We rounded up and compared front brake calipers for the 350Z from top to bottom: cast-iron
Everyone knows the feeling of never having enough power. But it's a far better feeling than the moment when you realize there isn't enough braking. Unfortunately, that's the case for our time attack project Z. With more than 500 whp and stock, base-package brakes, the car can barely keep itself in check while bleeding off highway speed, little less sustain a hot lap on track.
So we're now addressing the all critical brake factor in preparation for the Super Lap Battle. But there's a catch. We're not building a race car, and we don't want race brakes. The whole point of this project car is to build something that can perform under heavy track day conditions, but still be driven as daily transportation without the race car headaches. This means we needed a brake system that can consistently stop a very heavy full-interior car on the track without fading, provide reliable and quiet braking for everyday use at street temperatures and speeds, and not require constant service or rebuilding like a true race brake. StopTech's new Trophy Sport series of big brake kits was designed specifically to fit needs like ours.
The Trophy Sport brakes are a street-friendly version of StopTech's recently introduced top-of-the-line, track-only Trophy series brakes. The Trophy Sport uses the same lightweight, forged, two-piece, staggered-piston calipers that are reinforced with the same StopTech patented caliper bridge brace and clocked for minimal knockback as the Trophy brakes. However, the Trophy Sport includes amenities like piston dust seals, hand brake provisions and a version of the true full-floating, two-piece slotted differential curved vane rotor featuring sufficiently constrained floating freedom for street use.
If you have no idea what was just said, however badly it was written, it's OK. By the end of this article, you should know enough about basic brakes to blab away like a proper brake geek. To better understand why we picked StopTech's Trophy Sport Brake System and help you better pick the right brakes for your needs and budget, we'll have to go through some brake system fundamentals.
Obviously, the role of brakes is to slow down the car. More appropriately, a braking system takes away the kinetic energy of your moving car by converting it into heat energy through friction. The ability to maintain friction and dissipate heat is what brakes are all about. Brakes can be broken down into three basic components: the rotating assembly like a rotor or drum; the fixed portion with the calipers, and pads/shoes; and the controls that involve the hydraulics, master cylinder, biasing circuit and traction controls and ABS. We'll ignore the control components because few people modify this and it's a big can of worms except to say that the size of the brakes has to be designed to work with the master cylinder size, the ABS and the active handling control system.
The Trophy caliper (top) doesn't feature the gray dust seals on our Trophy Sport calipers
Floating Calipers
Outside of the very antiquated drum brake design, most brake calipers can be broken into two categories: fixed or floating. A floating or sliding caliper is the more economic caliper with two pieces: the inboard portion that houses the piston and is rigidly bolted to the wheel upright, and the sliding component that rides on two slide pins and extends out around the rotor much like a C-clamp. Because of the weaker C-clamp shape and more compact size, these calipers are typically cast from iron, which is stiffer but much heavier than aluminum. Floaters typically have no more than two pistons on passenger-car applications just like on our base-package 350Z brakes. The pistons on one side of the caliper control the clamping force of both pads.
By Jay Chen
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