TTRS Brembo Upgrade Info

[GolfRRRR1]

I now remember that we have had conversations in the past about pads...specifically the TRW Ceramics for the Golf R front that got replaced by a slightly different compound from TRW. I never got a chance to try the newer verson since my TRW ceramics still had life left in them.

On my OEM fronts I had TRW ceramics for dialy and Ferodo DS2500 for spirited driving that I got free.

I'm hearing good things, from the Macan thread, on running the Powerstop Z26's as a daily, ceramic pad. I've also heard good things in this forum about the Porterfield R4S pads which would seem to perform better than the Z26 and not dust much. With the Porterfield's maybe I won't need to switch to a more agreesive pad...not sure. Still reading. Lol

For now I'm just slowly breaking in this TTRS kit and I'm at around 120 miles of daily driving and each day the brakes seem to perform a little better. This weekend I may go out and do some bedding. I didn't find any for the Brembo OEM pads but I figure about 5 60-10 slow downs with time for them to cool should do.

@GolfRRRR1 what pads are you doing with for the TTRS setup?

Oh and for the rears I did blank Zimmerman coated rotors with TRW TXH1761 Ulta NAO Organic Compound pads

Great question on pad choice.
My kit came with OEM Brembo pads, which I will probably drop in first...we will see. TRW does make a Pro and Ultra pad for our Brembo calipers, was thinking of grabbing those. I'm not a fan of using one brake pad to do everything, kinda like tires and living in the snow belt. I have summer dedicated tires and winter dedicated tires...I plan on having track dedicated pads and high spirited road dedicated pads.
I am currently running through all the many choices of pads for spirited road driving, I want to keep cost down, don't want to spend $400/set for pads when I know the TRW Ultra pads (TXH1600) will meet all my needs (on the street) for $60.
I don't know what to get for the street yet:
TRW Ultra
EBC Redstuff
EBC Yellowstuff
Porterfield R4S
Girodisc Magic pads
Hawk Ceramic
maybe even the Powerstop Z26, or something else.
@MiamiBourne what did you think of the TRW's compared to the DS2500's?

 

[manu97]

Great question on pad choice.
My kit came with OEM Brembo pads, which I will probably drop in first...we will see. TRW does make a Pro and Ultra pad for our Brembo calipers, was thinking of grabbing those. I'm not a fan of using one brake pad to do everything, kinda like tires and living in the snow belt. I have summer dedicated tires and winter dedicated tires...I plan on having track dedicated pads and high spirited road dedicated pads.
I am currently running through all the many choices of pads for spirited road driving, I want to keep cost down, don't want to spend $400/set for pads when I know the TRW Ultra pads (TXH1600) will meet all my needs (on the street) for $60.
I don't know what to get for the street yet:
TRW Ultra
EBC Redstuff
EBC Yellowstuff
Porterfield R4S
Girodisc Magic pads
Hawk Ceramic
maybe even the Powerstop Z26, or something else.
@MiamiBourne what did you think of the TRW's compared to the DS2500's?

Personally, I loved the R4S's. Bit well, but didn't take it to the track, so can't comment on that.

 

[MiamiBourne]

Great question on pad choice.
My kit came with OEM Brembo pads, which I will probably drop in first...we will see. TRW does make a Pro and Ultra pad for our Brembo calipers, was thinking of grabbing those. I'm not a fan of using one brake pad to do everything, kinda like tires and living in the snow belt. I have summer dedicated tires and winter dedicated tires...I plan on having track dedicated pads and high spirited road dedicated pads.
I am currently running through all the many choices of pads for spirited road driving, I want to keep cost down, don't want to spend $400/set for pads when I know the TRW Ultra pads (TXH1600) will meet all my needs (on the street) for $60.
I don't know what to get for the street yet:
TRW Ultra
EBC Redstuff
EBC Yellowstuff
Porterfield R4S
Girodisc Magic pads
Hawk Ceramic
maybe even the Powerstop Z26, or something else.
@MiamiBourne what did you think of the TRW's compared to the DS2500's?

Nice pad list...I'll take a look at those others you mentioned. Especially the TRW Ultra THX1600's.

I had the original TRW Ceramic TPC1633 and I thought they did great for daily driving, barely any dust and didn't have an issue in performance until a specific Bear Mountain Run where I had cooked the pads. To be fair I probably use too much brake...

The Ferodo DS2500's, once they were bedded, stopped great. I never had an issue with them fading but the dust was too much for daily.

Ferodo's I got for free at the time as a friend of mine went BBK shortly after getting those pads so they were handed to me brand new.

For the price I'm seeing on the TTRS Ferodo DS2500's...I don't think I need to spend that much for a perfomance pad so I'm looking for something more affordable to swap to when I want to do some performance runs.

Who know's maybe with this TTRS setup, I'll be ok with a low dust pad for aggressive drives is I can ease up on the brakes...Lol

 

[MiamiBourne]

Minor update:

I’m about 260 miles in with that I will consider the ‘break in‘ period. Pedal feels good but I’m just not sure if I need to follow what was instructed in the ‘Macan’ thread and do some ABS stops followed by a final bled. I’ll probably do this just to calm my OCD. FCP Euro crediting my oils (engine/brake/haldex, etc) helps make ordering more RBF600 an easy decision…

I guess with all that I have changed, front: calipers/lines/pads/rotors, rear: lines/pads/rotors, I can expect some differences in pedal feel. I’m just not that experienced enough to know if the initial bite of the previous setup I had, that I don’t have now, is due to the new stuff breaking in, the pad difference or a little air in the line. Especially since I’m coming from the stock Golf R setup w/Ferodo DS2500’s pads to the Audi TTRS setup and OEM pads.

