Should Subaru release a motorsport version of the BRZ?

[Dave-ROR]

Originally Posted by lfawishes

I dunno been quite a few articles including gushi himself say the car needed more brakes. Big brakes are pretty helpful for the track if you plan on doing more than a few laps. Also if you don't know a track or are novice it's even easier to overheat stock brakes.

He was also driving on Prius tires with stock fluid and stock pads.. just saying Plus if he's sponsored by GReddy and GReddy is going to make a BBK I'd make him say that too lol

I run longer session times than most here in a car with 10.2" single piston front brakes (and even smaller rear brakes) so I'm hard to convince on a "need" for very large brakes.

[Dave-ROR]

Originally Posted by Homemade WRX

As stated above, those needing larger rotors for heat management, yes, the LGT would be the next step (and it needs the caliper bracket too IIRC) but I would get the BDA 5000 rotor for weight. I'd also do the same (or the Giro Disc or Performance Friction rotors) if going to the 'STi Brembos'....weight, save it where you can, without sacrifice.

Yeah meant to point out that you need the full caliper with brackets. Edited my post to include that.

[chulooz]

I think enthusiasts would be fairly content with these as an OEM upgrade:

(STi/WRX)

[2fast4you]

Originally Posted by lfawishes

I dunno been quite a few articles including gushi himself say the car needed more brakes.

Ken Gushi needs more brakes for his application which is for show, not for speed.

[Scubynubie]

Originally Posted by Dave-ROR

He was also driving on Prius tires with stock fluid and stock pads.. just saying Plus if he's sponsored by GReddy and GReddy is going to make a BBK I'd make him say that too lol

I run longer session times than most here in a car with 10.2" single piston front brakes (and even smaller rear brakes) so I'm hard to convince on a "need" for very large brakes.

In completely stock trim, ie. stock tires, pads, and fluid, I'm not surprised that there would be some necessary improvement for track use.

However, because of the weight of the car, pads and fluid would be enough to allow the car to last 20 - 30 minutes on the track I'd guess at stock power levels.

It is when you add sticky tires, and more power that you will most likely need to up-grade beyond that.

[WingsofWar]

Originally Posted by 2fast4you

Ken Gushi needs more brakes for his application which is for show, not for speed.

well i wouldn't say that for sure..

1. We dont know how much power his 2012 FD drift car is putting down. A good rule of thumb is, more power = more brakes.

2. Seeing as how tires provide a portion of the braking, and the car he test drove was most likely running on the eco tires, it could result in the idea that the cars braking capabilities are not enough for motorsports.

3. For FD competition or any other pro drift competition, the driving style of the driver, ken Gushi, could affect the cars performance and affect the competition results. He could use the stock brakes to its limit.


I remember tracking my 300zx once and Stock blanks and good pads good tires were providing enough braking performance to get me around the track fast and safely. But when i tried my first drift event and autoX that same car and same brake setup i found myself experience brake fade, and going through several pads.

So most likely for this particular motorsport Ken Gushi would require big brakes with longer endurance if hes in it to win the 2012 season.

[2fast4you]

Originally Posted by WingsofWar

So most likely for this particular motorsport Ken Gushi would require big brakes with longer endurance if hes in it to win the 2012 season.

To clarify my comments: he does need bigger brakes for drifting... which is more about showmanship rather than lap times. For circuit racing, I don't believe the FR-S/BRZ will require much beyond what it already has.

[Dimman]

Drifting seems to have cooling issues though, (airflow doesn't get to components when cars are sideways?) so that may mean they need a bit more capability in their brakes, if even for their short runs.

[Dave-ROR]

Originally Posted by Scubynubie

In completely stock trim, ie. stock tires, pads, and fluid, I'm not surprised that there would be some necessary improvement for track use.

However, because of the weight of the car, pads and fluid would be enough to allow the car to last 20 - 30 minutes on the track I'd guess at stock power levels.

It is when you add sticky tires, and more power that you will most likely need to up-grade beyond that.

Well any real track use should use better pads and fluid to deal with the heat. You need larger rotors once you overheat the rotors to the point where it can't take enough heat from the rest of the brake system, either from poor driving habits, a fast enough car to not allow enough cooldown from the higher braking speeds, or a tough on brakes course (like Sebring's club course). Even with r comps I doubt we'll be lacking enough braking force to lock the tires with the stock calipers and good pads/fluid.

I drive for 2 hour sessions with 10.2" front brakes in race conditions with stock rubber lines and just good pads and fluid. I had those same brakes in my other faster integra before I returned it to stock and ran hour plus sessions on r comps without any brake issues. My experience with smaller lighter cars with 200+hp and smaller than BRZ brakes is why I doubt there will be any actual need to upgrade until you start pushing much more serious power levels.

I wouldn't be surprised if the sticky tires actually help though. You can brake much deeper, and for less time (time on the brakes = HEAT), than with tires that you can't use as much brake with.

