,
 |
| Cool pro tip, Costa marks the braided steel brake line with a sharpie pen before installing it. This way he can tell if the line has twisted in its fitting when he tightens the line down. Twisting is the number one cause of failure of braided steel lines. Remember this trick and do it whenever assembling AN fittings or messing around with braided lines, its very important! All race car and aircraft pros do this. |
Stoptech also gives the option of either grooved or drilled rotors. We chose a grooved rotor in anticipation of some hard track driving as drilled tends to crack under track conditions. Grooving or drilling helps evacuate the fireband, or the area where the brake pads contact the rotor. This area gets super hot under braking and a lot of ablated pad and rotor material is created under hard braking which can act as a lubricant creating inconsistent braking action. The holes or slots help to efficiently remove this material under braking.
 |
| Costa tightens down the brake line. Costa is one of those guys behind the scenes that you never hear about but is everywhere. Costa is a skilled fabricators of tube, sheetmetal and composites. He also does mechanical work, consulting for Rhys Millen for race support, Dai Yoshihara and is currently Stephen Verdier’s crew chief in Formula D. Look for us doing some joint projects with Costa in the near future. If you need stuff done, Costa does it with a high degree of competence, from race support to building a whole car to just fixing yours. |
Finally the Stoptech kit comes with braided steel brake lines. Braided lines help improve pedal feel because they do not expand under hydraulic pressure when the brake pedal is pushed unlike the swelling stock rubber lines.
 |
| With the line correctly installed, the caliper is ready to go on the car. |
Despite being much bigger than stock, the Stoptech system is still lighter than the stock Nissan brakes. In the front, the Stoptech Aero rotor weights 18 lbs vs the stock 20 lbs. This is 2 lbs of critical rotating and unsprung weight. The Stoptech calipers weigh 13.5 pounds vs the smaller 11 pound stockers. Subtract one pound for the heat shields that must be removed to clear the bigger rotors and you are slightly lighter for a much bigger system.
 |
| Stoptech lines have all of the brackets and stuff on them to ensure a clean flop free installation. The black plastic reinforcements at the ends of the line help it pass the stringent DOT whip test. |
In the rear the Stoptech rotors weigh 16 lbs vs the stock 19 lbs. The stock iron rear calipers are 6 pounds and the much larger 2 piston Stoptechs are 6, subtract a pound for the heat shield and you end up 4 pounds lighter than stock. 4 pounds less total unsprung weight and 3 pounds less rotating weight with much larger better performing brakes is pretty impressive.
 |
| We almost forgot to show you what the stock brakes look like. They are a lot smaller than the Stoptechs! |
