PB brakes 6pot big brake kit upgrade

Meemo

Meemo

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I have seen PB brakes do a lovely range of 6 and 8 pots varying from 330mm - 380mm disks. reviews are good so far and they look the nuts. Wondered who has had experience of their brakes or opinions on them.

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The kit I have my eye on is the 6pot 356mm front set (above), the 8 pots i am less inclined towards as it is a diesel 170 cr (which is in for few deletes and map after brakes), it is not a sports car so first of all 8pots are unnecessary, and also I am aware of the brake travel on more pistons being ott for day to day driving. 6Pots in my mind is a nice medium of daily use, and looking lovely. I will be ordering anodized purple :)

I cannot find any A4 b8s with the 6pot 356m kit from pb on to answer a few questions:

How they sit in the 19s, pictures?
Hows the peddle feel? long travel? like stepping on a brick?
What et and width wheel have owners had to use to clear the calipers?

here are the choices and the UI rendition of what they may look like in my current selection.

28148615210_30eebe38a7_o.png


28431565455_7b80c2b5a4_b.jpg


28431565645_842b354cac_b.jpg
 
An other option would be the Q5 4 pot Brembo with s4 discs.

I have those on my S4 & they stop better than the OE s4 brakes
 
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I'm on the lookout for a set of of the Q5 Brembos
 
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As above Q5 345mm 4 pot Brembo calipers are a straight fit with no issues. They are designed to work with the same Master cylinder as fitted to the B8 so no issues with pedal travel . You can fit Q5 pads and keep the pad sensor or fit the pads from Subaru / Evo which gives you a great amount of choice in pad compounds.
They are available new from Mike on the parts department for around £530 for the pair. you can get them painted what ever colour you want. Go for some ECS discs and the brakes look pretty good.
If you want you can fit any aftermarket 345mm S4 disc.
There are some pictures on my build thread.
 
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Expensive P+P at £140 but I suppose those PB brakes have to come from Taiwan. Read the small print as well
"Please note that we ship direct from Taiwan, so you may be liable to import duty and sales tax upon receiving the goods in your country"
The difference in size between the discs 345mm o the ECS and 356mm on the PB would hardly be noticeable and not make much difference to the performance.
The ECS 345mm discs are £450 delivered from Awesome GTI
https://www.awesomegti.com/shop-by-brand/ecs-tuning/ecs-front-2-piece-brake-discs-audi-s4-and-s5-b8/
These discs are handed so must be fitted on the correct side of the car as the vents are cast to improve cooling as more expensive braking solutions do. The PB discs are not handed.
The calipers cost me £528 all in delivered. These are genuine Audi OE parts
http://www.audi-sport.net/xf/support-tickets/345mm-brembo-calipers-for-q5.498/
The PB brake set up comes with their own pads. I would prefer to go for something I know.
You can get OE spec Bosch, Brembo, TRW pads for the Brembo calipers for around £50-£60. Or doing a bit of surfing on Fleabay.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/NEW-GENUI...-PAD-SET-8R0698151C-H-345x30mm-/152140336908?

I used Red Stuff pads in mine that are used in the Subaru STI and a lot of the EVO models. Fits straight in with no issues other than the pads don't have the cut out for the pad wear sensor. you just tie wrap that up out of the way. Really clean pad, not a lot of dust. Not sure what the PB pads are like.
These are around £92 from car parts for less.

Karls 3.0 TDI build thread
 
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Thanks at @desertstorm , these are also an option after looking at yours. I wont lie the looks are a big part of it too :p
the duty is £100(approx) plus £140 shipping, i sent PB Brakes an email asking for fitted pictures for the b8 and links to any threads or reviews but sadly they had none, but had actually seen this thread i created with your response and had a reply to both of us:

From PB Brakes
"I did have a little search online to see if any previous A4 B8 customers had posted anything about their brakes, and I came across a thread on Audi-Sport which I believe is from yourself. The moderator is giving you some misinformation there. I can confirm that our brake discs are indeed vented (obviously), and each one will only fit on one side of the vehicle. The difference in torque between a 345mm and 356mm disc is 3.7%.

Shipping at £140 is actually very cheap when you consider a 356mm 6-pot kit weighs around 35kg and is shipped by reliable 5-day airmail from TNT. If you are in the UK your import costs are going to be around the £100 mark."
 
Every time I have the wheels of the wife's cayenne s I look longingly at her massive brakes.
 
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Still not made any decisions.
But I have decided away from PB for a couple of points from looking over many jap forums where they have no good reviews that I could find, but allot of people very against them (who i must point out have not tested them so grain of salt). It doesnt mean they are bad brakes, just not worth risking when there are other options which are well tested and more local.

1. It would appear they are a cast caliper whereas any good bbk appears to be forged, the negativity of this is potential flex in the caliper under braking which can contribute to a spongey brake.
2. If I am to receive a faulty part that needs to be replaced, this is at the cost of the buyer, regardless of fault, so £140 + duty to send back and same again for new part to receive... not cheap.
3. Allot of negativity about the reps online, founded or not I am now put off.
4. Not being able to find another application on an a4 b8 from online or the company.

