A4 1.8 T Brake Upgrades.

Paul McCleary

Paul McCleary

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I've been trying to buy a brake upgrade package for my 2WD A4. So far all I've had is very long lead times (i.e 4months) or failure to return my calls.
I've decided to give up on the kit idea and look for compatable OE bits as opposed to hard to get race parts.
So the question is, what Porsche based upgrades should I be looking for? The car is running 18" rims and I'd like the disks to be about 350x32mm ish. The question stands for the rear brakes as well as the rear discs are tiny.

Thanks in advance.

Paul.:cool:
 
Are you wanting functional brakes, or bling?

The rear is a big sticking point on a FWD, although if your willing to set to work with a lathe and some ingenuity you'll be able to knock something together. If your wanting the buy something off the shelf and glue it on, you wont.

For the fronts, i'd upgrade the uprights to B6 alloy ones, then install some B6 S4 calipers. 345x30mm, cheap pads and sensibly priced calipers.

For the rear, you can go to 280mm using S8 carriers and B5 S4 calipers, however you'll need to **** around with making the disk and hub to fit, as the quattro rear disks wont fit. If you want to go bigger still then you could use facelift S4 rears, plus a spacer bracket, and again, do the sums and find a disk that will fit, then crack the lathe out and mate it all together.
 
Function over form. I'm really heavy on brakes. I always have been.
I will be using the A4 to do some sprints and trackdays in until I finish my S2. The brakes will have to work for their money and whatever caliper I end up using, there must be a race spec pad availible for it. That why I thought about going the Brembo route as the pads and parts are easy to get. I've just no idea what combination of caliper and disc to buy.
Are the S4 calipers 4 pots or are they a sliding unit? If they are sliders, I'm not sure if they will be stiff enough for track work?
 
Then has stated upgrade the uprights to either B6 or B5 RS4/S4 uprights which will allow you to upgrade the brake to the bigger engine brake setup from either the B5 RS4 which offer race pads if needed, RS4 B7 which are 8 pot brembo's and again offer race pads if needed or you could run the B6/B7 S4 brakes but not sure if you can get race pads for these.

Edit:

Just thought you could also buy Porsche brakes which people offer custom carriers to fit on the uprights from the above cars.
 
Last edited:
Pad choice is a viable reason for using porsche bits.

One option is to use Porsche Cayenne 6 pots (also fitted to Audi Q7 and the Touareg), along with a suitable disk (machined down RS4's, JHM's custom disk, or Some merc disks all work) The calipers are about £200 each NEW and bolt streight onto a B6 upright.

Having massive fronts and leaving the tiny rears isnt going to produce a very good setup though, so your going to have to do something with the rear end.
 
The rear is probably more important than the front to be fair. As the car is 2WD, I plan to fit a bias pedalbox so I can left foot brake to help with understeer. Giving the car more rear bias on the standard rear brakes would be a recipie for disater as they would be on fire after a lap..lol
I like the sound of the Cayenne 6 pots. I assume they are the 18ZL's? A friend has just txt and offered to let me finger through his stock of ex touring car discs with sizes from 330 to 420mm!! So as long as he has a pair of 350ish discs, all I need to do is cad some bells up and get them spun. :)
I'll pull the rears off this weekend and do some measuring to see what I can get on. I'll make sure I post pics of any results.

Paul.
 
Yeh the 18ZL's are the chappies. Theres a 345mm merc ML disk that fits almost perfectly with the stock caliper too.

i looked into the rears a bit and came up with a few prospectives, but I'm **** and have forgotten them all now, but i can look them up again.

How big are you wanting to go on the rear?

You'll need to take a pair of rear disks, and part the disk off so your just left with a hub. You can then pop a normal larger disk over this. just need to get the hat height and caliper spacing correct.
 
I popped into see my friend and found some discs that might fit the bill if I can find a caliper with a large enough throat to accomodate them.
They are 356mm x 37mm, ex works Audi A4 AP fully floating.:eyebrows:
Here they are next to a standard 1.8t disc:
IMG_0205.jpg


IMG_0206.jpg


Fully floating like most motorbike discs:
IMG_0207.jpg


IMG_0208.jpg


The bells are Titanium and 21mm thick, so will need turning down to about 10/11mm so the wheel can locate on the spiggot and the wheelnuts are long enough.

I bet the disc width is the biggest hurdle to overcome, but it just has to be worth it?

Paul.
 
Loosely bolted up the disc has the same centreline as the originals.

IMG_0209.jpg


Shame the bell is so thick!

Paul.
 
bear in mind the centreline of the RS4 disks and the ML disks people use with those 18ZL calipers isnt the same as that of the stock 288mm disk.
 
could you not use a non monobloc 4/6/8 pot and make a spacer to go between the 2 halfs to accomodate the extra girth of the big discs?
 
scratch that, seems you already have the above setup lying on the floor lol
 
sam80quattro said:
scratch that, seems you already have the above setup lying on the floor lol
Click to expand...

Thats just a small Compbrake 4pot that was on the front of my 90 S2. OK in it's day, but brakes have moved on alot since then.
What cars ran the monobloc calipers???
 
Just an update.
I managed to get hold of some Alcon 6 pot Calipers. Two pairs to be exact as a pair are going om my 90 S2.
They are a fair old size as they measure 29.5cm long and 17cm wide! I'll post up pics when they arrive. ;)

Paul.
 
i found teh big issue was matching a wheel of suitable size to clear the caliper with one of suitable offset without massive arch work.

I run brembo 8 pots and have ET24 18x8.5J.
spot of arch rolling required to be totally clear and 2-3mm thick stick on balancing wieghts get knocked off by the calipers if the tyre monkeys don't listen when I tell them where they need to go!
 
The Alcons turned up today. As previously stated, I ordered two sets. One for my A4 and a set for my 90 S2. I have some 380mm disc for the 90, but I think I would have to run 19" rims to fit them.

The pics below are of the 356mm AP disc and Alcon R 6 Pot Caliper combo, dummied up behind the A4's 18" wheel.

I'm very pleased with the look, just hope they work as well when fitted!

IMG_0223.jpg


IMG_0224.jpg


Paul.:yum:
 
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