Arguably the best brakes?

[Wagon Mafia]

this is from mr2oc, i am just sharing...

Long story short, after a LOT of research and tracktime, a bunch of us on the RX7Club have finally found what we (and many other forums) regard as THE BEST brake rotors available on the market today, made by RacingBrake.com - specifically the "True floating two-piece rotors with patent pending center-mount design. Direct bolt-on, light weight, and excellent for track applications. Replaceable rotor rings will save you money."

I'm going to share w/ you some info about the rotors below, but before I do that, the point of this post is to see if there is enough interest on this forum to have them make these two-piece rotors for MR2s (they currently do not). While I am not affiliated in any way with RacingBrake myself, I have done a bit of the legwork to see if they CAN offer us the rotors we need - assuming there's enough interest. I've spoken with both RacingBrake directly, and a friend and fellow vendor on the RX7Club who's a wholesaler for RacingBrake. So I'm pretty sure with enough interest, not can we get the best brake rotors available, but that we can also get them at a good price too 

Lastly, I'll kindly ask that before anyone says "oh so and so company makes good slotted rotors" or "so and so company makes good two piece rotors" for the MR2, please READ the subsequent info and posts FIRST to see what the advantages are of the RacingBrake rotors, and why I'm hoping we can generate enough interest in 'em so I can (and others) can run 'em on our 2's.
What is a two-piece rotor?

Advantages:

* Lighter rotor (12-16% weight reduction varied with the size and design) than original one-piece rotor – meaning lower spinning weight.
* Cooler disc - due to higher heat dissipation rate of aluminum hat than cast iron
* True full floating (not all out in the market see design description) allows the disc to expand and contract freely without stressing the hat therefore prevents the disc from warping or cracking.
* Replace only the rotor ring, the hat is reusable therefore although the initial cost is higher but the operating cost over the time could be lower than one-piece rotor.

Design:

Type of Air Ventilation Vane:

* Solid disc (non ventilated)– Mainly for light duty such as rear rotor or drag race.
* Straight vane (non directional) – For medium service duty (usually up to 12”).
* Curved vane (directional) – For heavy service duty (from about 12” up to 15”).
* Convergent vane (uni-directional)– Our patented design disc is lighter but stronger and more efficient in air circulation than conventional curved vane.

Type of Mount:

- Surface mount: (Traditional design)

* Air ventilation is not very efficient because it admits air only from one side (inboard).
* Stress load is unbalanced as load center is on the outboard friction surface.
* Heat load to hat is solely from outboard disc surface and is unbalanced.
* Heat transfer is directly from outer disc surface to rotor hat which heats up rotor hat more rapidly.

- Center Mount: (RacingBrake’s Patented design)

* Convergent vane pumps more air than conventional curved vane.
* More efficient air ventilation – Center mount provides air inlets from both inboard and outboard.
* Heat load on rotor hat is balanced from both sides of friction surfaces.
* Heat transfer from disc surface to rotor hat is greatly reduced due to longer distance to travel.
* Stress load is balanced due to the mounting surface is at the disc center.
* Disc is uni-directional, hat can mount to disc on either side without having to identify left or right yet its truly directional, avoid mix-up in installation, very innovative and friendly for installation and parts inventory.

Type of Assembly:

- Non-Floating type:

* Many suppliers offer this type of assembly without real “two-piece” functioning except weight saving, but it’s inexpensive to make because it doesn't require the same precision as floating type.
* Hardware used:
- Bolt and nut.
- Bolt thread through the disc.

- Floating type:

* Disc has oblong holes which provides the disc movement (expansion & contraction) during heat cycles.
* Hardware used:
- Bolt to sleeve nut with conical washer, lock-tite is used (washers usually flatten out and create rattling noise).
- Bolt to “self-locking” sleeve nut w/o having to use lock-tite providing positive fastening without the rattling noise (RacingBrake design).

