Essex/AP Racing Owners: Long-term reviews, race reports, and suggested improvements?
 

Hello Gents,

It's hard to believe, but it's been nearly seven yearssince we launched our Essex Designed AP Racing Competition Brake Kits! While Essex had a multi-decade history in professional motorsports, the Toyobaru chassis was one of the first production cars for which we ever developed complete AP Racing brake solutions. First, we want to thank the thousands of owners who have allowed us to help them track-proof their brakes. We've had fun getting to know many of you, seeing you at the track, and watching you collect trophies with our products. We are extremely appreciative of your continued support!:cheers:

Essex continues to grow and expand, and we're continually looking for ways to improve our products and services. In that vein, we wanted to check in with all of our owners here and see how our Essex Designed AP Racing brake systems are holding up for you. In this thread we'd love to see any long-term feedback you may have about our system, along with pics and video of course!

• What has the overall ownership experience been like with our brake kit?
• What type of pad and disc wear rates are you seeing vs. stock or other brake products you tried?
• What has our kit helped you accomplish (race/time trial wins, etc...essentially a race report)?
• What suggested improvements do you have?

The answers to these questions will help us tremendously with new products we're developing for various chassis, and allow us to provide better service to you and your enthusiast peers.

Finally, if you want to see what we've been doing with other chassis, please visit our essex blog, where you'll see tons of owner reviews and feedback from a wide range of today's hottest sportscars from Porsche, BMW, Chevy, Ford, etc.


Thanks again!


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https://i.postimg.cc/jqW6N5DF/Braking-edited.jpg

Overall I'm happy with the Sprint kit. It does exactly what I had hoped, maybe more. If I had one nit to pick, it is that the rotors crack/heat cycle out in less time than I expected. I replace the rotors every two years, which is about 40 track days and 25,000 street miles. A friend and I are working on a ducting kit to eliminate this problem.

What has the overall ownership experience been like with our brake kit? Very good.
What type of pad and disc wear rates are you seeing vs. stock or other brake products you tried? Pad and disc longevity are greatly improved relative to OEM. I cannot quantify it, though, as I have not kept good records.
What has our kit helped you accomplish (race/time trial wins, etc...essentially a race report)? I won the TTD regional championship the last two seasons, and 86CUP this year. But honestly, those may have all happened on stock calipers and rotors with race pads. Maybe.
What suggested improvements do you have? Honestly, not much. I think the kit is great other than the heat cycling. But I expect that is a trade off with weight, and the complexity and expense of a duct kit. I think the Endurance kit would likely not have this problem. But I wanted light weight, and I got it.

Hey, man - I’m not an AP Racing kit owner, but I sure wanted to be. I had my heart set on a Radi-CAL kit, but you never developed the conversion - is there any chance that you may do that in the future?

I've had my sprint kit for 4 years with no issues. However, just like Pat, I'm going through front rotors faster than expected. I get about 15-20 track days before the cracking reaches the outer edge of the rotors

At this time we have no plans to do so. Our Sprint and Endurance packages have proven to be a fantastic solution for many, many 86 customers, and we weren't able to find the right combo of parts to dial the Radi-CAL in on this platform. Sorry!

Thank you very much for the feedback! Four problem-free years of track work is awesome. Have you ever rebuilt the calipers? What tracks and what tires do you run? Any power-adders, or stock motor?



The discs in our Endurance Kit have considerably more thermal mass. If you want more thermal mass and disc longevity, sell the Sprint Kit and upgrade to the Endurance Kit. The tradeoff is unsprung weight. It's all about priorities. If you want the lightest option available, the Sprint Kit is the ticket. If you want the most durable, Endurance is the answer. That is why we offer both options.:cheers:

Awesome feedback Pat! Thank you very much, and congrats on your success with our kit.


In terms of getting 2 years, 40 track days, and 25,000 street miles, I think most people who track their car would kill to get that much wear! :confused0068: I would love to know what type of wear you would have gotten out of the OEM bits with that much use and abuse. I'm pretty sure it would have been far, far less.


Per my comments above, if you really want the "install them and don't touch them forever" setup, the Endurance Kit is the ticket. Again though, it's all about tradeoffs. One can't have the absolute lightest setup and expect it to last as long as a heavy-duty setup. That's like installing race tires and expecting them to also do well in the snow, or installing racing coilovers and expecting them to offer a cushy ride while off-roading. ;) Thanks again for the feedback!

I don't remember exactly how many days I used to get out of the OEM setup, but I can tell you I had to rebuild calipers annually.

I have been happy with rotor wear thus far.
I have been on DS2500 pads until recently, and those when much quicker than I would have assumed. I never ran DS2500 on stock calipers, so hard to compare pad wear. But HP+ on stock calipers lasted longer than DS2500 in the Sprint Kit. I put HP+ in while i debate what pads to use next as i got them for basically free from a local. Wasn't happy with the DS2500 performance as a whole when i got into my second set.

I have dropped some time at my local track and noticed the car is not as likely to get into ABS as I was on stock calipers in the high speed braking zone(125mph-60mph). Only personal best was 1.49:01 now at a 1.47.4 with room for at least another second or two easily when looking at data.

Only issue has been my caliper broken crossover tube and then the issues with replacement lines not working. But pull that off next week and sending it in to you guys to get that sorted out next week. Will call Matt when I get it off next week, last event of the season is this weekend.

I would have thought that ducting would exacerbrate the problem.

How would functional brake ducting designed to keep the rotors cooler exacerbate the cracking problem?

By increasing the rate of change of temperature. That is, they cool down faster.

Paging @CSG Mike

I had a sprint kit.
I got tapered wear on pads before I used pedal dance. I didn't experience that on stock setup.
After that I always did pedal dance and didn't have an issue.