In fairness i have not seen any bad information on their effectiveness when on a car track or road, but i also found only 1 review that wasnt in a magazine and he never went into the detail I wanted to help seperate with a good chunk of savings.


Currently considering:
* Q5 (90 a side from a breakers claiming nearly new inc disks and carriers)
* Forge 6pot kit
*18z porsche may work but I need more information
*Anything else that hasnt been brought to my attention yet
 
At a work meal last night, a far wiser man with far more experience than myself very kindly talked me through how i can work out wether brakes will work with my existing master cylinder. Now my maths is poor so please correct anything misunderstood.

When upgrading the calipers you need to maintain as close as possible the master cyclinder to caliper piston diameter ratio.
This is calculated by finding how much surface area(or diameter?) you master cylinder piston has, to how much surface area (or diameter?) there is on the pistons of your front calipers combined (both sides).

Please correct if below is wrong, maths isnt my strong point and I actually had my friends calculate this by giving them the figures and asking for them to ratio it for me.

Master brake cylinder Diamater: 25.4mm
Caliper piston Diamater: 57mm (x2 as one piston in each front caliper = 114mm)
Ratio 25.4mm to 114mm == 1 : 4.48

Once I know this, theoretically, as long as i find out the piston diamater of any potential calipers and make it a ratio, I can see if it is close enough to my standard ratio to know if it will or wont work with the OE cylinder.

note: Changing the ratio too much will result in either rock solid pedal, or pedal travel to the floor, a change of .6 on the ratio for this guy on his tr resulted in a solid brake pedal that wouldnt move and the new master cylinder was binned lol so i trust his advice as he seems to have learnt from his past mistakes.

How easy is it to change a master cyclinder, ie if I wanted to take the master cylinder from a Q7 which i know works with the 6pot cayenne brembos, could this be easily done or would it not be compatible with my A4??
 
For those with the q5 brake calipers the calculated piston area (40 and 44mm pistons) is
2777.528mm2 of piston area and the standard caliper with a 60mm piston provides 2827.2mm2 of piston area. From my calculation the 4 pots are actually provided less force as force = pressure x area. The pressure is defined by the master cylinder
 
The q5 has a different brake booster than the a4, maybe that helps in some way?
 
I believe the brake booster is just servo assistance. I don't believe it increases the hydraulic force available from the brakes systems just makes it easier to use

Sent from my ONE A2003 using Tapatalk
 
Doesn't each q5 caliper have 2x40mm pistons and 2x44mm pistons?
 
It does but when calculating the effective area on fixed calipers you only use on set of pistons as the opposing are to balance the force.

Sent from my ONE A2003 using Tapatalk
 
mdmay said:
For those with the q5 brake calipers the calculated piston area (40 and 44mm pistons) is
2777.528mm2 of piston area and the standard caliper with a 60mm piston provides 2827.2mm2 of piston area. From my calculation the 4 pots are actually provided less force as force = pressure x area. The pressure is defined by the master cylinder
Click to expand...

The difference in piston area is only something like 2% so almost negligeable. The standard caliper has a 60mm piston mounted on one side only. There are losses in the sliders as that force is transferred to the outboard pad .
The 4 pistons distribute the force more evenly across the pads, there is less pad drag with a multiple piston caliper than a sliding caliper.
The standard 345mm caliper and pads weighs 8Kg the 4 pot Q5 with pads just over 5Kg, This saves nearly 3Kg of unsprung weight each side.
The Q5 pads are the same profile as the Subaru STI and the later EVO models which means you can get virtually any pad compound to fit the calipers.
 
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The above is true. I had ttrs calipers on my tte420 Octavia Vrs. They are very good I just wish there was any easy way to use 18z calipers from the q7

Sent from my ONE A2003 using Tapatalk
 
The pedal feel is far superior on the Q5 calipers IMO,due to all those little things mentioned.
 
mdmay said:
The above is true. I had ttrs calipers on my tte420 Octavia Vrs. They are very good I just wish there was any easy way to use 18z calipers from the q7

Sent from my ONE A2003 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

I wish the 18z's were easier to use too then maybe someone would buy my old ones off eBay!
 
Markey said:
Are the SQ5 callipers the same as the Q5 in anyway?
Click to expand...
No they arent, sq5 are notibly bigger 385mm disk (approx from memory) and the q5 are 356mm.
The q5 ones are in my opinion prettier, they have the classic piston shaping of the Brembo GT designs, and the sq5 look like big banana's/cresent moons:


SQ5
images


Q5
DSC_1772_zpskpx1tjd5.jpg
 
audi upgrades
I believe the SQ5 are twin piston sliding calipers as well

Sent from my ONE A2003 using Tapatalk
 
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I can see the difference now it is noticeable the SQ5s do look a bit bulkier than the Q5 ones, not as pretty as you say :)
 
I believe although I may be wrong that the sq5 actually stops quicker than the rs4

Sent from my ONE A2003 using Tapatalk
 
The sq5 380mm brakes are as stated above twin piston sliding calipers and along with the discs they weigh an absolute ton.
 
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They must be like having a flywheel inside your alloys.

Sent from my ONE A2003 using Tapatalk
 
The sq5 uses two 42mm pistons so overall area is smaller than the standard s4

Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk
 
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