Production:

Material:

* Rotor Ring: Casting with our own tooling from high alloyed iron with proprietary heat treatment is our best assurance for lasting performance in racing industries that you can expect.
* Rotor Hat: Forged 6061-T6 aluminum alloy with our own tooling for better strength and rigidity than billet (extruded) supplied by others.

Machining and Surface Coating:

* Disc is fully machined (including mounting tabs), dynamic balance to <5gm-cm.
* Disc – EDP (Electro-Deposition Paint) see detail description, disc friction surface receives final double cross grinding to assure high precision in parallelism and thickness variation, easy to break-in.
* Rotor hat coated with EDP to protect the aluminum surface from oxidation, unlike competition’s anodizing which is basically just changing the surface color with no protective coating.

[Wagon Mafia]

[Wagon Mafia]

RacingBrake rotors are produced solely to meet the needs of the performance enthusiast. From 3D CAD design & tooling to casting & machining, we control all production processes to insure quality, performance, and value. Unlike most competitors who drill and slot rotor blanks, RacingBrake engineers combine patent-pending designs, proprietary alloys, and precise machining specifications to achieve performance.

Convergent flow vane design (Learn More...)
US Patent Application #: 10/861213

Staggered vanes distribute heat more efficiently across disc surface while increasing airflow through rotor.

* Less fade
* Longer disc life
* Reduction in hot spots.






Center mount
US Patent Application #: 10/861213

Center-mount rotors provide air inlets to cooling vanes from BOTH inboard and outboard.

* Balances stress and heat load
* Reduces heat transfer to hat
* Cooler discs.
* Avoid the use of spacers.



 

Reinforced rib
US Patent Application #: 10/655040

* Extended vanes increase strength and enlarge heat sink.
* Resists rotor distortion
* Higher heat capacity.

 

Open slots
US Patent #: 7,097,007

Combines the benefits of drilling and slotting without large reduction in disc surface area.

* Provides exit path for brake dust and other debris
* Self cleaning slots.


 

[ginz111]

 

[Wagon Mafia]

If you have wandered over to the suspension section you may have seen my recent thread entitled “Twin master cylinder manual brake system project underway.”

I have owned my FD since 99 and after lots and lots of mods (including a twin Garrett T04 turbosystem) am finally getting around to re-visiting the brake system.

I say re-visit because I did put the M2 AP racing CP5200 4 piston calipers on w a 13 by 1.15 rotor. I also deep sixed my ABS. Result was the car stopped really well… on the front brakes. Every now and then I would yank my wheels to wash the insides and funny thing, there wasn’t a lot of (EBC) brake dust on the rear wheels.

My 22 seasons of serious GT3 racing made me really appreciate how fast you can go w great brakes. Really appreciate.

So I thought this Wisconsin winter I would straighten out the brakes. I plan to do some track sessions at Road America and run the Silver State Classic in Nevada next September.

I figured I had the front knocked, I would slip a set of 13 inch by 1.1 rotors on the rear w a nice 4 piston Wilwood FSL caliper. I would dump my big fat power brake system and replace it w a couple of Tilton master cylinders and a (bias) balance bar.

So I read up on things and started to line up the ducks.

I had shopped around and figured i’d go w Coleman building me a couple of aluminum hats and I would use a set of their rotors. Nascar stuff is good enough for me.

In the meantime I had stumbled across a very nice site that seemed to offer (they all “seem” to offer) the possibility of a custom piece. They ask you to post to a New Product Development part of their forum… so I did and sort of forgot about it.

Until they posted dimensional drawings and a CAD picture. And it looked like no other rotor I had ever seen before.

All that was two weeks ago. I have subsequently spent lots of telephone time w Warren Lin, President of RacingBrake. He is 60, an engineer w a distinguished career and decided he had some ideas about making great(er) brakes so instead of retiring w a comfortable life ahead he did what any red blooded person would do: he started a new company.

Result? 3 major pending patents and brakes that set the mark as to performance.

While I thought I was pretty dialed as to brake engineering I have learned a lot from Warren.

My understanding as to brake upgrade was that rotor mass was where it’s at.