[Dave-ROR]

Originally Posted by lfawishes

Not really. In Circuit racing they are totally needed. It's not about showmanship or stopping quicker, it's about laps and laps of stopping from higher speed over and over equaling crazy heat build up, repetitive heavy use of the brakes from high speed. Hence why the Gazoo fr-s has the heinous monoblock calipers which are more hardcore than sti brembos.


Drifting needs specialized spring ratio and lots of horsepower etc. but of course when you are doing any track speeds for long periods you need good brakes. Drifters aren't coming to a real slow to often, unless something goes wrong.

Actually we don't know anything about the Gazoo brakes beyond pictures (unless I missed something). If they are using 11.6" rotors like the production car then clearly heat was not an issue for them, however I have no idea what size brakes they were and I'm not sure anyone else does either (besides subaru/toyota/gazoo/etc).

Generally if the brakes make it through the first 15-20 minutes of lap time they'll continue to make it through the next hour or two or 8 until they are on the backing plates just as well. My brake temps tend to be about the same after a 15 minute session as they are after an hour session and the race car with less weight shows less temp after two hours. We are pushing more power after the rebuild now though so we'll measure brake temps in march during a 24 hour race at PBIR. I'll be happy to provide the info here.

[Dave-ROR]

Originally Posted by Dimman

Drifting seems to have cooling issues though, (airflow doesn't get to components when cars are sideways?) so that may mean they need a bit more capability in their brakes, if even for their short runs.

I have zero experience with drifting but I'd suspect the reason is more related to them wanting more brake leverage/force/bias up front to lighten up the rear (under braking) for easier drifting, but that's a complete guess. I really can't see them building up any heat at least in the limited number of drifting events I've seen.

[2fast4you]

Originally Posted by lfawishes

Not really. In Circuit racing they are totally needed. It's not about showmanship or stopping quicker, it's about laps and laps of stopping from higher speed over and over equaling crazy heat build up, repetitive heavy use of the brakes from high speed. Hence why the Gazoo fr-s has the heinous monoblock calipers which are more hardcore than sti brembos.

I've had my suspicions about those brakes: they look like caliper covers as they don't match anything from Brembo or AP for racing... perhaps camouflage? Iron 1-piece plain rotors, rubber brake lines, non-plumbed brake ducts... seems like an odd configuration with those heavy-looking calipers.

[Dave-ROR]

Originally Posted by lfawishes

I believe you, you must be a good driver to be so consistent. Yeah just don't see the brakes lasting past 5 laps on any road track where you are reaching top gear, and going as low as second gear. Theres nothing worse than heavy brake fade, especially if you are a novice, and if you never ever fade the brakes you ain't doing something right! nobodies that good. Also when the brakes do fade like that you aren't measuring their heat during the most extreme usage. Of course something like auto-x bbk is totally unneeded.

Novices do tend to generate brake fade due to style (dragging brakes is extremely common with newer track drivers). If you are doing it right, and have a proper brake setup, you should NEVER experience fade. Fade is bad in all forms. Sure, I've experienced it, and then I fixed whatever was causing it, whether it was driving style, adding cooling, changing pads, not being lazy anymore about fluid changes, etc.

For Rotors you can use rotor temp paint in varying temps to measure which temp you have passed, and which you haven't. It's not accurate since it's a 150-200 degrees or so between paint colors, but at least you'll know that you (for example) have exceeded 1000F but not 1250F, so you can pick brake pads in the 1200F range.

For Calipers you can use the stickers, which remember the max temp, that will also help determine if you are going past the point where the brake fluid will vaporize (and/or how close you are to that point) so you know if you need to add cooling.

Both of those measure it at it's worse. If you measure it quickly on pit lane it will be cooled down, but not all that much so you'll still have an idea (example, if you see 1100F rotor temps by the time you stop on pit lane obviously you wouldn't want to be using pads with a max operating temp of 1000F).

Brakes on the gazoo are clearly heavy duty as the speeds of the ring surely require it. We know TRDs doing BBK for jdm at least, I'm hoping subaru offers the same.

Actually we don't know anything about the gazoo brakes. They have 4 pots (maybe, they may just be fake covers but I suspect that they are 4 pots after looking at pics) but they may be normal 11.6" rotors. If that's the case they likely used those calipers because they had them and wanted the better modulation and pad wear (mostly what a 4 pot type fixed caliper setup gives you, yes a little more fluid capacity also so a little longer before fluid vaporizes but not much). They could also be 12.8" rotors. No one has measured them and I'm not sure there's any pics good enough to estimate the rotor size... I'll have to look and see if I can find any that might give us an idea

They might, but as stated in here, there are some options for the fronts at least (and the rears likely have large enough rotors but may need more agressive pads if you upgrade the front) for very cheap.

I understand your point about the upgradeability of pads/lines/fluid, however you are looking at 500 bucks right there.

Lines won't be needed (coated SS ones are fine though, I have nothing against them). Fluid and pads should be done regardless of what brake setup you have on the car so I don't see how the cost will be any different and may be cheaper with the stock calipers/rotors than a track pad for a BBK depending on which pad the BBK uses.

[Dave-ROR]

I'll upload and post some interesting pictures of well abused pads I've had recently tomorrow