics of the brilliant red which looks fantastic compared with the grey Z28. The performance is obviously the main interest.

The Racing Brake Calipers is made from forged 6061-T6 aluminum. As many of you know the Stock calipers - aluminum (Brembo) are mass-produced and are usually made through a casting or extrusion process which is not as dense and strong in structure as forging. The Piston Materia is Made of stainless steel instead of aluminum. The dust seal is built-in type (instead of external boot type) uniquely designed to shield the dust and foreign material from contamination and will not rip - as commonly seen on boot type dust seals. So for now enjoy the pics and soon I will post up actual performance.

I have run Buttonwillow many times for many years so I am excited to see the difference in braking capabilities as well as being able to get a longer life out of my Carbon Ceramics. Look for updates coming soon.

What inspired the desire to swap calipers? didn't think the OEM calipers left much on the table in terms of performance.

The Racing Brake Calipers are two piece forged so they are lighter, also offer better performance with stainless steel pistons as well as maintaince abilities. I will be posting up performance gains as we test on track.

Also, they are red....and red is cool :thumbsup:

I think the calipers are L/R backwards. Bleeder needs to be on the top.

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Your right and good eye for seeing that. That was just for the pic. I have not got pics of them installed on car yet. I'll update today. Thanks

Pics added.

Very cool update, I'm enjoying following your braking journey :thumbsup:

Their probably 90 gazillion dollars though.

The braking in factory form on the Z is quite good. Why not just change pads?

I believe he said the logic is that these new pads do not "splinter" the CC rotor and you are supposed to get more life out of the rotor with these pads. The pictures are showing a more smooth rotor after the new pad use, while the original OEM pad photos show a more splintered rotor.

That would imply the pads wont work on the current calipers. Otherwise JusticPete's question still stands.

As I understand it, these are the same brakes used on the Enzo so why change calipers?

We have our Z/28 clients on G-LOC pads. They are reasonably priced and easier on the rotors.