Azzzah

Hi guys, for those of you who don't know me, as i rarely post on here! (Im more active on the facebook pages), My name is Aron Burley and i currently race my Honda S2000 with the VTEC Challenge, We have been fortunate enough to be sponsored by Taikyu and they have asked us to do an honest and open review on the KWM inch up brake kit.



So, firstly id like to point out, that we will try our best to be as open and honest as possible. we have currently only used the kit for one event and i will continue to update this post as and when i feel i have more information which is important.



What is it?



This kit is a front and rear brake kit, Which increases the front and rear disc size up to 320mm! it utilises the OEM Callipers and uses a larger Carrier to accept a bigger disc! quite simple and keeps the costs down vs a BBK! the picture below shows both front and rear 'Torque Members' or Carriers as its more commonly known as in the UK.



KWM are a Japanese company called Kiwami Auto Parts, the whole kit is Japanese made and first impressions are very good, the finish is as good as OEM and they do look and feel good! This is the first kit on a car outside of japan!

https://www.kiwami-jp.com/product/inch%20up.html









Why is it Needed?



I'm sure you have read before plenty of times about the S2000 rear brakes and how undersized they are for the car! take that into a race environment and we were killing a BRAND NEW set of rear pads every race weekend! they were reaching temps of over 600°c. you cant do much to upgrade the rears without upgrading the fronts as you will just shift the brake bias too heavily rearwards and you will upset the car under heavy braking. this kit brings both disc sizes up to 320mm, This is an increase of 20mm in the front, and a 38mm increase in the rear. so this kit does shift brake bias rearwards. We did our own calculations to see how it would affect the car. most road cars have too heavy front bias anyway for safety so a slight shift in bias to the rear is a good thing. it put it close to the limit of what we would call safe for a car with no ABS, so we fit a bias valve to the car. however this was left fully open during the entire first weekend, We didn't see a need to shift any bias forwards so i would stand by that it is not needed and the kit is well thought out.



Fitting



I have a couple of photos from fitting the kit, so ill add them here. to compliment the kit we were given some Dixcel Brake pads, RA Compound front and rear. and Dixcel 328 Racing brake fluid



We had zero issues fitting the kit, it literally is just a quick bolt on job and your done! We wouldn't have even needed to bleed the brakes if we wasn't doing a full system flush with the new fluid!







Look at the rotor size difference!





















if your unsure what those 3 colours are on the disc, it is temperature paint which changes colour at certain temperatures.



https://www.demon-tweeks.com/uk/a-p-...t-a-pcp2649-1/



We applied this to every rotor. It is a much better way of monitoring brake temperatures over the stickers you put on the calliper.







Initial testing



We Hoped to book a test day to test the kit before diving into a race weekend, however due to other issues this was not possible. We managed to bed the brakes in the night before our race weekend at Snetterton, The first proper test would be qualifying at 10am Saturday morning!



First impressions were fantastic. I expected a slight increase in brake power but the main concern for us was stabilising rear brake temps! however braking into Riches for the first time and I was shocked! it took a few laps to get used to them but the power vs the old setup was night and day difference. braking zones were now shorter, pedal feel was fantastic and by the end of the session they only seemed to get stronger!



during the whole race weekend we didn't have any issues and the results speak for themselves. We lead our class the entire race, only lost out on the penultimate lap and Ben Morton got through from my own mistake!



Now, usually after a race weekend, we pull the old pads out and they look somewhat like this, the old setup and old pad is on the right, The pad on the left was pulled out of the car as soon as we got home. both pads have seen one race weekend! that is a phenomenal difference and from our initial testing, we believe this kit would honestly pay for itself in no time! one set of pads every weekend vs one set of pads which look like they would last a full season!











now for disc temps... this is what has bought us longevity to our rear brakes! if you look at the 3 colours;

• Green - Which changes to White at 430 degrees C
• Orange - Which changes to Yellow at 560 degrees C
• Red - Which changes to White at 610 degrees C

The disc shows the orange paint was just just starting to go, which would put disc temps 100 degrees lower than before! which is bang on in the middle of our operating range! perfect!





Extended Testing



I will save this space to add any extra data I can gather, I will be doing back to back tests at Anglesey and will be seeing how they hold up long term





Final thoughts



ok so, before this kit, we were spending £150 every race weekend on brake pads, occasionally we would end up killing discs because of the issue and even though our overall braking performance was ok, It could always be improved! I have spoken a lot about how this kit helps the rear of the car as this has been our biggest improvement, However it works very well as a package and our braking has changed dramatically! I would recommend this kit 100% however I would probably stagger your pad compound, it works perfectly fine as I have it, however on the road in damp conditions I would probably prefer a less aggressive compound in the rear! if anyone has further questions or anything then feel free to shout up! Or if they want anything specific testing ill try my best to sort that for you!





For anyone interested in the kit, its available through Taikyu, I don’t believe its on the website yet however if you fire Anthony an email he will be able to sort you out!



Taikyu

Anthony smith

Anthony@TAIKYU.UK

johnckeen

How much is this kit?
Can you just buy the rear/front?

Looking forward to a review after you've used it for a few more race weekends, especially at tracks like Silverstone/Oulton Park which are heavy on brakes.

Azzzah

Hi bud, yeah you'll be able to buy just the front or rear kits. For people who already have a bbk up front and want to sort the rears this will work great!

For pricing email anthony on his email above

Ill be keeping this post updated after every race weekend

SideWaysOnFire

Hi bud, my thoughts are have you used Dixel pads before?
If they were the same pads like for like it's looking good for the kit.
What's the cost of the kit?
Cheers kerp up the good work.

Azzzah

Hi, we haven't used dixcel before however i will say that we were using a very well respected pad before, i don't think i can say what pad it was as they're a sponsor for the race series i race in so i don't want to look like I'm bashing their product.

Prior to this kit our brake temps were above 600°c (i say 600 as thats the highest we could measure to, they could have even been higher!) and no pad would survive that, there are plenty of people who are having the same issues as me with various different brake pads across the world its a well documented issue, so i don't think using dixcel skewed the results at all, the rotor temps themselves are over 100°c cooler.

Iv spoken to Anthony he will be updating the website this week to list it so i will update this post when that happens

flanders

Thanks for the review, seems to be some good info.
Same thickness as stock discs both front and rear? Did you check the weight difference?
Does the front discs use straight vanes?
When you said "braking zones were now shorter" does that mean shorter braking distance or something else?

mtunreal

Cool stuff, definitely interesting for circuit racing. With the upgraded carriers if you didn't want to use Dixel, what pad would fit? Is that the Accord size pad?

pizzai69

Here is some information from Kiwami:


My question is: does the oem dust/heat shields need modification ? (front or rear)

pizzai69

These kits seem to be for sale on the Nengun website:
https://www.nengun.com/kwm/inch-up-kit-s2000
Approx $1580 for front+rear, which is significantly more than the Ballade Sport kits in 330mm front+rear which are similar. The main difference IMO is that KIWAMI does not use an extension bracket to install the caliper, they build a new specific "torque member".

johnckeen

£675 for the rear on nungen seems quite steep considering its just brackets and discs being changed.

Am i being a bit tight saying that?