4 Piston Brake Kits for a 2010 MS3 (and what happens when you push the stock brakes as far as they will go)

[Reedy]

Ok I have started shopping around for some 4 piston brakes because I have reached the limits of what the stock ones can handle at the track. With racing compounds and rotors the stock brakes flex way too much on their guide pins and that causes the pads to wear very unevenly.

By that I mean this:


Here's a video showing the way the caliper flexes once the pads have worn unevenly.

Brake Caliper Flex - YouTube

Brake Caliper Flex - YouTube

That is all caused by me doing this:

Hothothothot! - YouTube

Hothothothot! - YouTube

That is using Project Mu Club Racer Pads with DBA4000 slotted Rotors. Combined with Yokohama A050 semi slicks you can see why my brakes are copping a bit of a flogging. They actually do a fantastic job of pulling the car up, the problem is with excess heat causing my ABS sensors to start melting, and rapid/uneven wear of consumables - this alone could justify the cost of a big brake kit.

So far here in Australia I have been quoted the typical range of incredibly overpriced bullshit and a big problem is the lack of aftermarket brake kits for this car. I can get Alcon or AP racing kits made up but they need custom brackets to be fabricated in order to fit. Quotes i've had range around the $3500au mark which is roughly equal to the American national debt once you convert the currencies.

Consumables can also cost quite a lot with these setups so ideally I would want something that have alternate rotors (DBA5000 preferred) and pads available.

TLDR: Who knows of/sells a bolt on 4pot brake kit for a 2010 MS3/MPS?

[Tokay444]

You'd have more even wear without slotted rotors.
Pads don't gas like they used to. Slots really aren't. Relevant anymore.

[kritz]

Rotors are consumables don't spend the big bucks on the rotating mass.

[helmetface]

Originally Posted by kritz Rotors are consumables don't spend the big bucks on the rotating mass.

Exactly, Centric OEM's

Gen1 is ~$45 for a rear, ~$75 for a front..Pu is probably close.

[LittleredMPS]

Interesting information....Appreciated.

[Nliiitend1]

How much thought/effort have you expended in the arena of brake cooling?

I know a few guys have had some luck with makeshift cooling ducts...

It might bring the temps down to a more manageable level (i.e., more what you'd see if you were still on street tires), and would be a lot cheaper than a "big brake" kit.

[Reedy]

The caliper flex is the main problem I want to fix and the only way to fix that is to get rid of the floating caliper that our cars come with. Brake ducting is something I am looking into but doesn't change my overall goal.

[TRex]

StopTech Big Brake Kit Mazdaspeed 3 MS3

KSport ProComp Big Brake Kit BBK Mazdaspeed 3 MS3

those ksports are 8 piston and i would personally love to pick up that set...not sure if they fit pu's, but i dont see why they woudnt

[Todd98SE]

I had Fastbrakes on my Sentra racecar and they were awesome. Great company to deal with and relatively cheap for what you get. If you are a NASA member they offer discounts also.

13" rotor with 4/6 piston Wilwoods.
2007-2008 Mazdaspeed3 13" 4 piston performance big brake kit

or Wilwood 6 piston Dynapro's that work with the stock rotors.
2007-2008 Mazdaspeed3 6 piston performance brake kit

Stoptechs are great too. I have no experience with the Ksports but I would pass on them, they are Ksports..........

[MSP611]

evo brembo caliper conversation??? cost 3-500 bones plus a little stock bracket modding.z there's right ups on here...

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[daafisch]

I've been experiencing the same thing when it comes to pad wear. No way I can afford a big brake kit though. I plan on doing something like brake ducts as well next season.

[Lex]

Originally Posted by Todd98SE I had Fastbrakes on my Sentra racecar and they were awesome. Great company to deal with and relatively cheap for what you get. If you are a NASA member they offer discounts also. 13" rotor with 4/6 piston Wilwoods. 2007-2008 Mazdaspeed3 13" 4 piston performance big brake kit or Wilwood 6 piston Dynapro's that work with the stock rotors. 2007-2008 Mazdaspeed3 6 piston performance brake kit Stoptechs are great too. I have no experience with the Ksports but I would pass on them, they are Ksports..........

Great info. I am quite interested in the Dynapro's with the stock rotors as well. Do you know the overall piston surface area and/or if we need bias adjustment? Also very curious if they'd clear stock wheels which is doubtful.

[Todd98SE]

Caliper flex also causes pad knockback giving an inconsistent pedal which really screws you if you late brake a lot. The OEM caliper is really beefy, I wouldn't have thought it would flex that badly.

Originally Posted by Lex Great info. I am quite interested in the Dynapro's with the stock rotors as well. Do you know the overall piston surface area and/or if we need bias adjustment? Also very curious if they'd clear stock wheels which is doubtful.

