Braking with Brembos

It's nice to make some progress on a project car. That seems like a pretty obvious statement, but when you've had a perfectly good automobile torn apart for a few months, it's great to finally get it back on the road. That's an even bigger deal when you now have state-of-the-art suspension underneath.

In this story, we'll chase the brakes on our in-house '02 Mustang GT, a problem we discovered after the first test for the December issue. Then, we smoked the rear brakes, and put some serious color into the front system at Hotchkis Track Day. Now, we're doing the ridiculously simple install of a Brembo Gran Turismo High Performance Brake system (for '94 to '03 vehicles), known in Mustang circles as the "Cobra R kit" (since it was used by Ford on that specific vehicle).

When you think Brembo, you probably think of Formula One or exotic street cars. Know that the Italian brake system giant is going after the American market in a big way, as witnessed by well engineered and nicely packaged kits like this one. As we mentioned a few issues back, Brembo has options to take this brake package even further, including more expensive kits that feature drilled and or slotted rotors, two-piece rotor systems, and even larger rotors that require very specific wheel fitments. What we've done here (PN 184.6001A) is most common and works on the street, and under serious track day and autocross conditions.

When we say it's a simple install, we aren't kidding. You simply unbolt the old 11.5-inch, PBR-based front brake system, including the bracket upon which it's mounted, and strap on the Brembo one-piece 13-inch rotor, aluminum four-piston caliper, and Goodridge stainless steel brakes line on each front corner. That's it! Bleed the system, bed the pads, and enjoy! Since we already have Discount Tire Direct's 17-inch Cobra R replica wheels, we had no problems with caliper clearance.

The pads are a major issue, however. This system, available for just over $1,000 from Maximum Motorsports (they're a Brembo dealer), usually ships with the same Pagid 421 brake pads that you'd find on a Ferrari F40 and F50, or a Porsche twin-turbo 996. This pad is a ton of fun, with great initial bite upon pedal travel and stability at temperature, but it needs serious heat to work correctly, and will wear down quickly. Plus, Pagid has no application for the Mustang's rear system (which has major heat issues on track days). To test properly and under realistic conditions you need similar pads front and rear, so we turned to Hawk Performance and its HPS pads, built for low dust and low noise and similar pad wear to the stock system. We call 'em the "street-strip" setup, because they work well enough for light track duty, but aren't as temperature sensitive so they won't burn up your rotors while running relatively cold on the street. The Hawk HPS swap is probably the first change you'd make on a new Mustang, especially if you're not in the market for an entire brake system. We could do an entire story just on how to select brake pads, but know that they're a lot like tires, in that they're designed to work at specific temps and wear is a direct result (as is dust). Look for more brake testing info in upcoming issues, especially when we go back to track testing--there's a bunch to cover.

Next month, we'll tackle the interior mods, with lots of gauges from Auto Meter, seats and belts from Corbeau, and we'll have some more track testing results on the suspension. For now, let's see how those big brakes work.

Here's what the finished kit looks like when bolted up. We didn't opt for the cad treatment or the drilled setup (as these pads don't have gas problems), but the big-time four-piston caliper gives you great performance and serious looks. That caliper has pistons sized to shorten pedal travel, and it's significantly stiff even though it's aluminum. Weight savings pays a huge benefit here, positively effecting handling, braking, and acceleration. The system clears gas build-up and cleans pads for better bite, while providing maximum braking force without the flex of sliding calipers.	On the rear of the Project PHR Mustang, we've swapped the stock rotors for Brembo Sport replacement rotors, which meet the same levels of quality, technology and performance as OE rotors. You might notice the cadmium-plated treatment here (which we didn't order on the front). Most people order the rotors in matching trim. We were headed right for testing after installation and didn't have time to wear the cad off the fronts, so we avoided it in the first place. We'll swap for the cool look later.	Lately, we've been doing our testing out at California Speedway with the boys (and girls) from Sport Compact Car. They've really got it together and make comparisons to V-8 cars all the time. It just so happened that they wanted to compare a '03 Mustang Cobra to their SVT Focus, so we gathered some brake comparisons while testing our car. The Cobra slowed from 60 mph to 0 in126 feet, which compares to our stock Mustang numbers on the same surface of 142 feet (with the Maximum Motorsports suspension on board), as proven by the Stalker radar hooked to the laptop.
With the Brembo kit equipped with Hawk pads, we were able to seriously trim stopping distances, going from 142 feet with the stock system to 127 feet with the new stuff. Stopping distances didn't change much with temperature, thanks to the stable, street-ready Hawk pad, and pedal feel was consistent even at the end of our tests. Compare Project PHR Mustang's attitude under braking to the Cobra, and you can see that the suspension works well, too.