I’ll try and describe the current brake pedal feel as best as possible:

The initial press is a bit soft but it seems as I gradually press down the braking firms up and I can stop immediately on a dime. I’m impressed how I can modulate the pedal this way and how well the brakes will then grab but I’m unsure if in the beginning of pressing the brake pedal if it’s ’too’ soft.

I’ll probably wait until about 500 miles to re-evaluate.

Thoughts, opinions?

 

[krs]

Why would you need ABS stops if there was no air that entered the lines that far back?

 

[MiamiBourne]

Why would you need ABS stops if there was no air that entered the lines that far back?

I’m not sure to be honest. I’m just going to do these as a precautionary measure…unless by the time I get to around 500 or so miles the brakes feel fine. Honestly whenever I swap pads I feel the pedal is softer than I expect and over time the brake pedal would go back to normal.

You can could say…I’m just overthinking this. But it’s our brakes…so why not. Lol

 

[scrllock]

Minor update:

I’m about 260 miles in with that I will consider the ‘break in‘ period. Pedal feels good but I’m just not sure if I need to follow what was instructed in the ‘Macan’ thread and do some ABS stops followed by a final bled. I’ll probably do this just to calm my OCD. FCP Euro crediting my oils (engine/brake/haldex, etc) helps make ordering more RBF600 an easy decision…

I guess with all that I have changed, front: calipers/lines/pads/rotors, rear: lines/pads/rotors, I can expect some differences in pedal feel. I’m just not that experienced enough to know if the initial bite of the previous setup I had, that I don’t have now, is due to the new stuff breaking in, the pad difference or a little air in the line. Especially since I’m coming from the stock Golf R setup w/Ferodo DS2500’s pads to the Audi TTRS setup and OEM pads.

I’ll try and describe the current brake pedal feel as best as possible:

The initial press is a bit soft but it seems as I gradually press down the braking firms up and I can stop immediately on a dime. I’m impressed how I can modulate the pedal this way and how well the brakes will then grab but I’m unsure if in the beginning of pressing the brake pedal if it’s ’too’ soft.

I’ll probably wait until about 500 miles to re-evaluate.

Thoughts, opinions?

it's really hard to eliminate this completely. the RPV mod in the macan thread or fitting pistons with anti-knockback springs would help. I don't think full steel lines will improve it. The biggest difference I've found is using much less compressible fluid, though $120 of Endless RF650 really stings compared to FCP fluid. I would guess that Castrol SRF might help (FCP stocks it) but YMMV. A second bleed after ABS activation does help a bit. But I wouldn't expect miracles.

 

[krs]

I must be numb to all this, or lucky. I bled the brakes twice back to back and everything feels great. Didn’t even bother with ABS, or coding concerns.

It took me a few hundred miles to relearn how to drive with them, but that’s about it.

 

[MiamiBourne]

it's really hard to eliminate this completely. the RPV mod in the macan thread or fitting pistons with anti-knockback springs would help. I don't think full steel lines will improve it. The biggest difference I've found is using much less compressible fluid, though $120 of Endless RF650 really stings compared to FCP fluid. I would guess that Castrol SRF might help (FCP stocks it) but YMMV. A second bleed after ABS activation does help a bit. But I wouldn't expect miracles.

I feel like I’m close and since I’m using FCP for the RBF600 fluid, I can just order another round and do a bleed. I want to do the ABS stops as a precaution. I have to bleed my clutch anyway so why not do one more bleed. The more I drive the pedal seems to feel a little better so I want to say the pedal feels close to what I would be happy with.

I must be numb to all this, or lucky. I bled the brakes twice back to back and everything feels great. Didn’t even bother with ABS, or coding concerns.

It took me a few hundred miles to relearn how to drive with them, but that’s about it.

I’m pretty sure you did a great job with your install and I’m thinking that most people who do this properly have your experience.

I ran into a few issues (front brake hardline nut seized on both sides and rear driver brake line broke into pieces when removing) and I think that may have cause me to get more air into the system than usual.

Then of course reading about people complaining of soft pedal has probably gotten into my head...Lol

 

[krs]

.

Then of course reading about people complaining of soft pedal has probably gotten into my head...Lol

Quit reading about soft things

 

[MiamiBourne]

Update...

So after driving around for about 500 miles I would say that the brakes feel absolutly fine now. Over time that the pedal feel would get better with each drive. I'm assuming the pads/rotors were just breaking in over time. I had ordered some additional brake fluid since I was going to bleed one more time but it seems I can save that fluid for my annual flush.

I did suspect that giving the brakes some miles would help as it has been the case in my previous experience when just swapping pads.

Brakes feel great though. In SFL, it's hard to give these a good test but I'll soon be driving to Georgia and then NC for WITW so they will be throughly tested there.

For now I'm going to stick with the stock Brembo pads that came with my kit. When I get back from my trip though, I'm definitely throwing on some ceramics as it's all I will need for daily driving. Then I'll look for some preformance pads to swap for when I need them.

 

[MiamiBourne]

On a side note I did get to test some wheels on the TTRS calipers. My friend bought some VMR V810 19x8.5 et45 and he was over for me to install his H&R RSB. I figured why not test the fitment.

These well clear just enough.

 

[MiamiBourne]

A friend of mine got some VMR V810’s that are 19 X 8.5” et45. He was over as I was installing an H&R RSB so I figured why not test fit them. They cleared just enough I think.