Car Brake Upgrades are one of the most important things you can do to get that competitive performance package, also as you add more power to your car's engine; having the braking force to harness this power becomes more and more important.

When you increase the engine power, more and more development work will be required to the brakes to help harness that extra power on the track or road. The next steps which will need to be reviewed, could bigger discs/rotors and possibly uprated and lighter callipers.This is the easiest way to get serious performance gains over standard equipment. But you have to bear in the mind what performance levels your starting with, hence the reference to Budget.

Not only will the uprated caliper increase braking efficiency, but will also help achieve better cooling for the braking system. More cooling efficiency, equals better braking performance. But another effect will also be to reduce the vehicle mass and even the unsprung weight of the suspension. This will slightly increase cornering and acceleration abilities along with the desired braking increase performance. 

From the Disc/Rotor sections on the brakes page, you can see the different options available and like wise possible advantages gained. But if you on a budget, or going to undertake some of the work yourself and if you are starting with a standard road car. Why not look at the more powerful models in the range for suitable performance donors if your not driving a top of the range model already. If you look at the VW group for example, you will see many parts and components are easily interchangeable. Sometimes with little or minimal modification needed.

Some professional braking systems can cost a small fortune and if you have that sort of money, your most likely will have your own mechanic and maybe race engineers, along with that corporate sponsorship deal. Well there is always wishful thinking.

Drilled brake discs are viewed as a good performance brake upgrade compared to standard OEM equipment supplied with many of today's cars. In the world of profits and service revenues for manufacturers, performance is viewed as a premium and normally reserved for the flagship or performance models. 

Fitted as standard equipment on many high performance machines though, this brake design has a number of key advantages compared to standard components and have been used in Rally and Racing for some time now.

The main advantages are as follows:

• The added holes allow for better cooling of the disc, by drawing more air into the internal vanes to lower temperatures.
•  The edges of the holes clean pad surfaces, which can provide increased brake bite. Also increased brake pad friction materials can be used.
•  The added holes prevent gasses/water from collecting between the pad and disc surface, also in wet weather performance is increased due to less surface water building up. 
• The holes reduce the weight of the disk, and therefore its inertia and the unsprung weight.
• The downside of this design, is when the disc is repeatedly used to full capacity. The disc could crack due to the constant overheating and cooling effect. Basically unless the disc is forged with the holes (an expensive process reserved for high performance cars), this could be a negative attribute for endurance or road use. But with new materials and research being undertaken, this is becoming less of an issue.

These cross slotted disc/rotors are quite similar in their goal of trying to increase the initial bite on first brake application. Benefits of removing gas, dirt, water and debris from the disc/rotors and also maintaining parallel pad wear throughout the disc/rotor surface, compared to drilled designs.

This is one of the biggest advantage of slotted rotors, rather than allowing ridges to develop on pads and disc/rotors, one of the most common issues of "drilled only"  disc/rotors applications. 

By preventing these ridges, brakes stay more consistent throughout the pad lifespan of the disc/rotor. Also cracking is not a issue and this is more suited to endurance application.

Extra benefits of a drilled and cross slotted discs/rotors include the effects of the slots have on maintaining a flat smooth pad surface during the pads wear life.  You could look at this design to be a good comprise of the above two designs, taking equal advantages.

The slots encourage the pads to wear with a more flat pattern and the "Ribbing", common with non slotted disc/rotors doesn't occur here. This normally removes the "Record groove" effect of pads on standard plain discs. Particularly around the outer edge and also helps pads maintain better contact area with the disk through out their life.  

There is a good selection of discs to choose from and normally the purpose and the budget will determine the final purchasing decision.

So the next logical step will be to look at the brake pads, but as specified at the beginning of this section; we need to identify what the pads are going to be used for and what type of strains and stresses they must under take. This is one of the easiest car brake upgrades available.

There is a huge difference in the optimum operation temperature of performance brake materials, with cars competing on short hill climb or low lap races wanting the pad to be effective from cold straight away (this is ideal for fast road use also). While others competing in endurance races will most likely have wear rates and longevity as their top priority. 

Also with Motosport disciplines where the Braking system has more prolonged use and with higher operating temperatures. Having a pad which is better suited to these higher temperatures and with the main focus to reduce brake fade over long repeated use. There are multiple different applications, so a well thought out plan is required.

Some of these types of pads will most likely need to be warmed up prior to use, but with all car upgrades it is best to ask the expert manufactures for their advise on the exact component match for your goals and needs.

 Another point to bear in mind is that new brake pads will need a bedding in process to help get rid of the volatile chemical's normally coated on new pads outer surface. 

The process involved is gentle application of the brake pedal to bring the pads up to working temperature and then cooling down. In everyday driving it is advised that no harsh or strong braking application is applied in th beginning as this could score the disc and cause uneven braking in the future life of the pad. Due to the design of the pad, until this outer coating is removed, the pad will not work at optimum braking performance levels.

Another overlooked area is the flexible Brake lines located right near the calipers, these when old are prone to ballooning. This is effectively pumping up the brake lines instead of clamping the Disc/Rotors and will again yield a spongy feel to the pedal with dented performance.

If your going to invest in any car brake upgrades, then replacing these with steel braided outer, Teflon inner construction designs will yield good returns. Especially in term of reliability ,while also providing a more direct feel to the brake pedal.

These will not only look professional and last longer then standard equipment, but also gives back the firm pedal feel with sharper response. This is before we have even really started to fit bigger Discs/Rotors or uprated Pad materials.

Another area I would like to cover is air cooling and ducting, normally in car and racecar design this is factored into the equation from the very beginning, but if your uprating then we need to consider the options. As brake efficiency and maximum performance is not always factored in normal production models.

A braking system is basically a way to convert Kinetic (movement) energy into heat and friction to slow down the car's mass down. During this process heat is transferred to the air, similar to air cooled engines or radiators. 

Buy improving the performance capacity of a car, it is logical to think with greater stopping power comes greater heat levels. Having a good feed of cold air directed to the braking system and vented in a even fashion not to cause an in balance of either side of the disc/rotor will greatly increase the performance efficiency. 

Ducting or specially designed tubing, ran from the front of the vehicle to the wheel arches can be a effective way of helping to solve these issues and will work in a similar way to a cold air feed on an induction system in a way.

Some Racecar designs have used air from the

radiator ducted to the wheel arches, in a bid to help cool the braking system, also specially designed vents in the front bumper can also be used in a bid to keep things cool under braking loads.

Bear in mind vents taking hot air away from the brakes might be a good idea to help maximise the whole system design and make the whole system as efficiently as possible.

Kinetic Energy Recovery System ( or KERS) was introduced in the F1 2009 Season and will see it's return in the 2011 Calendar. KERS effectively is a way of harnessing the deceleration and braking forces, normally wasted in traditional braking set ups, this energy can be stored in batteries or flywheels for short burst of acceleration power.

Although currently restrictive to around 80 BHP, the FIA in a aid to make F1 a greener and more exciting sport, will most likely increase the maximum limit in the future, especially as small capacity engines are introduced.

This may not be a Brake Upgrade you will be able to get your hands on just now, to retro fit older cars, but other types of regenerative braking is increasingly used in new Electric and Hybrid cars to boost driving range. The KERS technology was developed for the 2009 F1 season to boost acceleration performance, by utilising wasted kinetic and friction energies in traditional braking. While other regenerative braking is used for increased efficiency.

Much like the Turbo charger is being adopted now for greener pursuits, you can gain a performance advantage from using otherwise wasted energy and increase overall efficiencies.