6/8 piston caliper and disc upgrade for F355

i know brembo has brake upgrade (both disc and caliper) for 355, if you want details i can find out for you

as i understand there are a couple of shops that carry brembo brakes but i am not sure they have brake system for 355 in stock.....

who was your track day anyway???

 

Your Elise is nearly 1000 to 1300 pounds or more, lighter.
How much do you want to spend?
Winston

 

try these guys.
http://www.movit.de/

front 4000 euro 380x32
rear 3000 euro 342x28

 

Wow - these are cool - 6 piston calipers and a 380mm setup for the 348/355.

Cheers
Kevin

 

I sell some 6 piston & 10 piston brake kits for Ferrari’s from Tarox
Made in Italy.
Front 6-piston kit sells for $2995.00
Rears in 6 piston kit sells for $3095.00

10 piston fronts sell for $3395.00
10 piston rears sell for $ 3395.00

2 piece 350 mm & 340 mm rotors
Attached is a photo of a 6 piston Tarox brake kit.(Actual 355 kit may look slightly diffrent.) You will need to run 18 inch wheels with the kit.


I also sell Brembo. Give me a call or e-mail for more info, maybe I can help.
Here is my Brembo link on my site & also have the complete PDF of all Brembo caliper kits for all cars.
http://www.nicksforzaferrari.com/forzaferrariwebsite1_046.htm
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

Stock brakes on a 355 are actually very, very good. I've got hundreds, if not thousands of laps on my street 355, and I can outbrake everything, with zero brake fade. With *proper* technique, you shouldn't have any braking problems, especially if you install a good brake pad (e.g., PFC-97). If you're still suffering, install brake ducts.

If you're still having braking problems, consider going to the 355 Challenge brake package. You'll need new, bigger wheels to clear, but these suckers are incredible.

vty,

--Dennis

 

I have to agree with this comment. The 355 has good brakes for track-day uses. I strongly suggest you start by changing the front pads to a "fast" compound. Could be the previous owner fitted what we call here "pinco-pallo" pads. i.e. none-OEM cheap pads. Also, is possible the pads were badly bedded-in when they were new, this really ruin them for later if they get really cooked before bed-in. The other thing to do is change the brake fluid and to make sure there is no air in the system.

On my car I also fitted goodgridge racing brake hoses, which can help pedal "feeling" a little bit if your hoses are getting hot and slightly balooning.

Tarox, mintex, ferodo etc. all make pads for 355 in different compounds.

After this modest spending, if you are not happy still then call the bank manager and change everything, caliper, disk etc.. !!!

but from you discription, sounds like something is not 100% on your car.

Have fun

 

for interest, how do you know the fluid was boiling ? Also, forget dot4, go for dot 5.1 mineral oil.

 

I see, thanks.

 

does increasing the size of the disc's make any difference or do you need to change calipers too?

 

Salve Maranelloman,

Love the guage, I need one for my new sunglasses that I bought last week.

Anyway, there's something wrong with this guys car. I just ask to a couple of technical frends here and they tell me is almost impossible for bubbling like boiling to be seen in the brake reservoir for 2 reasons, first, the bubbles cant pass backwards through the master cilinder, and second, for the reservoir fluid to boil is need to be reach 230 DEG C for DOT4 fluid -- not very probable in the reservoir itself.

An another thing I think of (by myself this time ), if the circuit has big braking zones, then this means there is big speed zones too, yes ? There should be lot of air coming into the air ducting and bringing the brakes temperature down, so maybe there is a dead hedgehog or some potatoes growing in the ducting ?

Like someone earlier said, is a lot of dreaming happening.

 

I'm presently having an 8 Piston Brembo system installed on my Ferrari, using 378 mm brake discs. While 355 discs may be adequate, I would note that Ferrari installed larger discs on the 360 and then larger discs on the Stradale. On the 430 they are larger still and feature six piston calipers!