Not necessarily.

Warren contends that it is as much about rotor material ( I thought they all looked/were the same) and rotor design as mass.

Racetrack results tend to be supportive.

In order to produce the rotors he wanted, Warren had to start w a clean sheet of paper. RacingBrake does it all from scratch and therefore controls all aspects of the design and manufacture. Even the fasteners are proprietary …

The sole purpose is performance, after all, the name of the company is RacingBrake.

Let’s get into rotor tech.

Rotor material may be one of the single-most important, yet least appreciated, performance determinants.

It all looks the same!

Many rotors produced for the “high performance” market are bought as blanks and then drilled, slotted and machined. Often, the material is not even up to OEM spec..

RacingBreak does not buy blanks.

RB knows material engineering pays performance dividends and has created it’s own array of proprietary scratch engineered alloyed rotor materials, each to suit a particular high performance/race use.

Proprietary material along w a special heat treating process to stress relieve and promote thermal stability is the building block upon which the following break-thru designs are based.

The other design aspects may appear more sexy but do not discount the advantage of a purpose built foundation.

Generally when we think brake upgrades we think of a two piece rotor. Since the hub is generally made from aluminum there often is a 12-16% weight reduction in the assembly despite there being more rotor ring frictional mass. Win, win.

The rotor ring is bolted to the aluminum hub. If you will look carefully at most two piece rotor assemblies you will see that the rotor attaching tabs are a cast surface that is in the same lateral plane as either the outer or inner frictional surface.

Everything in the Coleman catalog including their Nextel Cup rotors and my high dollar M2 rotors are designed in such a manner.

Warren felt that the mounting function should not key off of one of the two frictional surfaces as it would lead to uneven heat dissipation as well as unequal brake torque stress transfer. The surface with the mount tabs would run cooler than the other surface. Since all of the braking torque is transmitted thru the rotor ring mount to hub the Center Mount transmits this torque evenly between the outer and inner frictional surface thus eliminating the standard mount mismatch stress.


 

Another major benefit of the center mount is airflow. Think of the inner ring of your rotor as the air intake and the outer ring as the exhaust. Compare air intakes.

I did. Here’s what I found from an inspection of my M2 setup:

My aluminum rotor mounting hub/hat bolts to the outside frictional rotor surface. There are NO air intake holes, it is sealed! The inner rotor intake is effectively sealed w the inner brake dust shield! Yes, there is a small scoop but for most of the open area the shield functions to exclude cooling intake air.

Contrast this w the virtually unobstructed air intake provided by the Center Mount design…

Bigtime air intake versus mainly obstructed intake. T25 V GT42.

The Center Mount has a patent pending.

Warren talks rotors and AIRFLOW, sort of like we do w turbos.

So now that Warren has the air intake nailed he addressed getting it through the rotor to maximize cooling.

End result is: the Convergent Vane, patent pending.
 

[Bill-B]

I want those NOW

[Wagon Mafia]

Of course most of our rotors have cooling vanes. Beyond that I really didn’t give the subject much thought. I knew there were straight vanes and curved vanes.

I didn’t know, for example that on most curved vaned rotors the vane runs the wrong direction on one side of the car. That’s because in order to have them running correctly two molds must be made and more inventory must be stocked. It is both humorous and sad to learn that in many instances the vanes are only cast one way but the slots or holes are drilled to give the illusion that there are a right and a left!

Of course RB does it correctly by casting a true right and left thus achieving maximum airflow.

We have opened up the intake w the Center Mount design, now let’s talk airflow through the rotor:

Warren talks of rotors as they were a kitchen sink.

The heat enters the sink like water through the faucet. The sink is of a particular size, just like a specific rotor mass. Whether the sink overflows in the medium term relates greatly to the inflow thru the facet versus the drain flow.

Warren has spent lots of time on the drain. If you can effectively increase the drain-flow you can keep the sink from overflowing.

Starting w the most basic aspect of vanes:

The inner ring (air intake area) is smaller than the outer diameter (exhaust).

