Brembo brakes for 308?

This has been discussed in great detail here. Several people here (including me) have put the Brembo GT kit on the front of their 308 and used the stock master cylinder and have had no problems. You will lose the e-brake in the rear. I did not do the rears and feel i do not need to at this time. I want to have an e-brake in the car.


Paul

 

Like Paul, I've only done the fronts, which is where most of the braking is on the 308s anyway.

If you want to upgrade all four corners, the best bet is to get the kit from www.************ -- I have their rear rotors on my car to complement my front Brembos. If their full 4-corner kit had been available at the time, I'd have definitely gone with that. In any case, there's just one Brembo front kit for any 308 application, 1977-1985.
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Oh, and you'll have to have 16" (QV) wheels in order to fit the Brembo kit.

 

Actually, I got a "hybrid" kit for the fronts which is a little less expensive; it uses the Brembo GT calipers (which by the way use the same brake pads as the Ferrari 360) but has Stillen rotors with AP hats. The Brembo drilled rotors have WAY too many holes for my taste. I bought the kit out of Canada but it was shipped from within the US. I later got a set of rear rotors to match from Girodisc. If you want to see more about what I did and where they came from, check out the thread at http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=39712

Good question -- I don't know the answer to that. But Eric at Girodisc probably will... he used to work for Brembo and designed their GT kit!

 

I'm wondering if anyone's done a similar setup with a 1989 328. I'm curious if additional mods/changes might be needed in addition to the kit installation.

Jeff

 

None taken. I'm not knowledgeable on brake system upgrades but if you can upgrade a modern car without eliminating ABS then why not this car? Maybe due to the infancy of ABS at that point? Your probably right about cost benefit though. I inquired via email at Girodisc as well just to see if available and at what cost/mods. We'll see what they say.

Jeff

 

I don't think Girodisc has a 328 system yet, and I know that Brembo doesn't. However, there was a discussion about Brembo being willing to create one: http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=104546

 

finnerty,

If my understanding is correct, the brembo kit for the 308 is just a little bit big, (36-40mm front pistons compared to the stock single 48 mm piston).

The two main drawbacks are:

1) The front lock way before the rear, so the rear pads must be upgraded to a higher coeficient of friction to give a better balance. (review Enjoy the music's threads on tracking the 308).

2) Because of the larger piston displacement in the front calipers, the master cylinder must travel further, giving the oft reported lower pedal.

Girodisc has developed a kit that uses a slightly smaller caliper that gives a better front/rear balance. Since Brembo does not offer a smaller caliper, Girodisc used a Wilwood caliper and manufacturers a Brembo style floating disc for both the front and rear. The rear disc is very close to the stock size but is lighter and cools better. The front disc is also much lighter and larger, as well as better cooling. The benefits are that you can have icreased front and rear brake torque and better heat dissipation with lower weight. Additionaly, beause the front pistons are a bit smaller than the Brembo pistons, the master cylinder will have a shorter travel, (higher pedal) and will be a bit more firm.

Better braking performance.

Reasonable cost & ease of installation. I believe that the cost of replacing just the rotor will be less expensive than buying a new Ferrari one piece rotor, so, cheaper down the road for maintenanance too.

Excellent support and very high quality kit components, (look at some of the other big brake kits and compare the quality of the work).

hth,
chris

 

Thanks for the thoughtful explanation Chris, saves me some typing!

With out re-hashing this to death again... There are no "junkyard finds" that bolt on. Brembo kit is excellent quality although moves brake bias forward a bit and has a longer pedal than stock(harder to modulate). No rear solution from anyone that retains rear parking brake. Mr Parker, Wilwood spot caliper and the like, are all nightmares at best. Girodisc offers front setups, rear replacement rotors or a whole kit.

You can check out some pictures here:
http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=81996&highlight=girodisc+308

To the question about mixing and matching components: You can run whatever you want from whoever but at the end of the day you need the right torques at the right wheels at max braking effort. Piston sizes, pad friction levels, and to a lesser degree rotor diameter all play a part in this. You can bandaid this up with bias valves and race pads but at the expense of wear rates front to rear.

