Stoptech C43 Competition Front BBK Review
 

INTRO/BACKGROUND

I want to give you my experience and review on the new Stoptech C43 Front BBK but first a little back ground. I have been running my 2001 S on the track for almost 3 years now. It has some basic mods and weighs roughly 2800lbs with me in it. I use 200tw tires, 245 front 255 rear. Currently I am on RS4s. Until recently the OE front brakes have been adequate. I was living in Southern California so I frequented Buttonwillow, Streets of Willow, and Chuckwalla. I changed out pads, Fluid, and rotors. I had been using Hawk Street/Race compound pads, Maxima racing brake fluid and Stoptech’s OE replacement 2-piece aero rotor. I also made some custom brake ducts to keep things cool. This setup worked fine for me in the front. I started using Urge designs’ vented rear rotors to get the rear temps down. With these basic mods all was good. Now living in north Dallas I run mainly at Eagle’s Canyon Raceway which is very hard on brakes. Just before I started running there I purchased some spoon monoblock calipers, not to help with thermal capacity but more to takes some weight off the car, add some bling, and to replace 15-year-old calipers. They did just that but didn’t provide any noticeable performance gain. With this set up I was burning through a set of front pads in about 80 laps at this new track. Which is about 1.5 track days. This is No Bueno, as I often do back to back days and don’t want to replace pads every weekend. I was also getting fade for the first time. Needless to say, I needed more brake.

KIT

I originally contacted Stoptech interested in doing a custom kit with their race calipers. I wasn’t really interested in their other kits or any of the other brands. Brad at Stoptech informed me that they had just finished developing a new kit with their new line of C calipers. This new kit uses C43 caliper which is similar to their STR-43 caliper but lighter. These 4 piston calipers are under 5lbs per side and have nice anodized finish. The rotor they spec with this kit is a two piece floating design sized 309mm diameter and 32mm thick. The rotors are also not traditional vaned rotors, instead they have little pillars connecting the two braking surfaces together. These weighed in at 11lbs each. One of the big selling points for me was the pads. At 20.5mm thick and a larger volume these would definitely extend my service life. They give you a choice of their pad compounds and I went with the SR33. The shape is a common shape so you have other options as far as brands and compounds. The kit also included stainless steel braided lines which looked very high quality. This kit was exactly what I was looking for.

INSTALL

Install was pretty straight forward and went together with ease. Slipping the rotor over the hub took some persuasion but NBD. You do have to remove the heatshield which exposes the tie rod end directly to the rotor. This may be a good thing to check when you have the wheel off. One thing I did notice was the pads on the passenger side weren’t perfectly tangent with the edge of the rotor and instead were ~1.5mm off the rotor whereas the other side butted up nicely to the edge. Overall the fit, finish, quality and hardware was very good. I was also just able to run my wheels without a spacer as well. There is about 2mm clearance at the worst point. The Spoons had just a hair less clearance. Currently I am using 17 x 8.5 +51 Advan RSII wheels up front.

PERFORMANCE

After bedding the new pads and rotors (Very Important) per their instructions, I started logging laps. Right away the pedal feel was firmer and easier to modulate. I had an easier time threshold braking and not engaging ABS. The car also felt a little bit more stable under braking as well. One of the most noticeable points on the track was coming into turn 6. There is a big bump right where I needed to brake. On the OE/Spoon set up I had to apply the brakes before this bump then let up when the car became unweighted then get back into the brakes. If I waited until after the bump to brake I would blow the corner. With the Stoptech kit I can brake after the bump and still make the corner. I log data every time I go out and saw about an average of .15 G increase of decel in the braking zones. This dropped my lap times almost 2 seconds! They definitely give me more confidence and I haven’t experienced any fade even at ambient temps above 90F. I have done about 87 laps and about 250 miles of street driving so far and the pads have only worn down ~5-10%! The finish has also held up to the temperatures very well, only the red Stoptech lettering has lost some of its sheen. The brakes can be a bit noisy. The floating rotors click at slow speeds and the SR33 pads can be quite squeaky under light braking like any track pad. If noise is a big concern I believe they have other rotor options and you can probably find a more street friendly pad.

CONCLUSION

This C43 Brake kit from Stoptech met all of my needs and then some. It improved performance, service life, and even reduced weight over the Spoon Calipers. If you are looking for more brake for track use this kit should definitely be considered. Brad over at Stoptech was also very accommodating and quick to respond to my inquiries. The price for this kit presents good value too. They have a matching rear kit coming out some time later this year I plan on purchasing as well. If you have any questions I will do my best to respond. Thanks for reading.

I made a crappy video about them if you would like to view.

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Did you get any details on the rear kit? I too just purchased the C43 kit 309x32. I got black anadized rotor hats with my kit.

I have a few. It will be a 280mm diameter and 21mm thick rotor and use their new c42 4 piston calipers. Which will weigh in at 3 lbs 2.2oz. It should cost around $1800.
Have you installed yours yet? Did you have a similar experience?

I have not installed it yet. Car won't be off jack stands for another 3 months or so. I do think that the C43 kit is gonna be the hot ticket for S2K brake setup from here on out.

As far as the rears goes, it still makes more sense to have a parking brake than not. I hope someone can figure out a good rear brake solution, or a mechanical PB so that we can use a rear bbk (Wich is totally unnecessary...I never experienced any issues with the rears other than running a less agressive rear compund, with or without a front bbk).

I think a parking brake will be optional but it will be an add on piece. It will not be incorporated into the caliper like OE. The rear kit isn't actually any bigger in diameter just thicker.

How much did this kit cost?

Stoptech C43 Big Brake Kit (Front / 309x32mm) - Honda S2000 00-05 | Evasive Motorsports

$2350

The front BBK shifts the brake bias forward 13%. That's not an insignificant amount.

Thanks for the review. My C43 kit is arriving this Wednesday and I'm super excited. Great to hear the result and can't wait to try it out.