Introducing: AP Racing Six Piston, 14 inch Formula Road Brake Kit

[JRitt]

Hi Guys,
We've been patiently waiting for these for quite a while, and they're finally here! These systems are fully designed and manufactured by AP Racing in England, and imported into the USA by Essex Parts Services. Essex also offers Competition Brake Systems that feature AP Racing components, which you may have read about previously in this thread. You can read more about the specific differences between the AP Formula Road Kits and the Essex Competition Systems, and find out which may be a better fit for you in this post.

On to the good stuff...

Essex is pleased to introduced the AP Racing Formula Road Brake Kit for the FT86 platform! The fronts feature a newly designed six piston caliper, and they use a huge 350mm (14 inch) x 32mm AP Racing J Hook disc.

A matching rear system is in process, and you'll be able to add them at a later date if you'd like without any issues. The rears will feature a four piston caliper, and a one-piece disc to keep the overall system cost down.

These kits are designed for those who are primarily interested in street driving, but also want to take their car to track occasionally. These kits will offer a huge step forward in terms of performance, the road manners of the OEM brakes, all while looking amazing behind 18" or larger wheels.

Please visit the Essex blog for all of the details, additional pics, and pricing on this system. Please let me know what questions you have and I'll be happy to answer.:happy0180:

[OrbitalEllipses]

The poseur in me wants these so bad.

[Supermassive]

Don't gotta be a "poseur" to want these. I'm now torn between Wilwood's 6 piston and these...of course I will need bigger brakes to go with my FI setup, I don't foresee the stock brakes being able to contend with a 400HP car...I'm just curious how badly a front brake kit like this would affect brake bias...the stock rear brakes are terribly weak so I am assuming this car already biases to the front by a large margin....

[Dave-ROR]

AP calipers > Wilwood IMO.

Run agressive rear pads, or get the rear kit as well later when it's released

[CSG David]

Originally Posted by Dave-ROR

AP calipers > Wilwood IMO.

Run agressive rear pads, or get the rear kit as well later when it's released

Oh yes...AP Racing BBK front and rear. Jeff and Essex develop some amazing brake packages. Loving the competition kit so far.

I think if people are looking at FI and street driving, this Formula kit with some performance grade brake pads should work well together.

[Ro_Ja]

No chance of a 4 piston kit for people that want to stick with 17s, huh?

[ATL BRZ]

wowww



$3500 MSRP just for the fronts... looks worth every penny.

[maj75]

Brake porn

[jamal]

Does anyone else think it's funny that the street kit is a 14" 6-pot and the race kit is a much smaller 4-pot?

[Vracer111]

Originally Posted by jamal

Does anyone else think it's funny that the street kit is a 14" 6-pot and the race kit is a much smaller 4-pot?

Not really, more pistons and bigger housing means more weight - this kit is about 1lb a side heavier than the factory brake setup whereas the sprint setup drops 10lb a side while still massively upgrading the braking capacity...plus it's $1400 less expensive. The only real reason to get this kit over the Sprint and Endurance kits is if you were building a HP monster that needed more heatsink capacity to stop from higher speeds. Your typical trackday or DD FR-S/BRZ would be better off with the much lower mass and still very thermally effective Endurance or Sprint setups.

[fatoni]

not to knock the product but i dont really see the need for something like this. if you plan to make a car go fast enough to need that, you picked the wrong car. monster brakes though.

[Dave-ROR]

Originally Posted by Vracer111

Not really, more pistons and bigger housing means more weight - this kit is about 1lb a side heavier than the factory brake setup whereas the sprint setup drops 10lb a side while still massively upgrading the braking capacity...plus it's $1400 less expensive. The only real reason to get this kit over the Sprint and Endurance kits is if you were building a HP monster that needed more heatsink capacity to stop from higher speeds. Your typical trackday or DD FR-S/BRZ would be better off with the much lower mass and still very thermally effective Endurance or Sprint setups.

Well said.

[Spartan65]

Originally Posted by Dave-ROR

AP calipers > Wilwood IMO.

Run agressive rear pads, or get the rear kit as well later when it's released

Wilwood fit OEM wheels AP <> OEM

[JRitt]

Originally Posted by Supermassive

Don't gotta be a "poseur" to want these. I'm now torn between Wilwood's 6 piston and these...of course I will need bigger brakes to go with my FI setup, I don't foresee the stock brakes being able to contend with a 400HP car...I'm just curious how badly a front brake kit like this would affect brake bias...the stock rear brakes are terribly weak so I am assuming this car already biases to the front by a large margin....

Definitely nothing poseur about these. They are extremely capable, and I'd have absolutely no qualms about putting these on any forced induction FT86. I'd actually have no worries about dropping in some race pads and putting them on a Vette, Viper, M3, (or insert your favorite silly fast sports car). They are more track-oriented than any of the other competing systems that I've seen, barring our own Competition Systems.
This front kit does not negatively impact brake bias. When you design a brake kit for a road car, you roughly try to mimic the brake torque output on the end of the car you are addressing. So if you're doing the front, your total torque output should be similar to stock. You do this by playing with A) pad compound B) Disc diameter and C) total piston area. We will leave pad compound constant. If you increase disc diameter, all you have to do is lower the piston area to achieve proper torque output. The same thing goes for the rear setup. That's why you can put this front system on, and add the rear later if you want.

Both the Formula and Competition Systems achieve many of the same results, they just go about doing so in different ways.

not to knock the product but i dont really see the need for something like this. if you plan to make a car go fast enough to need that, you picked the wrong car. monster brakes though.

People have vastly different goals/wants for their cars. Some people want to go fast on a road course, others want to drift, some want something that looks really cool, and others just want something exclusive that their friends don't have on their cars. It just depends on the person. The common theme is that all of these types of people enjoy and are excited about their cars, and that's what everyone on these forums has in common.:happy0180:

No chance of a 4 piston kit for people that want to stick with 17s, huh?

I'll see what the situation is on that originally proposed system. Thanks.