[Author Prev][Author Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Author Index][Thread Index]

Report: Wilwood brakes on turbo GT (long)



As I've hinted at a couple of times in the last months, I've purchased
Todd Candey's four-piston Wilwood brake upgrade to replace the stock
Girling-54 calipers that Audi supplied on my Coupe GT.

This 1985 Audi Coupe GT has been seeing time on the track at local NW
Quattro Club events for most of the last five years that I've owned it. 
In that time I've tried all sorts of pad compounds in an effort to
increase the braking response of the car.  I had reasonable luck with
Hawk's HP+ compound, but it's not very rotor-friendly unless you get
them good and hot, so wasn't an option for street use.  (Ate a set of
rotors in less than 5K miles!)  They were also a bit "grabby" which
caused some chatter under anything but the hardest braking.

I knew that once the car was up and running with a turbo engine,
additional brakes were going to be a necessity.

That led to a call to Todd Candey since I knew he had been producing
brackets for the G60 dual-piston calipers that would allow them to bolt
onto a 4k/GT strut upright.  Todd informed me that he didn't have any
more of the G60 brackets available, and wasn't planning to produce any
more because he wasn't satisfied with the G60's performance under heavy
use.  (Issues with heat soaking and caliper flexing, if I recall
properly.)

What Todd did tell me was that he was finishing up a kit that would use
a pair of Wilwood Dynalite II four-piston aluminum calipers, Goodridge
SS brake lines, CNC machined and anodized aluminum mounting brackets,
Wilwood's PolyMatrix pads and 11" Brembo rotors.

After some deliberation and additional emails where Todd answered other
questions I had, I went ahead and took the plunge.  I am of the
philosophy that you should always have more stopping power than "go"
power, so I wanted to make sure I had the binders capable of reigning in
this turbocharged beast I was creating.  

The brakes are living up to all of my expectations and then some.  I now
have calipers that don't flex and can provide _much_ more clamping force
than the G60's ever could have hoped to.  And unexpected bonus was that
the Wilwood caliper uses a standard pad in the racing industry, and I
can purchase just about any pad compound I want for $30 to $50 an axle
set!  Compare that to well over $130 a set for G60 pads and I will have
paid for the price difference in just one track season's worth of pads!

As Todd Phenneger alluded to in his email about the NW Quattro PIR
event, I spent most of the weekend muttering under my breath "It's like
dropping a friggin' anchor!" when people asked me how well they worked.  

I also mentioned that I had a chance to drive John Karasaki's ur-q this
weekend.  On that car John has the G60 conversion and is running
Porterfield pads in an R-4 compound.  I'm aware there is a bit of a
weight difference between the ur-q and my GT, but in my mind the G60
calipers with an admittedly good pad paled by comparison to the
Wilwood's with "only" a street pad.  (No offense intended towards John
or his car!)

The two caveats with this setup are: a) just like the G60's you need at
least a 15" wheel to clear the calipers (there's gobs of space between
the caliper and rim with my 16" TSW Evo's) and b) since they are a
racing caliper, they will likely need to be rebuilt every 12-18 months. 
But that doesn't bother me since I'll happily dedicate the couple hours
a year to brake maintenance since to go to a "street" caliper like the
Porsche Big Reds would require a bigger investment in brakes (almost
4X's the cost, and you'd have problems convincing me that the Reds brake
4X's better) as well as requiring even larger (read: more expensive)
wheels and tire.

I'll be happy to answer any questions that folks have, but in both the
performance and bang 4 bux departments, I'd give Todd's Wilwood kit a
resounding thumbs up.

All disclaimers apply, and I have no financial interest in Todd Candey
or Vortrag Motorsports other than as a happy customer.

(Todd C., please jump in and correct anything that I got wrong or are
mis-remembering)

-Gary

'85 turbo GT coupe (K26 pushin' it, Wilwood's stoppin' it)
'84 4kq (Rattletrap; painfully less than stock)