We had always wanted to upgrade the rear brakes on Project GD STI but were not able to do it. Nobody made a quality rear brake upgrade for the car. We had Stoptech’s excellent front kit but were stuck with the factory Brembo rear brakes. We have always preferred Stoptech for cars using the factory hydraulic system and for cars equipped with ABS and other electronic aids. This is because Stoptech has the ability to exactly match the hydraulic proportioning of the factory system due to their 33 different piston sizes.
There is only one other quality brake upgrade for the GD STI, Essex’s AP-based kit, but we wanted something matched to our front Stoptechs both aesthetically and balance-wise. Fear not, our friend Nikita Rushmanov has recently started a reverse engineering company called BD Engineering which has the ability to make anything from perfectly fitting aero kits to complicated brake caliper brackets!
BD Engineering is a new company but they have already completed many projects ranging from 3D printing large body bucks for aero kit manufacturers, 3D printed large body panels for SEMA cars, to radiators and oil cooler kits. Really if you are reading this, it is amazing how much time and money they can save you by bringing superior products to market with blinding speed.
The GD STI has a unique caliper mount, it bolts to the drum e-brake backing plate instead of the spindle as the regular WRX (and most normal cars) do. It also has a larger e-brake drum than the WRX thus WRX kits won’t fit. After measuring, we found that the newer VA STI’s rotor goes right onto the GD. Due to the unusual mounting, there isn’t much room to do a radial-mount caliper adaptor and with old standard machining techniques, it would be a pain in the ass to make so the aftermarket hasn’t responded and made a bracket even though the GD is a very popular car to modify.
Nikita assured us that this would be a piece of cake to design and make and he first went to town spraying and scanning the Stoptech integrated drum Aerorotor.
Nikita likes AESUB scanning spray. The spray cuts down on reflections and makes for more accurate scans. The cool thing is that it dissipates after a few hours so no cleanup is needed!
5 comments
They’ll fit! When you have that high resolution and quality of scan, it’s basically like working with the native 3D cad models. Excited to see how this turns out.
whats wrong with the factory Brembos (that all the fanboys love)?
We are running much bigger brakes as the car has 2x the power of the stock STI.
Is 7075 the best material to use? What others would work?
metallurgy is a fascinating topic.
For something that isn’t welded yes.