Ever since our projects, Project FR-S and Project STI got the Stoptech Trophy kit on them and we felt how amazing and confidence inspiring those brakes were, we HAD to have them on the FD. After all, it IS our flagship project and that nickel finish is just way too bad ass and EXPENSIVE looking! Stoptech makes a Trophy Big Brake kit for the FD RX-7 and those are the brakes that we alluded to in the last article our wheels needed to clear!
Fortunately we don’t have to guess or hope they’ll fit; Stoptech makes wheel fitment templates you can print, cut out and check your clearances against an actual wheel. We don’t have any actual wheels in our possession yet so that won’t help us find out if that Super Low center disk on the SSR Professor SP4’s will clear the front brake calipers, but the folks at Tanabe/SSR were able to confirm that the Stoptech calipers will clear the main part of the wheel. There MAY however be interference with the valve stem, which on the SP4 is screwed into a hole in the rim just behind the disk face. This didn’t seem like too big of a deal; if it didn’t fit we could plug the predrilled hole in the rim and drill another on the barrel in front of the face even though that technically isn’t advised from Tanabe/SSR (so don’t try that at home!)
The FD RX-7 came with pretty good brakes from the factory, for the car it used to be, especially for the time. But with nearly twice the power and a lot more rotating mass, the stock parts start to show their limitations. Anything more than normal road duty and the small stock brakes will overheat—boiling brake fluid, fading pedal feel and frying wheel bearings. Stoptech’s larger diameter and wider rotors have improved ventilation and larger swept surface than the stock parts to dissipate heat better. Larger and stiffer calipers allow a bigger brake pad to be used for more clamping force and better modulation and control.