Your assessment of the Lotus compared to the 355 was right on the money.
355 60-0 = 124 Ft.
360 60-0 = 110 ft.
Lotus Elise 60-0 = 105 ft.
Porsche GT1 60-0= 98 ft.

Bottom line, numbers don't lie. The benefit of the 8 piston brembo caliper is it uses four brake pads per caliper. This gives twice the leading edges and that much greater brake bit.

The very big and very heavy Mercedes AMG SL55 stops 11 feet sooner from 60.
Of course, these figures increase as speed goes up so I'd suspect the gap increases as well.

So yes, that Lotus can brake much later into the turns than a stock 355.

Another plus, the 8 Piston Brembo weighs less than the six piston Brembo.
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

nice looking stuff

mmm.... ok the next question is how will they cost me???

 

Might I suggest that before you spend $$$$ on new brakes, instead just put some brake ducts in? A few hundred bucks, at the most, and you'll have huge improvements in brake cooling.

And also check out this on-topic thread:
http://70.85.40.84/~ferrari/forum/showthread.php?t=3928

As for Porsche ceramic composite brakes - yes they work spectacularly well, yes they absorb huge amounts of heat, BUT they wear out ridiculously quickly and are horrifically expensive to replace. Porsche now warns that track use will cause these "long-life" brakes to wear completely in ONE or TWO DAYS. Some GT2 owners have actually threatened to file a class-action lawsuit. The Porsche forums have a LOT of threads on this....

vty,

--Dennis

 

Tony, are you sure you're getting FLUID fade (boiling fluid) as opposed to PAD fade (overheating the pads, and reducing the coefficient of friction)? What exactly are the symptoms you're getting (aside from longer braking distances)?

Common misconception - that upgrading brakes will automatically reduce braking distances. Nope. The car's ability to stop is a result of a variety of factors, the two biggest, by far, are the car's weight and the car's TIRES. A Ford Crown Victoria on racing slicks with stock brakes will outbrake the same car with giant brakes on street tires.

Heck, a Crown Vic with racing slicks and stock brakes will outbrake a Lotus Elise with giant brakes on snow tires!

Race cars have big brakes not because they're needed for the shortest possible braking distance, but rather to handle and dissipate heat and take the abuse of being used constantly. Take your 355, for example. With cold brakes, you'll get EQUAL braking distances with stock brakes versus big Challenge brakes or 8 piston Brembos (yes, you'll get different "bite" and "feel", but the distance will be the same).

After all, when you hit your brakes hard, you can lock up the tires (assuming no ABS). So the LIMIT isn't at the BRAKE, but rather at the TIRE.

So, why can a 911 out brake you? For a variety of reasons. If it's a 996 Cup car (as in one of your videos), it's probably lighter. It certainly has better weight distribution for braking (all that rear-end weight allows the rear tires to do more braking). It may have stickier tires. And, of course, the Porsches could have better drivers.

There are a LOT of myths surrounding brakes. Check out the attached (zip file) article from Grassroots Motorsports for the real facts (the file also has a great article on the fact behind ABS systems). Sure, one may put big cross-drilled rotors and 8 piston calipers on the car for the bling factor, but if one wants functionality, one should spend the money on ducting, new pads and better fluid....

vty,

--Dennis
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

You should read EVO's article about the BMW M engineering group. I wouldn't worry about the number of pistons as much as the size of the rotor. You should be worrying about heat dissipation. I think your problem is rotor size / rotor properties, not the number of pistons. I had a similar problem on my 2-piston NSX brakes. By purchasing [very expensive] multi-piece, heat treated, ventilated rotors just for the fronts, changing to a more agressive set of pads (carbon/metal Hawk pads), ss lines, and 600 degree fluid, my fade problem has disappeared. I didn't change the calipers, and I was right not to. There was no reason. It's not how much money you spend, it's how you choose to spend it. You could also look into some sort of air ducting system for the brakes as well.