Lex, i'm not sure about the bias adjustment. I'm sure there are Dynapro dimensions available on the internet so we can measure piston size vs. OEM and compare.

Edit: Found it. http://www.wilwood.com/Calipers/Cali...%20Lug%20Mount
They come in 3 different piston area sizes, I have no idea what size the Fastbrakes kit uses.

[Reedy]

Originally Posted by Todd98SE Caliper flex also causes pad knockback giving an inconsistent pedal which really screws you if you late brake a lot. The OEM caliper is really beefy, I wouldn't have thought it would flex that badly. .

It's not the actual caliper that's flexing, it is play in the guide pins that is causing it.

[TRex]

^custom guide pins?

[anavrinIV]

Originally Posted by MSP611 evo brembo caliper conversation??? cost 3-500 bones plus a little stock bracket modding.z there's right ups on here... Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk 2

I've done some measurements and it's not that easy on 3s. It work on the 6s, but the bolt spacing for the 3s is completely different and would require custom brackets at the very least

[Lex]

The guide pins are surprisingly small and on top of this the spring in front of the caliper does way too much of the work on the outside to keep the assembly together.

[SFWD 1934]

I am having the brackets machined now. I have a kit that will be Wilwood 6 piston in the front and Wilwood 4 piston in the rear. The rear will come with an additional bracket adapter to facilitate the parking brake so it can still be used. I did not want to oversize the calipers compared to the stock master cylinder bore/stroke.

These will work with stock sized rotors. They should also help with cooling and any additional warping from the stock calipers retaining all that extra heat.

Jason

[MSP611]

Originally Posted by SFWD 1934 I am having the brackets machined now. I have a kit that will be Wilwood 6 piston in the front and Wilwood 4 piston in the rear. The rear will come with an additional bracket adapter to facilitate the parking brake so it can still be used. I did not want to oversize the calipers compared to the stock master cylinder bore/stroke. These will work with stock sized rotors. They should also help with cooling and any additional warping from the stock calipers retaining all that extra heat. Jason

price for tht whole kit and caboodle?

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[Reedy]

Originally Posted by SFWD 1934 I am having the brackets machined now. I have a kit that will be Wilwood 6 piston in the front and Wilwood 4 piston in the rear. The rear will come with an additional bracket adapter to facilitate the parking brake so it can still be used. I did not want to oversize the calipers compared to the stock master cylinder bore/stroke. These will work with stock sized rotors. They should also help with cooling and any additional warping from the stock calipers retaining all that extra heat. Jason

Who is doing that for you? Got a link? The brackets are the main sticking point, if we can get that sorted out for a reasonable price then we can pretty much pick whatever caliper and rotor combination we want.

Gen I or II?

[SFWD 1934]

@MSP611 @Reedy

Give me until the end of next week. The brackets should be done for the rear by then. The fronts are done. These should work on both a Gen 1 and Gen 2. I do not know if I am allowed to post anything about pricing? If I am OK to do so, then I will. I am sure you will be pleasantly surprised by the cost of the entire kit, which will also include stainless steel lines. If you want to see them in person and are attending the Mazfest, they will be on my car at the event (Please note that I am not participating in the track day event, I have a booth).

Jason

[Mizzle]

tl:dr

I've had my Gen1 for 70,000 miles and my pads don't wear like that. It's almost like one size is seized on the slide.

[Macedawg]

Porsche Cayenne brakes are doable..

Brembo 6pot on MS3

[Todd98SE]

Originally Posted by Mizzle tl:dr I've had my Gen1 for 70,000 miles and my pads don't wear like that. It's almost like one size is seized on the slide.

Do you track your car like the OP does? This isn't something that will happen from street driving.

[Reedy]

Originally Posted by Mizzle tl:dr I've had my Gen1 for 70,000 miles and my pads don't wear like that. It's almost like one size is seized on the slide.

It doesn't happen on the street, I have 2 sets of pads and rotors that I swap out for track days and my street gear has never shown any signs of this.

[speedms6]

nothing good to add at all to this, but that's a sweet pic

[Tomas]

Well, Billabong, I have a few comments for you. This is all my opinion so you can completely disregard it if you want but I have a lil bit of experience on this brake system doing road racing type of track work.

1. The vid you posted is not an accurate representation of caliper flex. The unevenness of the pad is what is causing the caliper to clamp at an angle. If you used an even pad it would not look like that. I've gone through 2 set or Carbotechs. 1x XP10 and 1x XP12 in the fronts and a set of Hawk DCT70 (or so - don't remember now) in the front. On top of that about 4 sets or OEM rotors. Never had uneven wear to the degree you are having. You might want to try a different set of pads. Can't comment on those MU Club race pads since I've never heard of them. I'd try another brand before you upgrade depending on what you intend to do with this car. For stock turbo I would not upgrade the brake system. If you have bigger power goals it's a different story.

