S2KI Honda S2000 Forums - Urge designs/Essex AP Racing BBK review

Let it be known, I originally didn't see any point in upgrading as the stock brake balance and with upgraded pads (Project Mu HC+) seemed to hold up fine when working. But doing track work with long braking zones from high speeds and soon moving up to even higher average speed tracks, I was concerned I might have a financial and safety issue with cracking rotors on my hands. Knowing that I can push my car to the very limits without worrying about something breaking is incredibly important to me.

Living in Australia, the lack of local support here for S2000s is nothing new...
- Importing a pair of 2-piece rotors in stock sizing ended up being half the cost of some BBKs anyway (if retailers respond to your enquiries in the first place). So I kept with cheap blanks for the mean time as it was more cost effective and I wouldn't care if they cracked.
- Enquiring with local retailers on their BBK offerings were priced in the $4k bracket. Not really money I wanted to spend.
- Hong Kong/China had some kits made, but NOBODY was able to answer anything about who made/compiled the kit and whether they were track worthy...
- Spoon's 4 pot caliper solution still left the stock thickness and is quite expensive for what it is.
- Other Japanese offerings are quite expensive and to be honest, beyond the fan boys - there's little genuine feedback about the kits.
- AP Racing's own "street" kit although in specification offers better brake torque (I think that's the term?) with increased rotor diameter, the thickness was only 1mm better than standard (26mm over 25mm). And there are similar kits with similar offerings but slightly better pricing and retailer relevant knowledge wasn't as good as the Urge/Essex kit ultimately.

Which brings me to the kit - having sent a million e-mails back and forth, Urge designs were able to answer every technical query I had which light years ahead of what some other retailers were able to do (if I received a reply at all). So if anything about the kit or anything else that they sell concerns you, I would encourage you to shoot them an e-mail as I can ensure they're more than able to answer pretty much anything you throw at them :)

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Anyway on to the kit... I opted for Ferodo DS2500s for street and DSUNOs for track. I received it within the week after they posted it.
The kit contents, incredibly detailed instructions (I'm a sucker for torque settings), and overall quality of the parts is impressive.
To cut a long story short, installation was easy and straight forward but a little time consuming on my own behalf as I wanted to double check everything over.
Although...
- I did find that I needed to tighten the brake lines up more than what the manual said (although the stock line fitting doesn't sit flush all in the way into the brake line, it is pretty close).
- It also took me a few attempts to bleed the system.

On street, during bedding in - it was pretty difficult to tell if I was actually wearing the pads in. Normally I'm use to smelling or seeing smoke but I couldn't see anything. It took me a few more "rounds" to be satisfied but the brakes pulled up great. Most importantly I could oddly "feel" the thresh-hold before ABS engagement much better.
The rotors do seem to rattle a little bit when cold at lower speeds but after speaking to PBOI, this was normal for a 2-piece floating rotor apparently.

As for where it counts, on track the brakes were great. SAU/WRX Club day - Round 3 was earlier this month and swapping over pads on the day was incredibly simple and effortless, one cross-caliper bolt/guide, remove old pads, push the pistons back, slide in new pads. As the compounds between DS2500 and DSUNO are similar, rebedding them in was not necessary.

To start with, I kept the same braking points and soon finding myself coasting a little bit into corners. On top of that, I was not engaging ABS anywhere near as often as I use to which in some corners use to unsettle the car a little bit (most likely driver error going in too deep!). This was great, the pedal feel allowed me to modulate braking much better. Although I didn't find myself being flung foward, I was stopping earlier and able to "feel" when to stop braking? It's a bit difficult to describe. Needless to say, I took out 1st in my class for the day and reached a new PB for this setup (BBK related or not, I don't know but I knew by the end of the day I still had room to brake later).

A week later, H Nationals (Honda Nationals) 2013 saw me move onto R-specs (Hankook Ventus TDs Z221) for the first time. Again, I was braking too early... I was moving my braking points slightly deeper and deeper through out the day and engaging ABS, but to be honest I still don't think I've got them right yet. A friend followed me behind and told me I was braking too early still in some corners. I suppose that's a good thing right? Through out both days, the pedal remained consistent without ANY signs of fade. I don't think I could say the same for the DS2500 compound but the DSUNOs held up great. I only finished 4th in my class and 9th outright but there's more potential in both the tyres, brakes and overall car really. My car was only just bumped into this class due to a few mods so I'm quite happy with the result considering.

Removing the DSUNOs I can see there are some heat spots but the compound otherwise looks fine. Measuring the rotor thickness in a number of places, showed minimal wear (less than 0.09mm).

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WRX/SAU club - Round 3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnoWbZLxlXQ

H Nationals 2013
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEWoX1wXOuI

Hope this helps any people who were originally in the same position :)