Upgrading Factory Brakes

If the time has come for you to replace the brakes on your car or truck, stop and think. How much can you improve the performance of the original setup? Will substituting high-performance aftermarket parts for the factory-replacement pieces make a big difference?

Why Upgrade?
Conversely, for all the cash you can throw at performance parts, it makes sense to keep the OEM hardware if it's up to the task. Think about it—the manufacturer spent a lot of money developing your car, so there's got to be a few good pieces on it. In many cases, particularly the current crop of domestic and import sports/pony cars, there's a good set of brakes on the car, hobbled by organic pads and flimsy low-grade metal rotors. How much better are a set of aftermarket rotors and pads? Consider that the use of higher-quality metal means longer rotor life and even wear, and that rotor drilling and slotting allows the brake pad to breathe better. Upgraded pads will use different friction materials that bite the rotor surface more effectively.


The difference can be seen with hard numbers. We established a baseline with factory disc brakes at all four corners. Our '96 Mazda Miata test car was chosen for its balance, drivability and lack of ABS brakes (which could confound the test circumstances). Wanting to use the best-available materials for the Miata, we dug about online and through catalogs, researching what options we could. The Miata is quite popular with autocrossers and road-racers for it's eminently nimble chassis, but some of the brake parts available were too assertive for realistic street use. Thorough checking did reveal several suppliers of slotted and/or drilled rotors, and several of semi-metal pads. Moss Motors, Ryane Motorsports, Dealer Alternative, Brembo, EBC Brakes, Power Slot and Stillen all had popular factory-dimension upgrade pads and rotors that fit our specified parameters. We have arranged the test stages to reflect use of the upgraded semi-metal pads with factory rotors, followed by the same upgrade pads paired with slotted rotors, as people are more likely to swap just the pads. No modifications were made to the factory calipers.


What about the factory brake lines? There's a section of rubber tubing that connects the metal feed lines to the caliper in the wheel well. This rubber ages and becomes soft, allowing it to expand and contract (in circumference) under pressure and defeat your braking efforts. What if you replace those rubber lines with lines sheathed in braided stainless steel? Finding DOT-legal stainless steel braided lines was not too hard, usually available from the same distributor as the other brake hardware. We installed the DOT-legal braided steel brake lines at the onset of the testing to ensure consistent performance with all hardware tested. The greatest feature of steel braided brake lines is that consistency. Reduction of line-flex improves brake control by keeping pedal feel consistent and linear.

Testing Brakes
The test arrangement was simple: at a specific point on the tarmac our driver would stop the Miata from 60 mph. This was done three times with less than two minutes between each run. The stopping distance was measured each time by Stalker radar gear and averaged for the posted overall stopping result. This was repeated for each brake change, thus the subsequent numbers.


Note: We took the added initiative to conduct our brake testing in a real-world environment. Instead of visiting our usual test track, we performed the 60-0 testing on a private-access road, to allow us to consider real-world braking circumstances. We had slightly uneven pavement, an expansion joint and a relatively narrow lane to work within. No huge expanses of perfect concrete with lots of run-out room for us, just like you probably won't have when YOU need to brake in an emergency.