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Wilwood 4-pot caliper kit


Th3Franz

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Pad shape is 7420

 

I bought the Wilwood 4-pot caliper kit from Eric at brakeswap.com. I wanted to share my impressions and evaluate performance of the kit under the most extreme conditions. :lol:

 

Teaser so far but the kit is on the car. I will post up with impressions in the coming days as I bed the pads and finish some other projects on the car. The first track event is in a week and a half, followed by Road America on the 17th. Last fall I was hitting 130 mph in the straights there. With the new brakes and more power this year, I hope to hit the mid 130's

 

I am running Porterfield R4-S pads for street and Performance Friction 01 for track. The main reason I chose the Wilwood kit is the huge availability of different pad compounds. Porterfield and PF are some of the big names in professional racing. I will be running Centric premium and DBA 4000 rotors for street and track, respectively. I flushed the brake system with Amsoil series 600 DOT4 brake fluid. http://www.amsoil.com/storefront/bf4.aspx

 

My previous track setup was Carbotech XP8 with the DBA 4000. I am also going to look into installing brake ducts. I bought an extra set of fog light trim covers to attach duct hose to and route back to the hub area.

 

http://hphotos-snc3.fbcdn.net/hs416.snc3/25111_936392464917_8607926_55071515_886299_n.jpg

 

http://photos-e.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash1/hs456.ash1/25111_936392774297_8607926_55071534_5182425_n.jpg

CF duct inlets will match the grille

 

More info to come

Edited by Th3Franz
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Update: I performed a double bed-in for the street pads (Porterfields) tonight. These pads are great. I pushed them close to their limit to see how fade resistant they are, and I was impressed. When they are at typical stop and go temperatures, they are very quiet and have excellent modulation. The kit definitely gives better pedal feedback than the stock calipers and threshold braking is effortless. It's a shame Porterfield does not make these pads in stock caliper fitment because they are much better than Hawk HPS in almost every way.

 

We are having a freak heat wave here, but if temperatures get closer to freezing again I'll comment on how the pads perform when they are dead cold.

 

Overall I'm very pleased with the caliper kit so far and it's what I expected: better pedal feel, improved fade resistance, awesome pad options

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I might have to try the Porterfields next time around, I am not happy at all with the HPS and wilwood combo. I think the wilwoods are a good package but these HPS suck, I am having problems with a "shimmy" that occurs about once a week and basically the only way to get it to go away is the re-bed the pads. Not sure the issue, if the HPS are leaving deposits or what. It is an annoyance. Let us know how the Porterfields do in heavy rain, the hawks seem to loose thier bits for the first split second when driving in heavy rain, which is less than assuring in a panic stop situation.
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I ran HPS with the stock rotors during winter and they left deposits. I'm sure the shimmy you are experiencing is from the deposits. If you want better rain performance, slotted rotors can help a lot with that. I did a track day in pouring rain and with slotted rotors and track pads, I had no problems stopping even after long straights.

 

I cleaned up the car today and snapped some photos. I had to fix a small leak on the brake line fitting that meets the caliper. At first, I wanted to be careful not to torque them too much since they are brass threaded into billet aluminum. All good now though :)

 

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash1/hs456.ash1/25111_937220695137_8607926_55099882_1912875_n.jpg

 

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc3/hs436.snc3/25111_937220705117_8607926_55099883_2456103_n.jpg

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I am running slotted rotors, but thanks for the info. That seems to back up by belief that the Hawks are just crap, plain and simple. I went with them after reading so many rave reviews, but I guess my expectations are higher than the average joe. Nice pics BTW.
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Finally some people that agree that hawk hps are junk, If ur driving miss daisy home there ok, lol. But only about 5% better than factory pads. Last time I got blasted blasphemy for saying hps are junk. I'm glad there people who really drive their Subaru.
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^ You might be waiting a long time as I do not believe they have plans to offer a rear kit, and trust me we have been asking. Truthfully I do not feel the front kit upsets the brake bias of the car, so aside from the sweet looks of having a nice two piston out back I am not sure it would result in much of a performance gain.
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It was cold and rainy last night (50* F) and the Porterfield R4-S felt great even on the first stop. I'll be running these pads for a track day at the short track next weekend (top speeds 80 MPH). Other than being a little on the dusty side, they are quiet and have plenty of bite on the very first cold stop. All in all, a great street pad so far. To get them to properly clear the bridge bolt, I did have to grind a 2mm notch in the backing plate with a belt sander. Other than that they are a perfect fit for the caliper.
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  • 2 weeks later...

Update from the track day yesterday. The event was held at USAIR near Shawano, WI. The track has a length of a little over a mile. It is a very tight track, with many turns similar to an autocross. It's one of the best tracks to test brakes because of how tight it is and the lower speeds reduce the amount of cooling.

 

That said, I ran the Porterfield R4-S street pads for the event to see how fade resistant the Wilwood caliper kit is. I ran them with Centric premium rotors up front and DBA 4000 in the rear with Carbotech Xp8 out back.

 

After performing a proper bed-in on the street on the drive to the track, the brakes performed flawlessly. I could outbrake just about any car in my run group, save an Evo with Alcons and R888 tires. :lol: The tires started getting a little greasy near the end of the 15 min sessions, but the brake pedal never got mushy, and the bite of the pads increased as they got hotter. I never seemed to exceed the temperature range of the pads and they did not leave deposits on my rotors.

 

After each session, I was meticulous to perform a cooldown lap and took the car out on the road for a couple miles to cool everything down before parking. This goes a long way to prevent deposits and thermal warping.

 

Overall, thumbs up on the brake kit for track use and I will be running my full race pads for Road America this coming weekend. I recorded some in-car video and I will be editing that later in the week. Also, I saw lots of people shooting photos and taking video, so hoping to share some of those too

 

http://hphotos-sjc1.fbcdn.net/hs404.snc3/24471_942283389457_8607926_55344223_5477845_n.jpg

Edited by Th3Franz
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Yep, it's reassuring the kit has beefy brackets, especially for a car that sees track use. I think they weigh about as much as a Wilwood caliper. :lol:

 

http://southparkstudios.mtvnimages.com/images/shows/southpark/vertical_video/import/season_01/sp_0102_08_v6.jpg

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Ran the PFC01 track pads at Road America last Saturday. Check the photo section for the video. You can see the cars I was reeling in during braking zones, some of which were a GTR and E36 M3.

 

Impressions:

This brake kit is awesome on a big track like Road America. I had plenty of brake torque to lock up the tires if I wasn't careful, but I was able to go much deeper into the braking zones than with the stock calipers. I found it much easier to modulate the pedal pressure compared with stock and I experienced no fade whatsoever. The kit is a great alternative to the more expensive BBK options, and it is just as competent on the track unless you have a fully built race car trying to win a spot on the podium.

 

It was such a cool and windy day, I had a little difficulty keeping enough heat in the PFC01's to get the most bite out of them. :lol: I ran them with used DBA4000 rotors so it took a couple sessions to finish the bed-in. In the final two sessions, they were performing the best and I was very impressed in every haul down from 130 to around 70-80.

 

The pads were fine for driving to and from the track, which was a great plus. They barely showed any signs of wear at the end of the day (80 min total of track time). The rotors did show some signs of wear, so I would say the PFC's are a little less rotor friendly than the Carbotechs I used to run, but I would still describe them as rotor friendly.

Edited by Th3Franz
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