Engineering certificate for brake upgrade from SS to Brembo brakes ?!

[Skylarking]

Nope wasn’t impressed at all with any Police spec system.

Out of curiousity, what didn’t impress you, was it peddle feel, stopping distance or something else?

The police only care about stopping distance, performance under pursuits and obviously cost effectiveness of the package. Otherwise the police would buy Ferrari pursuit vehicles with big disc carbon/carbon brakes (and wait for the US equivalent of the paddy wagon to arrive and take away the perp).

 

[Ron Burgundy]

The single piston bigger disc “cop” option would be a great package likely as good in performance as the Brenbo’s (but not as nice looking if that’s the aesthetics you’re wanting).

It would be interesting to read what the US cop brake tests are like as the cars they purchase go through a test acceptance since cops want their cars to be able to handle pursuits.

Performance wise, i thought the cooling capability was primarily rotor dependent while the pad compound defined at what temp pads started to work well and when fade started to occur.. IIRC correctly, disc sizes are the same between cop and redline.

Some not so light reading on brake pads tests for the Mitigan Police that we’re done in 2010 can be found here.

[edited to add link]

My 'heavy duty brakes' have 345mm front rotor...so just a bit smaller than the redline in the front. Brake pads have the same compound as redline setup i.e. ferodo HP1000

 

[woooo]

Out of curiousity, what didn’t impress you, was it peddle feel, stopping distance or something else?

The police only care about stopping distance, performance under pursuits and obviously cost effectiveness of the package. Otherwise the police would buy Ferrari pursuit vehicles with big disc carbon/carbon brakes (and wait for the US equivalent of the paddy wagon to arrive and take away the perp).

There was almost no feel of performance gain, actually the smell of burning brakes and smoke coming from the car is a good indicator of terrible performance under heavy use. Not worth the penny. Take into account the added weight to the vehicle too. Anyway, a lot of the traffic cars are the performance cars like HSV etc. So they have AP brakes anyway.

My 'heavy duty brakes' have 245mm front rotor...so just a bit smaller than the redline in the front. Brake pads have the same compound as redline setup i.e. ferodo HP1000

Are you sure yours are 245mm I thought it would be something like 345mm...

 

[Ron Burgundy]

There was almost no feel of performance gain, actually the smell of burning brakes and smoke coming from the car is a good indicator of terrible performance under heavy use. Not worth the penny. Take into account the added weight to the vehicle too. Anyway, a lot of the traffic cars are the performance cars like HSV etc. So they have AP brakes anyway.



Are you sure yours are 245mm I thought it would be something like 345mm...

Ooooops 345mm i meant

 

[PeteSS]

Not sure if we'e talking about the same brake set up, though i had a VF SS which was ordered from factory by the dealer as a cop car, and sold new to me. The brakes were noticeably better when compared to the standard SS brakes. The Brembo's on my VF2 are even better, but the cop brakes were more than capable as far as I'm concerned

 

[Skylarking]

...actually the smell of burning brakes and smoke coming from the car is a good indicator of terrible performance under heavy use...

I did read a page earlier today when looking for the Michigan Police test reports re brakes but now I can’t find that page again (google is odd that way).

Anyway it talked about pad conditioning and rotor seasoning (my terms not theirs). Brake pad conditioning is done by progressively heating them up to get rid of compounds associated with adhesive. If not done, you get horrid smells and in some cases the pads/brakes burst into flames after heavy use and then directly parked. Rotor seasoning ensures microscopic bits of pad embed into rotor as pad wears so full contact between pad and rotor can occur. Some recommend up to 200 stops before your good to go...

The amount and style of braking to achieve pad conditioning and rotor seasoning differed between manufacturers as they each have their own ideas.

In any case, it may be that the smell you experienced was due to the pads being too new and not pad compound had not been well conditioned.

Or they were crap pads.

 

[Skylarking]

Ooooops 345mm i meant

sounds more like it

A 345 verses 355 rotor doesn’t sound huge but the larger would allow better cooling (all other things being equal). How much better, don’t know...

I’d think but even spirited road use should not see any problems with the 345 cop brakes which are tested and shown to handle 10 + 10 repeated stops from 100kph without drama...

 

[woooo]

sounds more like it

A 345 verses 355 rotor doesn’t sound huge but the larger would allow better cooling (all other things being equal). How much better, don’t know...

I’d think but even spirited road use should not see any problems with the 345 cop brakes which are tested and shown to handle 10 + 10 repeated stops from 100kph without drama...

Yeah this is the issue with their testing. A stop from 100km/h is fine. But real world driving conditions especially in policing are not from a constant speed to a stop. The problem with all of these low end brake setups is the added weight transfer from accelerating hard and then stopping hard. See how quickly they fade when you are pushing the weights around like that 10 times in a row not as effective. For road use they are fine... not only do the brakes need to slow a moving force but they need to slow a force plus the acceleration of that force (first slowing the acceleration then slowing the weight of vehicle force moving).

Almost worse scenario than tracking it...

 

[phantom0817]

Yeah this is the issue with their testing. A stop from 100km/h is fine. But real world driving conditions especially in policing are not from a constant speed to a stop. The problem with all of these low end brake setups is the added weight transfer from accelerating hard and then stopping hard. See how quickly they fade when you are pushing the weights around like that 10 times in a row not as effective. For road use they are fine... not only do the brakes need to slow a moving force but they need to slow a force plus the acceleration of that force (first slowing the acceleration then slowing the weight of vehicle force moving).

Almost worse scenario than tracking it...

Exactly. Given that an SS is on 245s I strongly suspect traction is the biggest limitation on one off emergency braking distance, not rotor size or pad compound. I question the need to perform repeated 100-0 emergency braking in daily responsible driving (ie. not towing, not tracking and not descending mountains). Similarly I suspect there is little to no difference in feel or performance in non specialist, responsible, daily street driving.

 

[Ron Burgundy]

Exactly. Given that an SS is on 245s I strongly suspect traction is the biggest limitation on one off emergency braking distance, not rotor size or pad compound. I question the need to perform repeated 100-0 emergency braking in daily responsible driving (ie. not towing, not tracking and not descending mountains). Similarly I suspect there is little to no difference in feel or performance in non specialist, responsible, daily street driving.

Maybe someone needs to lend me their Redline for a day with a full tank of petrol. I ll do the testing and in return do a write up