2. Brake ducts are a cost effective solution even if you decide to upgrade with a BBK at some point.

Link here: MS3 Brake Ducts

3. For the rear you can get 2008.5 and later model Mazda5 rear rotors and caliper brackets. That will also help a little applying more brake torque to the rear. Stock system biases too much to the front. The calipers will have the same clamping force but due to the higher distance from the hub it will exercise more torque on the rotors /wheels. Think of it as more leverage.

Link here: Mazda 5 rear brake conversion

4. The fastbrakes Willwood kits aren't very good from what I have seen. I know someone running them and they worked worse than stock. The pads are very narrow and only clamp about 3/4 of the rotor. You will see about 20mm on the inside area of the rotor that does not get any wear after driving with this kit for a while. Fluid started boiling, dude had the fastbrakes guy make titanium shims to prevent heat transfer. Did not help much. Don't know of anyone else using the willwood kits for road racing so may be 1 review of them is not conclusive.

5. I have a stoptech 332mm kit waiting for install. I got it cheap so I am sticking with it. If I had to start from scratch I'd get Cayenne calipers. 18ZL with 355mm rotors for 18" wheels or 17ZR with 330mm rotors for 17" wheels. I haven't figured out how all the piston area / quantity / effect of rotor diameter work together yet but a guy in the Ukraine says the 18ZL work fine. Piston area sum of the 18Zl come closer to stock so that might yield a better pedal feel.

Ukraine style: Brembo 6pot on MS3

[SarcasticOne]

Huzzah for Australia's resident racecar driver getting answers

[Reedy]

Originally Posted by Tomas 1. The vid you posted is not an accurate representation of caliper flex. The unevenness of the pad is what is causing the caliper to clamp at an angle. If you used an even pad it would not look like that. I've gone through 2 set or Carbotechs. 1x XP10 and 1x XP12 in the fronts and a set of Hawk DCT70 (or so - don't remember now) in the front. On top of that about 4 sets or OEM rotors. Never had uneven wear to the degree you are having. You might want to try a different set of pads. Can't comment on those MU Club race pads since I've never heard of them. I'd try another brand before you upgrade depending on what you intend to do with this car. For stock turbo I would not upgrade the brake system. If you have bigger power goals it's a different story.

Yes the uneven pad is causing the flex in the video but it is the flex under heavy load that is causing the pad to wear unevenly in the first place. That video shows its final resting position if you will.

I agree that the brakes don't need to be upgraded in one sense, they have great stopping power as they are, my wheels lock up long before my brakes run out of stopping power but that doesn't address the issue at heart. I didn't notice the QFM pads I used to use wearing unevenly but I only noticed this was happening by chance so they could well have been doing the same thing all along (I was using street tyres back then tho so things were a lot more tame). No doubt it is accentuated with the Pmu pads, as the stopping force they possess is miles above any street pad I have used. Combined with best-on-the-market semi slicks means the forces my car is being subjected to have steadily grown.

[Haltech]

Weird my pads wore more evenly length wise, opposite of yours. The front inside pads on mine were slightly worn more on the tops of inner and outer pad.

[Easter Bunny]

Are you certain that both pistons in the caliper are working properly?

edit: im stupid it is a single piston

[Tomas]

There is only 1 on the MS3

[Easter Bunny]

I stand corrected, I wrongly assumed that it would have been 2 piston. i guess the single piston is contributiong to the problem.

[bertrand_CX_7]

Michael Cooper Mazdaspeed 3 @1:05

The Michael Cooper Story

The Michael Cooper Story

But outch the price......

[naoandlater]

Not sure if its a bolt on but I've seen Civic Type-R (FD2R) Brembos on the front of a gen one.

[Reedy]

Originally Posted by bertrand_CX_7 Michael Cooper Mazdaspeed 3 @1:05 The Michael Cooper Story But outch the price......

How much are those stop techs? Most ive seen are about $2000 and that's in my price range.

[Tokay444]

If you're serious about getting really serious (and want to switch calipers for track days) you need AP racing brakes.

[Reedy]

What sets them apart from an equivalent Alcon/Brembo/Stop Tech or Willwood setup?

[Todd98SE]

Originally Posted by Reedy What sets them apart from an equivalent Alcon/Brembo/Stop Tech or Willwood setup?

IMHO nothing. All will work superbly if properly sized for the application.

[Tokay444]

It's the little things. They add up.
Essex - AP Racing CP8350