The Leon brakes are rather good, after a "hoon" with Paradigm I embarrassingly thought I was going to chuck up, redeemed myself by not actually doing so.mmmm no ta i'll stick my stock setup thankyou very much,
works perfectly well with just a pad change
323mm brembo 4 pots with redsturr pads,
hauls the lardy leon down from silly speeds rather well
Super big brakes on a hatchback - reasons why it's overkill?
- Thread starter AmDaMan
- Start date
So less braking effort is required which would make them useful on a track with a lot of hard braking but in reality on a road they are rather pointless?
They are the tarox 10 pots, he got the for 1k in the end after they screwed his order up.
They are the tarox 10 pots, he got the for 1k in the end after they screwed his order up.
Generally, if you want to get a fast car, buy a fast car and be done with it. The amount of money you spend turning a slow car into a good, safe fast car is quite frequently absolutely stupid. I'd say the same to someone who bought a BMW 320i or 330i and set about trying to make it as good a fast car package as an M3.
Most of them aren't worth spending huge amounts of money on either
You sure ?
Yes, it wasnt a typo. They were 380mm
Sounds like a nice setup, is it an off the shelf kit from AP? What wheels are you running to clear the disks? Golf Mk3 I assume?
Some people are idiots and they buy all sorts of cars not just golfs, and I own a mk4 golf (as well as a few other golfs) and I wouldn't call it stupid. Granted, I didn't waste my money on the crappy GTi.
Generally, if you want to get a fast car, buy a fast car and be done with it. The amount of money you spend turning a slow car into a good, safe fast car is quite frequently absolutely stupid. I'd say the same to someone who bought a BMW 320i or 330i and set about trying to make it as good a fast car package as an M3.
Most of them aren't worth spending huge amounts of money on either
But then we would all be buying and running the same cars. Some people just love their golfs and if they want to tune them. My mates £13K civic type-r lost to my last Corrado G60 that cost me £2K and then spent £1K tuning it. You could go and spend £30K on a fast car or you could buy a car you like for £8k and then spend the remaining £22K tuning. I can't really see the difference.
I'm not talking about fade or any other issue, when it comes down to the physics of stopping a car in motion - it ultimately falls down to the rubber donned on the wheels.
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Generally, if you want to get a fast car, buy a fast car and be done with it. The amount of money you spend turning a slow car into a good, safe fast car is quite frequently absolutely stupid. I'd say the same to someone who bought a BMW 320i or 330i and set about trying to make it as good a fast car package as an M3.
Most of them aren't worth spending huge amounts of money on either
Wheres the fun in that ?? I bought a reasonably nippy car and made it considerably quicker, in fact if I bought a fast car I would probably spend money making it even faster, such is the way I like to mess around with cars.
Exactly my thoughts.
I bet the braking is worse with those 10pots too, the bias ratio will have been screwed. The front will now be doing all the work, leaving the rear brakes doing nothing.
Its one of those modifications that is form over function. A bit like most big brake kits to be honest.
Soldato
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Surely if he paid a grand for these he bothered to measure the stop distance before and after
I dont think abs or wheels locking will happen over 50 so for braking from 100 down to zero it should help a foot or two. Waste of money but not useless, unless like simon says he screwed up the bias
I dont think abs or wheels locking will happen over 50 so for braking from 100 down to zero it should help a foot or two. Waste of money but not useless, unless like simon says he screwed up the bias
Oh well this will be a popular post given the above reactions 
Upgraded my Golf's brakes 2 weeks ago to the ECS stage 5 (6-pot setup).
Only problem is getting the darn wheels to fit over them. Got away with 10mm on the front, and 15mm on the back (primarily for the looks at the back), and even then they only *just* fit inside the 18" rim. The stage 5 kit uses the calipers from the Porsche Cayenne turbo, with custom disks (which are massively thick, I haven't measured but from memory around an inch).
The rears are stage 1, which use the same calipers with bigger disks and pads.
I'm told from others who have had the kit and gone to track days that its neigh on impossible to get these buggers to fade, but I'm aways up for a challenge
Was I a fool to spend massive amounts of money on "just a golf" (Foxy!
). Erm yes. But hey I earn it, I'll spend it how I want thanks. They are an awful lot better than the standard mk4 brakes, which in typical VW fashion are in my opinion, underrated for the weight and power of the car.
Upgraded my Golf's brakes 2 weeks ago to the ECS stage 5 (6-pot setup).
Only problem is getting the darn wheels to fit over them. Got away with 10mm on the front, and 15mm on the back (primarily for the looks at the back), and even then they only *just* fit inside the 18" rim. The stage 5 kit uses the calipers from the Porsche Cayenne turbo, with custom disks (which are massively thick, I haven't measured but from memory around an inch).
The rears are stage 1, which use the same calipers with bigger disks and pads.
I'm told from others who have had the kit and gone to track days that its neigh on impossible to get these buggers to fade, but I'm aways up for a challenge
Was I a fool to spend massive amounts of money on "just a golf" (Foxy!
). Erm yes. But hey I earn it, I'll spend it how I want thanks. They are an awful lot better than the standard mk4 brakes, which in typical VW fashion are in my opinion, underrated for the weight and power of the car.
Soldato
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The cheapest way to improve braking would be to reduce weight I think.
It'd be good to see a variety of after market mods compared on cost vs results not just always top dog wins but whats the most practical improvement
I have a test of tyres somewhere where they do just that (goodrich were best in the dry I think) but Ive not ever seen it for brake calipers, etc
It'd be good to see a variety of after market mods compared on cost vs results not just always top dog wins but whats the most practical improvement
I have a test of tyres somewhere where they do just that (goodrich were best in the dry I think) but Ive not ever seen it for brake calipers, etc
![[TW]Fox](/data/man-of-honor/2009.png){kind=avatar}
Those Porsche brakes on that R32 look awesome. Although quite why you'd spend that much time and effort on an amazing braking setup and then fit Kumho tyres is quite beyond me
I love cool brakes, I really want a Brembo GT set for mine but I will never get one becuase:
a) It would be purely cos it looks cool
b) £2-3k could be better spent elsewhere. Like on 16,000 miles of fuel..
I love cool brakes, I really want a Brembo GT set for mine but I will never get one becuase:
a) It would be purely cos it looks cool
b) £2-3k could be better spent elsewhere. Like on 16,000 miles of fuel..
Soldato
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Some would say you cant overvalue being able to stop in time. To be fair calipers can be sold on second hand
[TW]Fox;11898563 said:Although quite why you'd spend that much time and effort on an amazing braking setup and then fit Kumho tyres is quite beyond me
Those Kumho's have actually now been replaced last Monday. The options at the local independent tyre fitters (Micheldever) for 225/40R18 were Goodyear F1's at £109, only had 1 Toyo to match the rears which I got earlier in the year, or... some new Kumho's which were the same as those coming off at £49 each. They are black, they go round and round, and thats almost 2 tanks of fuel so I went with them again
. Besides which I'm looking at some new rims in the near future so didn't seem much point buying premium brand for a couple of thousand miles.