Whats the best rear brake upgrade for the PP GT's?

[Hack]

Yup I already know the slotted and drilled is just for looks, im looking to upgrade my brakes and rotors for the looks and because I feel like I dont have enough stopping force, and would like to get closer to specifically the braking force of what the gt350 brakes are like

GT350 brakes are awesome, that's for sure. Are you saying that you can't lock up the tires and engage ABS with your current brakes? I suspect that is not the case. You may actually want to upgrade tires if you really want to stop faster. Unless you are doing track days, tire grip is typically the limiting factor on stopping distance.

The GT350 brakes also have an immediacy to them - there's a lot of braking force available without much pedal travel or effort in the car. I have no idea how to make this happen if this is what you are after. However, I think the fronts are going to be more important than the rears.

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[I Bleed Ford Blue]

It's simple, if he wants GT 350 type braking then get the GT 350 brake kit. ~ 4K for the GT 350 kit or 10K plus to go aftermarket, you decide.

 

[Silver Bullitt]

Personally, I think the PP brakes are excellent. I had a brake upgrade on my GTO that wasn't as good as the stock PP brakes. With that said, if you are going to do any kind of autocross or road course racing, DO NOT buy a drilled rotor. They do not like heat cycling. A slotted rotor can provide better stopping power, but it will wear out pads quicker and dust like a mofo. A good smooth rotor is your best friend.

 

[MaskedRacerX]

Personally, I think the PP brakes are excellent. I had a brake upgrade on my GTO that wasn't as good as the stock PP brakes. With that said, if you are going to do any kind of autocross or road course racing, DO NOT buy a drilled rotor. They do not like heat cycling. A slotted rotor can provide better stopping power, but it will wear out pads quicker and dust like a mofo. A good smooth rotor is your best friend.

When I used to HPDE pretty regularly, I'd just score a set of the higher grade, plain, NAPA rotors, put them on a day in advance with fresh performance pads, bed them in really well, swap them out for my street setup after the weekend and call them a "consumable".

 

[WildHorse]

Yup I already know the slotted and drilled is just for looks

not exactly true:

 

[Silver Bullitt]

not exactly true:

Yes, slotted will dissipate heat and gases better, but they will chew through brake pads much faster (not to mention the dusting). Great for track, but more expensive for everyday driving.

 

[WildHorse]

but they will chew through brake pads much faster (not to mention the dusting

What's the old saying? You wanna play, you gotta pay. Cheers.

 

[Norm Peterson]

Its more honestly for the overall looks, but I have swapped out my pads to better ones, and I just dont feel like I have enough stopping force for cornering, I just upgraded suspension and working on doing IRS suspension to make the rest of the car feel better, now im on to upgrading my brakes, just completely happy with the amount of braking force.

Exactly what pads did you swap to, and why did you swap to them?

It sure sounds like they're not providing enough 'bite' (aka mu, or coefficient of friction) to suit you under at least some driving circumstances. Mass-market ceramics and the street compounds from a certain aftermarket pad name fall into this category. Marginally larger-diameter rotors by themselves can't give you as much improvement as higher-mu pads.

With the right pads, your PP1 has more braking power than you'll ever need for the kind of braking you mentioned above. Enough to where I'd put a little money on you overheating your car's differential fluid first at an HPDE track day.


On edit, in street driving slots do give little bits of grit a place to get scrubbed off into, rather than embedding themselves into the pad material and screeching or possibly scoring the rotors. This isn't a huge concern with plain rotors, but it does occasionally happen.


Norm

 

[WildHorse]

With the right pads, your PP1 has more braking power

First let me say I really enjoy reading your posts! Always learn something! That said, I always thought the biggest improvement to braking was tires? At least it was in my case, switching from all seasons to dedicated summer only tires, vastly improved braking like nobody's business.

 

[BmacIL]

First let me say I really enjoy reading your posts! Always learn something! That said, I always thought the biggest improvement to braking was tires? At least it was in my case, switching from all seasons to dedicated summer only tires, vastly improved braking like nobody's business.

Yes, they are. If you can engage ABS at will, higher friction pads will not help you stop faster. There are two reasons for multi-piston (larger) calipers: improved pad wear due to better force distribution and better heat dissipation. They tend to also have better brake feel because of the stiffer caliper assembly, but not necessarily. If you are not increasing rotor size or pad friction coefficient, you will not change stopping power appreciably. Now, there is this thing called "bite" which is different than ultimate brake torque. That's more of a feel thing resulting from the friction vs temp curve of the pad, and the caliper assembly design.

Tl;Dr for the OP: if you want better braking performance, get stickier tires and higher friction pads, in that order. There's absolutely no reason to do GT350 or wilwood calipers and rotors.

 

[Norm Peterson]

First let me say I really enjoy reading your posts! Always learn something! That said, I always thought the biggest improvement to braking was tires? At least it was in my case, switching from all seasons to dedicated summer only tires, vastly improved braking like nobody's business.

It's true that tires set a more or less upper limit here, but having confidence in your brakes to do their job right, every time, starts at deceleration levels a good bit lower than your tires' capabilities.

It's at least partly a subjective 'feel' thing, likely related to how the feeling of increasing deceleration corresponds to your efforts at the pedal. Both in the strength of that deceleration and how closely it follows what you're doing. It's where you just know the brakes are going to do exactly what you tell them to do under very hard braking, and what they do is exactly in step with how you're telling them to do it.

If you've ever been in a situation where you were braking fairly firmly (but still within tire capability and not triggering the ABS) and wondered if you were ever going to get the kind of brake bite that you were expecting . . . that's the kind of thing that hurts your confidence. It's hard to explain, especially to those whose hard braking has been mostly limited to "panic braking" situations. I think it takes direct experience with intentionally hard braking when you don't have more urgent matters occupying your thoughts.


Norm

 

[Norm Peterson]

If you've ever been in a situation where you were braking fairly firmly (but still within tire capability and not triggering the ABS) and wondered if you were ever going to get the kind of brake bite that you were expecting . . . that's the kind of thing that hurts your confidence.

Unless I've missed my guess, this or something close to this is where OP is at this point.


Norm

 

[Idaho2018GTPremium]

The Mustang GT PP2 has crazy stopping power, and it uses the same brakes as PP1, just has stickier/wider tires. Braking from 70 to 0 mph was 139 feet per Car and Driver. Motortrend stopped the PP2 from 60 to 0 mph in only 94 feet. That's supercar territory. The PP1 is mid 150s (from 70 mph) and 104 feet from 60 to 0 mph. Same brakes, and still very good stopping power. If you want better stopping power, get stickier tires. If you want the looks, I don't have any clue as I've never considered upgrading the factory PP1 brakes on my car.

 

[Chris Barnes]

Here's what I ended up doing.

 

[I Bleed Ford Blue]

What did that cost? I'm guessing around 8K

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