The 308 has fine brakes stock. If you just want to pimp it around town, get some Ferodo DS2500 pads, good fluid and a set of lines and you'll be impressed with the results. Take it to the track for a weekend of dicing it up and you'll be disappointed. They don't have enough rotor mass and cooling to get you through the day. Hence the Big Brake upgrade path. Same goes for the 328.

I don't believe Stillen offers the 308 kit anymore as they can't get loose brake calipers from Brembo anymore, nobody can.

To the last point on wheels. Our kit fits the 16" QV wheels. Brembo claims their kit requires the use of 17" wheels but Mike seems to have proved them wrong! Kudos. The metric wheels don't work, we tried.

Our kit has front rotors/calipers/brackets/pads/lines and rear rotors/pads/lines and some Motul RBF 600 fluid. Full setup. Runs $2900.

Martin
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Chris and Martin are spot on. Feel free to use the SEARCH function for my comments and pics. Already have covered this many times.

FYI: in 2005 and especially in 2006 i was tracking the car a lot. Both rain and shine events. so was very retentive about brake balance and brake fade. Never had any heat/fade problems, but the pedal does indeed go a bit deeper than stock. That can be corrected via a larger Master Cylinder (MC).

Guess it all depends on your use and how far you desire going with brake upgrades. Some guys here have gone dual MCs and proper brake bias adjustment. Welcome to the Money Pit Jungle

 

Like I said before, if Girodisc had their 4-corner solution available at that time, I'd have gone with it, and I *do* have their rotors on the rears. Martin and Eric are also top notch to deal with -- I recommend them and their 308 brake kit highly.

Also... they'll put whatever text or logo you want on the calipers in place of the normal funky-looking Wilwood logo... they've put a Girodisc logo in their photo in this thread.

 

Don't want to hijack the thread, but while we are talking replacement rotors, has anyone retrofitted their rotors to studs and lug nuts? I hate the Ferrari wheel bolts with a passion. They used to make me crazy trying to mount the wheels on my Mondial. A buddy of mine has studs on his racing 308, but that involved an entire change in his suspension/brake setup for the track. Has anyone done it with a street 308 and what's involved in doing it?

thanks,
Steve

 

I just called Stillen (www.stillen.com) and talked to Kenny there in their sports cars dept, and he told me that they still sell the kits using Brembo calipers, but at this point they only had one kit on the shelf, so he may not be aware that they aren't going to be able to get them after this. In any case, I don't recommend Brembo GT or Stillen anymore, I recommend the Girodisc kit.

 

As I run 14" wheels I think the comment above, on some good Brembo OEM size slotted or drilled rotors, good pads and stainless lines is well taken.....

As to the comment on lug bolts, one of my cars came with BBS wheels, and they had bolts and standard lug nuts........I have not used them and am unsure why they would not have used the OEM bolts with these wheels.

You can try them if you want........or contact BBS....

 

Martin,
any ideas or plans for the mondial? as we know i'm now pushing 400hp in a 3500lb car with not the best stock braking. a uprated system would be nice.

thanks

 

+1... and they also offer replacement fronts for Brembo package.

Now that i pretty much stopped tracking the 308 in favor of a proper track car, have two complete sets of spare rotors sitting here...

 

So, with the Girodisc kit mentioned, for the 328's with ABS, does ABS have to be disconnected or bypassed in some way?

 

Huh? After all those mods? I must have missed the thread where you got another car for the track... please point me to it.

 

http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=127860

After careful debate, throwing another $10k+ into the Ferrari without any real history of how the SC would do reliability-wise for track use and the fact there was a desire to race versus gentleman circle-jerking (which is getting boring), decided to get a Formula Continental (SC). This way i can now race in various leagues and also do some basic track days to get to know the car. Imagine 150HP/140TQ in a car that weights 1135 lbs wet with me in it. An SC is easy to maintain, parts are reasonable, and so many more benefits. Heck, even Fchat owner does not bother racing a Ferrari, so that speaks volumes IMO. You can snag these cars for $12k or so and imagine pulling over 2G in the turns and the car is MADE for proper use

Might revisit the 308 after a few of you guys do the SC and drive it HARD ON THE TRACK for a few times. Am wondering what your temps and reliability will be like. So far no one seem to know what REPEATED HARD track use will do to the engine and tranny. Sorry and all, but have grown tired of throwing money into the 308 at this point when for small money i could get an entire car with MUCH better performance... and one that IS competitive in the real world.

