Thank you!
Aweeesommmee.Ive been meaning to write up a review but my car dropped a valve at the track and I've been busy dealing with that.
I've been working with Essex for years now and have run their kits on all of my cars as well as customer cars.
For what you get the price is unbelievable.
For the record my car has 19x10.5 TE37 Ultras with 305 RE71R. The wheels are just under 22lbs each.
With this kit most 18" wheels will fit but no 18" wheel can clear the oem rear. They are working on a rear kit to test out that uses the parking brake as the GT350S deletes it.
On my car I was able to melt the dust boots on the oem brembos after my second track day and knew they had to go. The pad changes are a pain in the ass for people like me who swap pads frequently and the calipers and discs are heavy.
There are also crappy pad choices thus far for this car for the fronts. Luckily the rear brembos use the same pad from the new Corvette.
I was running the DSUNO Ferodo pad with SS lines and Torque RT700 fluid and did my best to get these to fade and they would not.
My braking zones also changed completely because I could brake substantially later.
Pad changes are very easy and only take one minute. Also the DS2500 pad is silent on the street but gives you excellent stopping power.
Zitro was right that the GT350S is different in that it uses a Bosch ABS controller which is why I had to test this kit out to see how it would affect the balance. I can say it is perfect. If you think the oem system is good, this will blow your mind.
This system isn't for everyone, if you are not tracking this car heavily or only street your car this is not worth it.
Also before testing this system I was looking at the GT4 Brembo kit. That kit runs a bigger disc but a smaller 4 piston caliper and is well over 6k.
So for the people who feel like this is a lot of money for brakes look around. This is a true race kit and would be at home at any race prepped car.
As far as consumables go the rings are around 400 a piece but can be found for sometimes less through vendors.
The pads available are endless and are cheaper. I'm using the 9660 caliper which is meant for HPDE and uses an 18mm pad. This is more than enough for me but some may want an endurance type caliper below.
There is a 9668 caliper that uses 25mm pads which is mean for endurance racing. The pads are alittle more because they are thicker. The caliper also gives you 14mm less spoke clearance.
Alcon, AP Racing, Brembo, Carbotech, Circo, CL, Cobalt, EBC, Endless, GLOC, Hawk, Mintex, Pagid, PFC, Portfield, PMU, Raybestos and Wilwood all make pads for these calipers.
Here's the oem disc and AP disc, you can see that the disc isn't much smaller, however the caliper is drastically smaller.
I don't doubt it. My main reason for wanting to swap out brakes though is to do 18/11s, and it looks like that's going to take getting rid of the rears. I didn't realize that until I read through your post. I'm glad you wrote this up, I was just asking this question about new brake options for our cars a couple of weeks ago and found nothing. Pretty stoked to see it's moving in a positive direction for sure. The weight savings will be awesome, but my most important thing is to get into the world of 18s and the tire selection that comes along with it. Specifically used race slicks.
Ah got it
Ah there we go!
I also have a set of GS1R comming shortly! What color did you go with? I decided to got matte titanium. I'm also upgrading to R springs+rear swaybar and considering the FP lowering springs when they will become available (depending on spring rate and if progressive vs constant springs).
I' m on that group buy also. I just reread it... only one member claimed it would be linear (post 36) without further details on where he got the scoop. No official word yet... I sure hope he is right.
I went with Satin black. Seemed the most neutral. My car is already kind of under the radar as far as 350s go, and I kinda like that. Haha.
