Thread: Brake suggestions?

There is an interesting comparison of brake pads in the most recent Grassroots Motorsports. They test stock Miata brakes against various lines of Hawk pads on an autocross course.

As billc stated, stock calipers with a fresh set of performance street pads should be more than capable of locking street tires up. You can't make your car stop any faster than the point just before lock up. If you're having problems stopping on twisty hills at this point, my guess is things just need to be "freshened" up. If you're getting fade on those downhill runs, some new high temp fluid and some Hawk HPS or HP plus pads should be more than enough. If you need more than that for the street, you should slow down or take it to the track. 2 cents.

I am freshening up my brake system as well.

I have to agree with Hank and billc and also tell you, badhabits, that they are right on wiht there observations.

I can and have locked up many a time with stock brakes. Fighting fluid fade may be your problem or pad fade. Either way, newer, more aggressive slotted rotors would be great along with some nice pads and a high quality fluid, you would be set.

I plan on taking my car to a race track and pushing it harder and getting a nice VE in there so I went with AD22VF fronts and stock rears. Upgrading pads to Hawk HPS and it will be nice.

Perfect place to ask my question.

I'm 99% street. Track days at Conventions, and would like to do more. I do not want any sort of fade at the track. Would rather have a bit more unsprung weight and small performance penalty, and brakes more than up to any task I ask of them. Eventual VE motor.

Here's my first purchase.

(1 pair) NX2K front calipers

(1 pair) P10 rear calipers - Thown in for a very good price, from the same Seller. Otherwise I would have stopped at the NX2K fronts (with supporting mods).

Here's why. They are a Nissan engineered system for our vehicles.

http://www.sr20-forum.com/suspension/30432-brake-thread-7.html#post468259

That should more than do it. LOVE the idea of correct front/rear proportioning.

Planning on calling Greg V on the correct Altima MC, Brembo blanks or equal both front and rear, appropriate pads, fluids and anything else I need for the e-brake or whatever.....

My question is:

Should I get a set of Greg V SS lines from Crown? Everyone raves about how much better they are than any other SS lines. However, I am not at all convinced I need them.

OR should I just get a brand new set of OEM lines? I'd just as soon do them if I am going to the track. I do not remember ever replacing mine, and think they are the original equipment. It'd be cheaper than SS, and I do not want to sacrafice any OEM-reliability if the Crown SS lines could be more problematic than stock brake lines.

Another question on behalf of the OP and Kyle (Viprdude).

If he goes with the NX2K fronts, and stock rear SE-R brakes, shouldn't he upgrade to the NX2K MC? That would insure proper proportioning per Nissan engineers.

Thanks for the input.

Do the SS lines, especially if the other option is paying for new OEM lines. You have everything to gain, and nothing to lose with going to the SS lines in my opinion.

No, I don't believe so. The Altima MC is only for those upgrading to larger rear brakes.
Edit: Doh! You were talking about the NX2k master cylinder. Yes, you would want to use it if upgrading to NX2k fronts and sticking with stock rears.

Let me formulate a more complete explanation to that question in a second post.

I run the lines Greg sells along with some axxis pads I got from him
as well. Happy with both.

This is how I understand the master cylinder issue. And anyone else is free to correct me as I might be wrong on one or many points.

First off, we need to understand that the amount of fluid the MC can move is based on the size of the piston and bore of the master cylinder. The larger the hydraulic volume of the caliper, the more fluid you'll need to work the caliper correctly.

Secondly, each of the master cylinders we're talking about here has its own proportioning associated with it. This is to control how strongly the front brakes are applied versus the rear brakes when the pedal is pushed.

During hard braking the front tires experience somewhere around 80%-90% of the weight of our FWD cars and a performance/safety minded brake system would match this and apply a similar bias to the system (with a careful combination of brake rotor/caliper size and master cylinder proportioning).

The stock B13 SE-R, B14 SE-R and NX2k master cylinders are different.


(These numbers below are relative, and not confirmed accurate. Just for display purposes.)
B13 SE-R - 13/16" bore, approx. 50% front / 50% rear bias
B14 SE-R - 14/16" (7/8") bore, approx. 50% front / 50% rear bias
B13 NX2k - 14/16" (7/8") bore, approx. 47% front / 53% rear bias
U13 Altima - 15/16", approx. 53% front / 47% rear bias

Let's go through each MC and see why it is the way it is.

The B13 SE-R master cylinder is our baseline. It has a small bore because the front and rear calipers don't have much volume to fill, and both front and rear rotors are sized in such a way that the master cylinder proportioning bias works out well at 50/50.

Then we have the B14 SE-R master cylinder which has a larger bore which will either pair with calipers with larger internal fluid volume, or maybe they were trying to give a stiffer pedal feel. I'm not intimately familiar with B14 brakes. The proportioning is likely the same as before however, as the front/rear rotors are paired well.

Next the B13 NX2k master cylinder has a larger bore to provide for more fluid (and pressure) to the system to provide for a stiffer pedal feel, and the front calipers have a bit more fluid volume than the B13 SE-R calipers. The front rotors on the NX2k are larger in diameter than the B13 SE-R rotors so if the proportioning were kept the same as the B13 SE-R master cylinder, you'd experience a bias gain up front due to the larger rotors. To keep the front bias from raising, the master cylinder proportioning changed to apply slightly less pressure up front.
A properly upgraded B13 SE-R with NX2k front brakes will also want to have the NX2k master cylinder.

Next we have the U13 Altima master cylinder which (I believe) has an even larger bore to move even more fluid and create more pressure than the NX2k master cylinder. This can be a good thing or overkill depending on your setup. The proportioning is what we're really interested in. What happens when you add larger rear rotors? The brake system suddenly gains quite a bit of rear brake bias. You're absolutely going to want to get rid of it by making sure you bias more toward the front. The U13 Altima master cylinder solves that problem nicely.
The larger rear rotors almost always are paired with rear calipers that require more fluid, so the upgraded bore size is a plus. If paired with NX2k front brakes, the upgraded bore size is likely mandatory.

What that all means is that the U13 Altima master cylinder is really only to be considered when upgrading the rear brakes. It's proportioning is designed to counteract the addition of much larger rear brakes to keep the proportioning in check. If used with a system with small rear brakes it will give much too much bias toward the front brakes and your car will be under utilizing the rear brakes in that configuration.

There's more to it, but that's the gist of it and I'll leave the rest for questions if people have them.

*served purpose so deleting*

LOL! Fixed. Had been awake for about 40 hours when I posted that :x

I think you misunderstood what I wrote, I got it right. Communication error.

I really loved your thorough explanation on the MC's, proportioning and brake upgrades. That makes total sense.