Many years ago, we installed TRD’s big brake kit on our project Tundra, although this was quite a good upgrade from stock with more than adequate stopping power even when towing trailers with a full load in the bed and 4 passengers, after living with it for 10 years, it had some nagging long term issues that bugged us. Mainly the brakes would warp the rotors after about 15k miles and we thus had to change the rotors with every pad change. Even when going with a low abrasive pad, the rotors would still warp and these sorts of pads had poor performance which would cancel out some of the gains made by the big brakes. The rotors would also wear somewhat quickly making rotor and pad changes together manditiory. We talked to our friends at Figs Engineering about the issue and they told us that they had the mother of all brake systems available for our Tundra and also just about any Toyota Truck, SUV, and Crossover. Figs also makes brake upgrade system for nearly every Toyota and Lexus made in the last 15 years!
The caliper used was produced for Figs Engineering by Racing Brakes. It features 6 pistons and a strong 6061 alloy forged body for good stiffness and dimensional stability after multiple heat cycles. The gigantic caliper also has a durable and corrosion-resistant hard anodized finish. We appreciate that because our TRD calipers got cooked and ate up the powdercoated finished when towing and always looked awful.
The RB caliper has hard stainless steel abutments that keep the pad backing plate from digging into the aluminum body and causing inconsistent operation and damage to the body itself. The caliper has a large bridge bolt to keep the body from spreading during hard use to keep a good pedal feel. Large anti-rattle clips put tension on the pads to reduce rattle and brake squeal.
The calipers are radial mount instead of the TRD caliper which uses ear mounts. Radial mounting has the advantage of putting the braking loads closer to the axis of the pads which reduces torsional twist in the caliper body which also improves brake feel.
12 comments
I’m lost on why a radial mounted caliper is better when it has an adapter that bolts in the same as the TRD?
Yeah, technically the mount shouldn’t be much stiffer, but the caliper itself will flex less. Be interesting to see in FEA. To do it right you need a new hub. I always thought the radial design was too make it easier to install bigger discs on motorcycles. You can just shim it instead of needing new calipers.
The adaptor is bridged and many times stiffer than the OEM ears.
Very nice brakes. Really like the front rotor design. Does the master cylinder flex the firewall? There can be huge improvement in brake feel with a master cylinder brace, at least on compact cars.
Nice looking kit. How do you like the yellow stuff pads? I’m going to throw the blue stuff on my lx470 soon. I like their compounds and the fact that their pads don’t delaminate like other brands.
I haven’t run their stuff in a long time, they used to work well but wore fast and were dusty, these seem not to dust so far.
Hi Mike,
Two quick questions.
Do the Fig’s front pads have a similar coefficient of friction characteristics to the EBC’s?
If running a front brake upgrade such as this, with stock rear calipers, pads, and rotors, is it better from a brake bias standpoint to run pads with a higher coefficient of friction in the rear, if you find that the front end now tends to dive, with increased ABS activity under braking? Assuming that you do not want to add a proportioning valve to the system, and you have factory ABS and traction control present.
I don’t know the mu for the figs pads but the EBC is 0.42. The Figs pads don’t have tons of initial bite which is ok because the brakes have a lot of torque and I got the less aggressive of the two pads offered. The system feels like the pistons are slightly smaller than the TRD calipers. I would like to increase the rear pad volume for longer service life to match the fronts.
Not to be pedantic, but I think the yellows are advertised .48 while the blues are . 52. If you can get orangestuffs their mu is around .6
The Current EBC website doesnt list a Mu for the yellow which were recently reformulated. I found some old information that said .42.
How can I get these products 2017 Tundra
I mean we have links to Figs engineering in the story.