If you look in the Coleman catalog to see a diagram of their curved vanes you will note that the intake openings, because of the smaller inner rotor diameter, are smaller than the exhaust!

This is upside down as to the heat removal needs and is one of the prime reasons for disc warpage and cracking. Warren’s Convergent Vanes design solves the mini intake problem thus promoting increased flow, decreased overall rotor temperature and evening out disc temperatures across the radius.

Rotors run hotter towards the outside edge. In addition to lowering the overall rotor temperature Warren’s Convergent Vane design is engineered to solve this problem. His Convergent design employs 36 inner vanes and 54 outer vanes.
 
         

Finally there is the full floating aspect of Warrens design…

Cast Iron and Aluminum, perhaps two materials couldn’t be much different. Cast iron absorbs and holds heat. Aluminum conveys heat.

Now we are going to bolt them together? Enter the floating rotor in the hub concept.

As the rotor gets hot, maybe 1300 degrees, it is going to expand but not at the same rate as the aluminum hat.

My M2 setup is just bolted together with no provision for different expansion rates. Warren engineered a floating system employing elongated holes, proprietary 10.9 grade crimp locking hardware that unlike others employs no prone to rattle lockwashers rather DACRO crinp locking hardware that does not lose torque when heat cycled. The rotor can expand and contract without stressing or cracking.


So RacingBrake has the right stuff.

The capper to all this is that they have shown a great interest is SOLUTIONS relating to specific cars.

THINK FD...

For instance they have cast a caliper mounting bracket for the rear of the 350Z so as to relocate the rear OEM single piston emergency braked caliper to fit a larger disc. I don’t know of a company that has done that.

Warren is really big on simple solutions. Instead of 6 piston this and that as the immediate solution he has redesigned our stock sized rotors so they work as bigger rotors. There may be no need to relocate calipers to get what we want. If there is a need for a larger rotor he does the front and rear so they balance using the stock ABS master cylinder.

[Wagon Mafia]

How good are his brakes?

2 piece nsx rotors for oem calipers

I have just returned from an HSR race at Daytona and want to comment on this Racing Brake BBK setup as it seems my car was the test mule for this new kit. I logged over 4 hours and 300 miles of track time last weekend under RACE conditions and I can categorically say that this setup is fantastic! I installed this new kit myself in only a couple of hours for all four wheels and I was really impressed with the strength and manufacturing quality of both the brackets and the two-piece rotors. The factory two piston front and single rear calipers are more than up to the task with a strong solid pedal and zero fade! I was able to brake with just about any car out there save for the prototypes...i.e. Audi R8, Lola's, Riley & Scott..etc. I really have to thank Warren at Racingbrake as he has been great with all of help and support. I have the final race of the year in two weeks at Sebring and I can say that after the race weekend at Daytona that the brakes look ready for an entire full season still. Pad wear is great and the rotors show no wear or appearance of hairline cracks. Daytona is murder on a braking system as I have to slow from about 170 down to about 45 for turn one and I did this for over 85 laps last weekend.

Re: 2 piece nsx rotors for oem calipers

Ok I can only speak from my own experiences but what I can tell you is this...As long as a caliper has sufficient and even clamping forces without distortion or binding and it is able to hold a pad of a large enough surface material it will work just fine in all situations whether it be for racing, occasional track use or primarily for the street. The larger rotors are a definite step forward in performance to the smaller two piece rotors which I used before. The pads are the same so I do have a direct comparison. The larger rotor surface is able to dissipate heat better and distribute it over a greater surface area hence cooler brake temps. The kit also includes new brake lines which are extremely high quality as well. My brother races in my group with a Carrera RSR 3.0 liter with 996 Turbo brakes and 10" front and 12" rear slicks. I was right with him at all braking points and he is a semi pro driver with 25 years continous racing experience. In fact I outqualified him at Daytona and also beat him in the race ...for the very FIRST time...The new brakes gave me much needed confidence...and they really look great inside my 17" wheels!!!!!!!!!

