I've had their 13" 1pc BBK for a while now. At first I really liked them. Fortunately I had measured stopping distances with the stock 5at brakes. Once I measured with the BBK I was a little disappointed. Stopping distances increased. I kind of expected this because the pedal had a little more travel after being bled properly which is usually a result of more piston area. Not a good thing with a larger rotor and stock rears. The rotora kit upset the stock bias and increased stopping distances.

This was sort of ok because at the time I occasionally tracked the car and the additional fade resistance was a worthy trade off. As I got quicker and with better rubber, the supplied H2 street pads were no longer adequate, they would begin to fade. So, I ran the H6 racing pad. Fade was gone but I had to deal with a terrible squeal when they were cold on the street. At this point there were small surface cracks but nothing to worry about.

Fast forward over a year. I no longer track the car. It hasn't been run hard in a long time. The brakes developed a new noise along with a shudder but slightly different than a traditional warped rotor. So I inspected them to find a huge crack all the way through the passenger side rotor.

The really great thing is Rotora discontinued this rotor and the new rotor won't work with my calipers. Rotora offered to ship me their new calipers and rotors for only $950 and thats after I pull the old brakes off my daily driver and send them back as a core before they will ship me the new stuff. So my car will be down for a couple weeks.

So basically you have a company with piss poor customer service, terrible business ethics, and a product that increases stopping distance over stock and requires a race pad to work with good tires.

Stoptech is the way to go especially considering they actually pay attention to bias.

 

wow i had no idea Rotora's service is that shitty... newb question but if you dont track the car do you see any benefit of upgrading to a BBK?

 

Yes, to fill out those 19" aftermarket wheels you got

 

haha other than the looks

 

Stock 5at or Brembos will stop just as quick as a BBK. If you have never had an issue with brake fade from repeated hard stops, a BBK is a waste of money from a performance perspective.

 

thanks for the info... i dont drive hard so ill be putting a BBK at the end of my wishlist for future mods

 

damn that sucks...

 

Out of curiosity, what does Stoptech do to prevent any front-to-rear bias?

 

They use less piston area than stock to make up for the greater leverage of the larger rotor. In some cases they give an even better F/R bias than factory. Theres a good article of their testing on a 350z during development including bias and temps with different pistons front and rear. I was told Acura uses a pretty aggressive bias as is so I'm not expecting an improvement over stock but I do expect one over the Rotoras.

 

Here's all you ever/never wanted to know about braking: http://stoptech.com/technical-suppor...l-white-papers

Here is the section specifically on bias: http://stoptech.com/technical-suppor...alance-matters

The cool thing is that you can use this information to learn how to modify brake systems. Not just empty your bank account for a BBK. The #1 lesson to be learned is that it's the tires that stop the car......not the brakes.

 

I wish more people realized that.

The only grey area is the EBD and how it works, if it learns, etc. Since stopping distances were longer with the Rotora kit I'm assuming it does not adapt. Maybe if I had stomped the pedal to the floor instead of barely triggering ABS distance would be the same.

 

IHC, I think either XLR8 or Heel is making replacements for the Rotora.. hmm well I think they are.. I remmeber reading a thread about Rotora not making those rotors anymore and what people can do to replace

 

Fuck Rotora

 

This is one of the main reasons we stopped distributing ROTORA's products: they don't care about the customer (retail or wholesale). The customer service on some of the upper tier management/ownership is awful. We were hesitant to make the switch to STOPTECH years ago but haven't looked back since. They have by far a better product with better customer service and in most cases better pricing. And STOPTECH does a lot of R&D when developing a kit; they do not just take a caliper that fits. They spend a lot of time working to maintain brake bias; this is partially done by properly sizing the overall piston area.

That being said, keep your eye out for our XLR8 STOPTECH 1 piece BBK coming out soon. The final test fitment and evaluation is being conducted this coming Monday, the 13th. After that, we will go into full production.

 

great info, thanks all!

 

Thumbs up to stoptech. High quality products. Had them on my previos car and it was one of the best upgrades i have done.