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You would expect that something this fast and heavy would require unmanageably huge and exotic brakes. We were expecting to find unobtainium like amorphous carbon carbon rotors and pads and metal matrix calipers, instead we were surprised to find that the GTR was simply equipped with Performance Friction rotors and brake pads! Amazingly the GTR is probably the fastest decelerating time attack car on the Redline Circuit. It can decelerate at an amazing 1.7 g’s with some peak numbers of up to 2 g’s being recorded! It also can be driven hard at racing speed lap after lap without fading.
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| In the front, the GTR sports stock calipers with Performance Friction rotors and Performance Friction 01 compound pads. The Performance Friction rotors are far more crack resistant then the stock rotors and run cooler. The front brakes have ducts to feed them cooling air. |
The car uses Performance Frictions GTR bolt in replacement rotors. The special iron alloy used in the rotors is blended to ensure dimensional stability, strength, crack resistance and a consistent coefficient of friction across a wide heat range. The GTR rotors use all of Performance Friction’s race derived technology and are ventilated with the vent locations and geometry determined by extensive airflow, stress and thermal analysis. The rotor axial and radial runout is closely controlled to a few ten thousands of an inch to ensure nearly perfect balance. The rotors are not drilled but use dimples that evacuate the fire brand area of pad rotor interface like drilled holes without the risk of cracking.
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| A Tilton brake proportioning valve give the driver the ability to manually adjust brake bias. |
The rotors are fully free floated to the aluminum alloy hats to reduce stress on the hats and the rotors themselves when hot. Floating the rotors reduces caliper piston knock back under spindle flex to help keep a consistent feeling brake pedal. A unique and innovative feature of the rotors is that the rotor to hat interface uses a lug system that takes the shear load off of the hat bolts and increases the bearing area so that the rotor float is freer from bind under brake torque load.
These features make a rotor that stops better and runs cooler than the stock rotor which tends to crack quickly under track conditions. What is awesome is that the Performance Friction rotor is quite a bit cheaper than the stock Nissan part!
Performance Friction Carbon Metallic® brake pads are used, 01 compound on the front and 97 compound on the rear. We have personally experienced the awesomeness of Performance Friction brake pads on our own cars and like the fade resistance, rotor wear, bite and release characteristics they offer. Again the Performance Friction parts are cheaper than the stock Nissan units. Amazingly driver Brian Lock reports to us that the Performance Friction pads are fade free and can last several events. Brian also says that the rotors lasted 10 events, after which they were still good but were replaced just as a precaution! It’s hard to believe that this nearly stock system provides better service life stopping this behemoth than the brake system on our flyweight NASA PT and HC race cars! We feel that this makes the Performance Friction parts a viable replacement part for your street driven weekend warrior GTR.
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| In the rear, the stock caliper is used with a Performance Friction rotor and 97 compound pads. These pads have a slightly lower coefficient of friction which gives better balance. |
The Team found that the cars sticky tires interfered with the ABS system and they disconnect the ABS for dry weather conditions. Amazingly this is the extent of the brake system modifications which speaks greatly of the GTR’s stock Brembo system and Performance Friction’s engineering!
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| 18X12.5 Jongbloed modular wheel is 2″ smaller in diameter than the stock 20″ wheels but they can still somehow clear the huge 15″ rotors. The wheel size is reduced to 18″ so a wider selection of tires can be found. The AIT wide body kit is needed to clear the fat 335/30-18 tires. 100 tread wear rated Toyo RA-1’s are used instead of super sticky tires. |
