Which Upgraded Calipers?


S

SRossi

Cause Racecar
Joined
Jul 15, 2011
Messages
168
After having a bit of trouble with the calipers on the DC2, the passenger side seizes out every 2~3 weeks and the drivers side is starting to become a little sticky and I'll need new front discs come MOT time, so I'm thinking of upgrading the lot as I'm hoping for some track time this year.

Now I've been having a good look about and really like FreakyParts deal on a Wilwood kit, but I don't know much about the calipers and was wondering if anyone with either of the kits (Midilite or Superlite) could say what they think of the them and any problems.

Otherwise I would be interested in any input from people with 4 pots of other brands: AP, Brembo etc. with how they preform as I would rather not skimp on the brakes if I could get a good deal with the other brands :)

My budget would probably be ~£1000 and I do know some people that could make up the brackets so that wouldn't be an issue.

Finally I did search for this but couldn't find anything on here about which caliper they would buy, and I know there's a lot of trustworthy people on here that I can trust for a genuine answer :nice:

Thanks,
Stephen
 
I have the wilwood midilites, with ferodo ds2500 pads, grooved dixcel discs. It stops really well! Very impressive, my only negative is you get a slightly softer pedal feel, with more travel on it due to the bigger calipers

9/10. !!!!!
 
I have seen nothing but positive reactions about the Wilwood kits :)
 
Freaky's Wilwood kits are great value for money, but personally I would opt for the smaller 1.50" piston size on the 282mm Midilite kit if Stu can supply those. The smaller piston size allows you to use aggressive pads without upsetting the factory balance and would also retain a better pedal feel.
 
I can supply the calipers with whatever piston size is preffered.
The 1.75" pistons give a larger overal area than the OEM calipers, which translate into a slightly longer pedal.
This in turn does give you a better range of pedal movement.

The Midilite setup is very good on the EK9, and it uses the OEM 282mm front discs so keeps the costs down.

If you can stretch to it, we can do the Superlite kit, which uses a larger caliper, larger pads and thicker 32mm thick 2 piece discs with aluminium bells. This setup is excellent if you do a lot of track days as the discs are much better at soaking up the heat. You just need a wheel with a decent offset to allow the clearance behind it.

The AP kits out there although are very very good (I've used them on my own cars), but I find it difficult to justify the 2x price tag of them over a set of similar Wilwood brakes.
They dont offer 2x the performance, 2x the life or 1/2 the stopping distances so unless you're a brand snob the better value Wilwood kits would be perfect for you.
 
Cheers all, I'm still swaying towards the wilwood kit especially as everyone says it is worth the cash.

Thanks Kozy for the heads up on piston size as that was going to be a next question, FreakyParts think i'll throw you a pm on spec's that the calipers can come in as I find the Wilwood website difficult to use for some reason :(

If there is anybody else with opinions I'm happy to hear them :)
 
Would sell my Spoon calipers with goodridge braided lines and pads for well under the £1000 mark. Im located in Falkirk as well, so local for collection.
 
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14091d1325856824-replacing-aem-big-brake-kit-rotors-brembo-rotors-need-help-dsc01630.jpg

:nice:
http://www.ek9.org/forum/brakes/26263-replacing-aem-big-brake-kit-rotors-brembo-rotors-need-help.html
 
E2-SAW said:
Would sell my Spoon calipers with goodridge braided lines and pads for well under the £1000 mark. Im located in Falkirk as well, so local for collection.
Click to expand...

You have PM :nice:.

KOUVPASIR said:
...
14091d1325856824-replacing-aem-big-brake-kit-rotors-brembo-rotors-need-help-dsc01630.jpg

:nice:
http://www.ek9.org/forum/brakes/26263-replacing-aem-big-brake-kit-rotors-brembo-rotors-need-help.html
Click to expand...

Is that the 300mm kit? If so what is the size like compared to OEM? And would you recomend them as in have they preformed well and whats the pedal travel like?
 
Is that the 300mm kit? If so what is the size like compared to OEM? And would you recomend them as in have they preformed well and whats the pedal travel like?[/QUOTE]

Yes its 300mm kit.
Compared to ej9's --> stronger braking filling
--> more braking power
--> less brake blocking (i have no ABS)
--> a little hard pedal but very regulated:))
 
I have been wandering for a bit how does the brembo's compare to the willwood superlites like for like, I like a firm pedal in my systems, and does anyone know whats the biggest size to fit under 15" and 16" (two piece kit), I ran the legend setup on my car it was a tight squeeze under 15" slipstreams but quite a good setup.
 
Do you like Warburtons or Kingsmill bread? :)
Performance wise, you need to compare like-for-like, same pads, same disc specs etc otherwise it's going to give different results.
The Superlite kit with 2 piece discs is cheaper for starters, but doesn't come with the Brembo reputation (F1, Touring Cars etc), it's more widely used in Drag/Stock cars in the US.
You do have the option in the Superlites to run different sized pistons, which will have an effect on your pedal feel. The smaller the diameter pistons, the shorter (firmer) the pedal will feel. I'm not sure if the Brembo aftermarket kits give you that option.

Wheels wise, it really depends on the spoke design and inside diameter of the wheel as to what the largest diameter disc you can run is. The Wilwoods allow either the 298 or 309 x32mm two peice discs underneath, whereas I think the Brembos come with a 295x28mm two piece disc setup.

I think back-to-back running of the two kits you'd be hard pressed to see one being drastically better than the other, but when you've been running the kits for a while, you'll see a difference in the consumables. With the Brembo price tag, you'll be paying Brembo consumables prices, whereas the Wilwood equivalents will be cheaper.
 
Cheers dude, it was something i was thinking about, I looked on your website the other day for a number to call you at but didnt see one, I work as a calibration engineer at ford at the min moving to jaguar landrover soon, iI have a contact here which i can get a set of brembo's for around the same as willwood, but as u say the consumables will be more, ps not sure if the brembo's are heavier or not and have always been a bit strange and liked the look of willwoods ;)
 
The Wilwood Superlite calipers are around 2.6Kg each. Not sure on the Brembos, depends on which caliper you're using.
 
Have seat in home for a few months wilwood kit from Freaky, now that i have mugen wheels that work on them witout spacer finally i will install the kit in the next weeks.

My car, ek4, have oem BMC wich is 15/16", freaky do you think its better to upragde for 1"?

If people tell that with 1" the pedal feel softer with 15/16" its more softer...isnt it?
 
Hi Marco,

I upgraded to 1" it was well worth it, I had a legend setup though, pedal had more feel to it and was a bit more progressive till you really needed it and were pushing hard, very goos I would say :)
 
The difference is the Wilwood setup has a larger piston area than the Legend/EK9 calipers which will already give a longer pedal feel, what you dont want to do is fit the 1" MC and find the travel is too long.
The only way you're going to find out is try it with the 15/16" and see how the pedal feels, but from my understanding swapping to a larger bore MC will only make it longer/more progressive.
 
FreakyParts said:
The difference is the Wilwood setup has a larger piston area than the Legend/EK9 calipers which will already give a longer pedal feel, what you dont want to do is fit the 1" MC and find the travel is too long.
The only way you're going to find out is try it with the 15/16" and see how the pedal feels, but from my understanding swapping to a larger bore MC will only make it longer/more progressive.
Click to expand...

Depends though, because remembering back to the old physics days force is multiplied by the cross sectional area of the mc, so there is more force applied for a lesser distance pushed, that is why it is a good upgrade, but then you have to take into account as freaky said the other end of the system which has a major part to play!! things can change lol try with the 15/16 and see as above ^^^^^^
 
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