Don't get me wrong, the 308 here is way tweaked and i love her. She is/was great training wheels. If someone offers me the right $$$ i might sell her, but ONLY to someone who would track the $#!t out of her. She can easily handle that ALL DAY long. Last thing i want is the 308 here to be a lame shine n show car or for lame and illegal highway antics. Again, might revist the car after you guys do the hard testing, as have beter things to do with $$ than be a test bed for others'.
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Steve,

Had picked up in another thread that you were going to make the jump to a track car. Didn't know you were jumping into the Formula Ford arena. They have a very competitive racing series in a lot of different venues that you can run. From my experience, the lessons you learned in the 308 will transfer nicely to this car. Good luck with it, have fun, and drive safe. Open wheel cars are a blast to drive, but in competition, you have to be careful. Wheel to wheel contact can launch you in ways that closed wheel cars don't. Airbourne in one of those things would not be fun.

BTW, you won't be able to use an open wheel car at any of the Ferrari club events, or many other clubs as well. The don't like to mix open wheel with regular cars because of the size/weight issues, not to mention the problems of open wheel contact. If you can, hang on to your 308 and come out to some of the FCA events, especially the national meet up at Watkins Glen next Labor Day, unless you'll be running in a Formula championship somewhere.

Keep us up to date on what's going on with the racing.

Regards,
Steve

p.s. Now you understand why I got the Corvette. I don't have the time to dedicate to a race car/racing series, so the Corvette was a great compromise for track events. While I'd love to quit my job and hit the race circuit, that ain't gonna happen any time soon, so I'll keep going out for track days when I can and enjoy the Vette.

 

[

Am learning that tracking in race leagues is less expensive than club events, opens up MANY other opportunities, and there are many events to attend. Am amazed at the staggering amount of track time one could rack up if desired and why i plan to basically live out of my new enclosed trailer during race season

That's fine with me. Frankly, am getting tired of the old/slow/heavy Ferrari 308. Sure a supercharger might bring her back to life, but am going to let others on this board be the test bed for it. So far it seems no one really tracks the living $#!t out of their SC'ed 308.

My friends tell me once a few events with the FC are under my belt the Ferrari will be a 100% grocery getter and summer beach day ride. To me that is a waste of time and a waste of a car. See too many posers on the streets in very capable cars as it is. Am already entertaining selling the 308, but will wait until spring/summer 2007 to decide and it depends on how much $$$ per year i have to hemorrhage into the 308 to keep her maintained. The FC is just so much easier to work on and cheaper to fix/maintain... Could take the $$ from the sale of the 308 and use it for other expenses, but admit i love the look of the 308 and she is really setup well, so if she gets sold there would be no way to get something like it really. The newer cars seem to be visually-design-challenged compared to the older cars IMO. Just saw the 599 in red and also silver in NYC, U-G-L-Y (and F-U-G-L-Y if you look at what they did the rear/last 1/3rd of the car).

Might do the WGI big event as it is cool seeing the vintage cars on the track, but frankly don't want to waste money driving a heavy, slow car on the track. What is the point in going BACKWARDS so to speak? Might be fun to throw the 308 around at WGI, at least that would give her a once-a-year Italian Tune Up

Will do

As you know, i LUST after the vette. An amazing car and makes more sense than a Ferrari in so many ways. But you already know that

Fortunately, am my own boss and can work anywhere in the world with an occasional Internet connection. Already have setup a secondary system for the new enclosed trailer and can use hardline, WiFi, or cell phone for Internet access.

Remember: if the trailer is rockin' don't come knocking

 

Gee Steven, you have been Mr. Mod the 308 for years and now you are not only abandoning tracking it, but calling it a grocery-getter and talking about selling it. Sheesh. Kinda harsh, considering you haven't even driven the new car yet!

Birdman