I am indeed using the bigger rotors front and rear and have noticed no problems in brake bias and I still am using the factory ABS setup. I am using the original calipers on my 92 and yes they are slightly heavier than an aluminum caliper but they have been trouble free and I do use high temp grease after every race on the slide pins..a five minute job at most. One of the problems I have always noticed in my years of repairing, modifying and racing automobiles is that many people tend to overcomplicate things by replacing unnecessary parts. I like the look performance and PRICE of the original caliper..plus it has that great NSX logo already on it!

I agree, and I have posted before re the same. I have had over 15 track days on the very first set and I still have a few more track days left, this after turning them once. Hairline cracks are there but then they are expected after some 50 sessions on the same rotors.

Just an fyi, running cooler rotors has huge benefits. A few months ago I took my 96 RL to the track for the first time - as it was a rainy and cold day so I said I might as well since I committed to help. I was having great fun and laughing passing all the other "sports" cars on the track in my session While the joke amongst our local weekend boy racers is that I use my pyrometer too much, suffice it to say that the temps on my OEM front rotors were 800F on this cool and rainy day The rotors warped and the lifespan of the OEM pads were toast; good thing I had Valvoline brake fluid. The hottest I have gotten my RB rotors on the the track is 500F and that is 100F-150F cooler than the OEM rotors I used to run under the same settings/conditions/track.

http://www.nsxprime.com/forums/showthread.php?t=80162
1st Place in Class 4 hours of Sebring!

Just wanted to let all of my fellow NSX'ers know that at last weekends final HSR race of the year at Sebring my 1992 NSX won first in class in the four hour enduro on Sunday! Other cars in my class include BMW M3 GTR's and Porsche Cup cars. Many thanks to Racing Brake for giving me the consistent and safe stopping power

Posted: Wed Mar 01, 2006 12:58 pm Post subject:

Arnie, GOTO:Racing has been using RB rotors on all of our race cars with excellant results. Excellant brake performance and fantastic longevity. We recently ran one set of RB rotors for the entire 25 Hours of Thunderhill. While we had to change pads, the rotors not only went the entire race but they were still good enough to race the first sprint race of the year at Sears Point.

///////the above is both a the end of my post and perhaps the beginning of an FD relationship w RacingBrake. there is additional info on their site along w a forum where you are free to browse and pose questions. RB already is a known quantity at RX8club as Warren makes a full lineup for the car.

here's an RX8 RB corner:

   

my purpose is to raise awareness upon the proper occasion of new products that might upgrade our cars. i am not commercially affiliated w RB. i will be buying their rotors for my FD no matter what rear calipers i decide upon. i will be selling my M2 rotors and caliper mounting brackets when i get around to it.

respectfully submitted FYI

[Bill-B]

You have a FD?

[Wagon Mafia]

You have a FD?

no the guy who posted it does...

[LSixer]

How much?

[EtanClan]

I think it was like $300 each??

[Polish Guy]

ME WANT NOW!

[Bill-B]

ME WANT NOW!

I think you would be the first guy with a passat that has brakes over-adequate for a Lambo or Ferrari Challange

[Wagon Mafia]

the prices are about 300 ea...so 600 a pair

From their site products by vehicle search:
Acura
  NSX

BMW
  M3 (E36)
  M3 (E46)
  M3 (E46 - Competition Package)

Chevrolet
  Corvette C5
  Corvette C6
  Corvette C6 Z51
  Corvette C6 Z06

Dodge
  SRT-4
  Viper

Infiniti
  G35 (Brembo)
  G35 (non-Brembo)

Mazda
  RX-7
  RX-8

Mitsubishi
  Evolution VIII

Nissan
  350Z (Brembo)
  350Z (non-Brembo)
  Maxima

Subaru
  Forester
  Outback
  Impreza
  Legacy
  WRX
  WRX STi

i am pretty sure these would be cutom one because the would be available for the mr 2 also.. i think its possible for any car....