Project Fiesta ST – Improving the Brakes with a Gold Coast Automotive Big Brake Kit and a Ford Racing Brake Controller
When we last left off, our Project Focus ST had gotten a new set of coilovers from ST Suspension and a few other bits from mountune. Well, the owner of our car has just gotten the track day bug and decided to take the Fiesta ST off the street and build a race car out of it. The car has been getting converted to a real race car at SPD Motorsports and part of that conversion has been upgrading the brakes to bigger units from Gold Coast Automotive with some electronic help from Ford Racing.
Gold Coast Automotive is a race shop run by the Lapp family. Ryan Lapp has been carving out a reputation for the last few years as one of the fast guys for Ford Compacts in road racing with NASA and in TIme Attack. Ryan's dad Mark contacted us to see if we wanted to run the brake system he had developed for Ryan's time attack running Fiesta ST.and we eagerly replied yes!
The Gold Coast Automotive Big Brake Kit is unique in that it uses the stock Fiesta ST stock sliding calipers with much bigger rotors.
Read More About Project Fiesta ST
The new Gold Coast Automotive front rotor dwarfs the stock front rotor at a huge 326mm compared to the stock 278mm. The larger rotor gives more thermal mass and more swept area as well as giving the caliper more leverage on the tire contact patch. The big rotor should make a significant difference in both fade resistance and overall stopping power.
The rear Gold Coast Automotive rotor is a huge 280mm vs the stock 253mm. With all the advantages listed for the front rotors, the Gold Coast Automotive rotors are also drilled and slotted to help evacuate vaporized brake pad material for improved braking at high temperatures. The drilled holes are chamfered to reduce the chances of cracking during race use. The Lapps' race cars haven't had much problem with cracking so we are not too worried. The rotors are chromated for rust resistance and have a unidirectional ground finish to help facilitate pad break in.
These brackets move the stock calipers outward radially to accommodate the larger rotors. The front brackets are machined from billet aluminum and the rear brackets are direct replacements from a larger Ford car.
These spacers move the front rotors outboard so the rotors' friction surface is in the same position as stock even though the rotor is slightly wider than stock.
6 comments
Hey guys sweet build! Do you know if this is the bspec abs module? Or a different one? Looking for the part number!
It ended up not working and no one including Ford could tell us how to get it to work.
Hi:
Could you tell me what is the rear brake braket from? Wich model/year or else part number
From Gold Coat Automotive.
Hi Mike, wondering if you know the owner of Gold Coast Automotive directly? I’ve been trying to buy the front and rear kit for awhile now but can’t get in touch with them. Their website isn’t accepting payments anymore.
I don’t know, this is a pretty old article and it was a small company for a car that ended up not being too popular.