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Aero Jet,
While I do agree with your oppinion about SloopJohn's post, as an outside reader I did not interpret John's comments as a personal attack on 1) your preferences, 2) your ride, 3) your knowledge of the situation.
I will say however, that his advise is that of a true Saab enthusiast, where we have spent enough time and money on maintenance issues and repairs that we are less inclined to purchase $3000 AP 4-pot brakes for a 19 year old car, unless it is seeing pretty extemsive track use, as is GM's case (who I believe runs 18" light alloy forged wheels from Forgeline, specifically for the track).
That said, the advise you are receiving is just that, advice, which you may disregard at will if it differs from what you want to do. However, one of the reasons that I visit this board so often, is that there is (historically speaking) no flaming of members who are new, have oft repeated or entry level questions, and members are not attacked for their oppinions, and I hope that for the future you can try to remember that we are all in to the same thing, and what a comment like that says about advise you might offer in the future.
That being said, bigger brakes do look very good, exceptional on the C900, as they are my passion. However, the point about trying some good *street* pads, on fresh rotors with good tires is a much cheaper and less intensive solution. Many find that this is a very good solution to get better braking performance, since the C900 is made to be more of a Grand Touring car rather that a sports car anyways. However, if you are wanting to do the supporting modifications to the suspension (why John cited weight transfer), and wheel and tire package to take advantage of this upgrade, then this would yeild significant benefits.
If you want the looks, I can appreciate that, it does look better. However, bigger brakes serve one purpose, and that is to be able to absorb and dissipate more heat generated by the brakes into the air, with the intent to eliminate brake fade. Bigger rotors with appropriately larger pad area lets you use less brake line and pedal pressure to achieve the same braking torque on the wheel due to increased swept area, so the brakes actually heat up less for the same level of braking deceleration, which also means that if you are using the same pad compound (for which coefficient of friction and thus available braking capability is hightly temperature dependent) you must drive the brakes harder to get the most of your brakes, as on a track. The larger components can also absorb more heat, and have more surface area to dissipate is more quickly, so you generally have to drive bigger brakes awfully hard on the street to take advantage of them, which was in essence what John's comment was about, in far less words. Or at least that's how I interpreted it.
So taken all of this into account, big brakes still look better, and work just fine on the street, but I would rather spend MY money elsewhere, as John would.
Let us know what you decide to do, since there aren't enough C900's here with big brakes for me to oogle.
Best,
Drew
posted by 199.74....
, Sat, 10 Mar 2007 21:26:39
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