Project Tundra: Fixing the Brakes with Stoptech

by Mike Kojima

So as we alluded to in our last article, our powerful supercharged Tundra without a limited slip was continually activating the Trucks electronic nannies.  With the more powerful engine, the electronic LSD was working the rear brakes constantly trying to keep one tire fire under control and with the added cornering forces that our bigger tires allowed, the stability control was grinding away at the front brakes in tuns all the time.  The electronics were probably causing the brakes to be used at twice the normal rate.

We had tackled some of the issue by limiting body roll with a Sequoia front and TRD rear anti sway bar and turning up the stiffness of our King Adjustable shocks.  Adding an Auburn Gear Limited Slip Differential also helped a lot to keep the electronics from grinding away at our brakes.  However our brakes and rotors were shot with the rear brakes worn to the backing plates and we had to replace those ASAP.

We turned to Stoptech for some help in the brake replacement department with some new rear sport rotors and some less aggressive brake pads in the hopes of reducing brake dust and rotor wear for this brake service period.

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For the massive 406x35mm front rotors we simply bought some new front TRD big brake rotors from our local Toyota dealer.  One cool thing about TRD parts is that service parts are easy to obtain conveniently. 

Our rear brake rotors were once again provided by Stoptech from their Sport Rotor catalog.  Stoptech Sport rotors are made with high quality dimensionally stable, wear resistant iron alloy with a high carbon and molybdenum content.  We previously had ran slotted rotors but we replaced them with drilled rotors mostly for cosmetic reasons to match the front rotors. For race cars we prefer slotted rotors because of their resistance to cracking but since this is our truck, not a race car we decided to try drilled this time. The rotor's friction surface is drilled to disperse vaporized brake pad material under hard braking.  The holes also help evacuate water making them work a little better in the wet.  To help resist cracking the drilled holes are chamfered to reduce the stress riser created by the edge of the hole. The non friction surfaces of the rotors including the internal venting are e-coated for rust resistance.

For pads we opted for Centric (Stoptech's OEM replacement pad division) Posi Quiet extended wear brake pads.  These pads are designed to have low rotor wear, quiet operation, long pad life and low dusting, while still having a decent level of performance.  They are ceramic with some metallic content.  While we know that these pads won't have the track performance of the TRD pads they are replacing, we do know they will last a lot longer and not chew up the rotors as badly.

What we do like about Centric is they make Posi Quiet pads for the high performance six piston caliper our brake kit uses. We can accept the fact that we will give up a little fade resistance and bite for much longer service life of these expensive rotors and the huge TRD brake kit will still give vastly better than stock brake performance even with a less hardcore pad.  If we decided to enter our truck in time attack, we can always switch back to race pads!  Just reducing the amount of yucky black and corrosive iron based brake dust will be a great assist for our truck which is also nearly a daily driver.