R32 Brake setup

Aky

Aky

Aky
Joined
Nov 21, 2006
Messages
1,512
Reaction score
3
Points
36
Location
West Yorkshire
Will this setup fit straight onto the S3 or would I be better off spending the extra money and getting the Brembo setup from the Leon?

I'm presuming I would be ok with the 17's OEM wheels or would I need 18's for clearance?

Noticed someone was thinking of a group buy. Anyone know the costs from Seat for these? I should be able to get about 15% disc from VW for R32 discs, calipers and carriers.
 
I'd expect them to be a straight swap...but since they are still a sliding calliper, you'll not get the gains you will with a decent 4 pot set-up.

I suspect you'll also need 18s to clear the R32 brakes, but don't know that for sure.

I'd go for the Brembo GT kit as fitted to the Leon.
 
I'm lead to believe that the R32 setup is substantially over a grand all together. Because there's limited numbers of them on the road they only make limited runs of spare parts, that's why the cost is so high.

Rich
 
I've priced these up before and they are very expensive. Unless you can get a set cheap from somewhere, I would go for the brembo kit.
 
are the brembo's off fiat coupe's an option? There always seems to be a set of these going for cheap on ebay...
 
fiat coupe discs are 305mm where as the leon ones are 323mm, (so probably not) standard s3 discs are 312mm
 
I have the R32 setup using ECS 2 piece disks...

See here :-
http://www.oreton.com/images/cars/golf_jan2005_ECS_brakes3.jpg

IMHO it's quite a cheap way of upgrading the brakes, I sorted the R32 disks (not the ECS ones), calipers and hoses for around £350.

Just ring round the breakers yards, written off R32's are increasingly common.

The 3.2 Audi TT uses the same setup.

I will be selling my R32 calipers soon but probably keeping the disks...
 
a guy i work with has an R32 with over 400bhp (single turbo by VagTech) and finds the brakes not enough so id say go for the Leon CupraR if you can (the lucky ******* also has one of these and says the brakes are "amazing")
 
I'd agree with Ess Three, 4 pots are the way to go. My S3 has standard 312mm brakes, my corrado has 310mm Hi-Spec monster 4 calipers with two piece discs. The stopping power is massively different. The caliper is bigger with bigger pads and can apply even pressure over a bigger area on both sides of the disc even thought the disc is smaller. Think of the difference as like trying to stop a record player with your finger or your palm. Your palm needs less pressure and generates less heat than your finger tip would.

Awesome currently offer a brembo conversion for £800, or Hi-Spec like mine will cost £1200.

An option maybe if seat/subaru front calipers are the same you can buy just the carrier from seat and get second hand seat/subaru/alfa/boxster calipers??
DSC00267b.jpg
 
the fitments on a few are different as we had a full set of Brembos of and Evo on eBay a while back and compared them to mk4 golf fitment calipers (as my mate with the R32T was interested.. lol)
 
Its weird, I have 312mil Anni/TT /S3 brakes on my mk4, with stock pads, and they are fabulous. Never fade, not even on track, (mind you don't brake that much!) but just cannot fault them. Even with 230+hp, and leathers on a 4 door mk4, they are well up to it, never been caught out in over 50k miles in this guise and on track.
BUT, same brakes on the S3 are RUBBISH! Surely not that much heavier......? I actually am thinking they may be faulty, but I get the ABS activating all the time too, so maybe its the tyres....? Brakes seem to have no bite, its not that they fade, (although they do a bit even on road when pushing hard), there seems to be no consistency to them..?
Just cannot believe how different they are compared to the Mk4. Will ahve to sort them, that's for sure!!
 
Never had that setup on my MK4 just had standard 288mm and they were superb even with 190bhp, so the only thing I can put it down to is to extra weight and more horses. Thats probably why the R32 has 323mm instead of 312mm
 
My s3 has less horses......its stock at present!!
Very dissappointed with the stock brakes, I'll maybe strip them and clean them up a bit!!
 
how much would the Brembo setup from the Leon set someone back?
 
Aky said:
Never had that setup on my MK4 just had standard 288mm and they were superb even with 190bhp, so the only thing I can put it down to is to extra weight and more horses. Thats probably why the R32 has 323mm instead of 312mm
Click to expand...

The R32/V6 TT has 334mm Disks not 323mm, I believe its the Cupra that has the 323mm Brembo's.

The R32 calipers are twin pot (both pistons on the same side of the caliper) on a sliding mechanism as opposed to single pot on the standard S3 calipers.
The brembos have 2 pistons on either side of the disk in a monoblock arrangement (I.E totally rigid, no sliding mechanism) therefore will always be more efficient than a 2 pot slider.

The difference between the standard 312 setup and the R32 setup was night and day, massive massive improvement. I've been running them for 2 years now and the only reason I want to change is to reduce the unsprung weight but I WILL be keeping the R32 disks.

For the price you can pick an R32/V6TT setup for, I think they offer much better value for money than the Brembo setup.
Also you don't need to think about spacers with OEM wheels (or reps) with the R32 calipers.

My opinion and thoughts are based purely on 'bang for buck' and I am not disputing that 4 pots will always be better than 2 pot sliders.

However! Having driven an SLCR, I believe my R32 setup is just as good.
 
leecs3 said:
Awesome currently offer a brembo conversion for £800, or Hi-Spec like mine will cost £1200.
Click to expand...

THe Awesome Brembo set up uses Boxter rear calipers and 312mm disks which I dont think offers great value for money, especially when you can source 996 TT calipers for around £600-650 brand new!
 
cant fault my standard S3 brakes, im sure there are better options out there and i dont really push my car hard only had the abs come into play once and that was only for a fraction of a second. I just replaced my front disc and front and rear pads and flushed the brake fluid, which has made a hugh difference. If you havnt had your fluid changed in a while id recomend that.
 
Aky said:
I'm presuming I would be ok with the 17's OEM wheels or would I need 18's for clearance?
Click to expand...

I have R32 front brakes on my Mk4 behind 17's,not oem though.Thay are very good brakes if you can find a set.I sold a set not long ago for around £200.
DSC00230.jpg


Heres the R32 discs compared to 288mm.
DSC00441.jpg

DSC00439.jpg
 
Stewart said:
THe Awesome Brembo set up uses Boxter rear calipers and 312mm disks which I dont think offers great value for money, especially when you can source 996 TT calipers for around £600-650 brand new!
Click to expand...
Rear calipers?
Do you know anyone with this kit?
Any feedback?
I would have thought that the pedal would be very hard due to the smaller pistons in the Boxster rear calipers.
 
S2Avant said:
Rear calipers?
Do you know anyone with this kit?
Any feedback?
I would have thought that the pedal would be very hard due to the smaller pistons in the Boxster rear calipers.
Click to expand...

I know Jim very well and when Ade took a leave of absence from Awesome I was doing their IT... They started doing this Neuspeed kit around that time and I remember Jim telling me that they were Boxter rears. The size of the caliper certainly supports that.

Yes I would imagine you would get good pedal feel with the smaller pistons but thats typical of Neuspeed though, they always put lots into R&D before putting products to the market. From Neuspeed's persective this package offers good profit and offers the end users a reasonably good upgrade package.
For more discerning and demanding users like ourselves, I feel it doesn't offer great bang for buck as we know of other kits/solutions available to us.
 
S2Avant said:
Rear calipers?
Do you know anyone with this kit?
Any feedback?
I would have thought that the pedal would be very hard due to the smaller pistons in the Boxster rear calipers.
Click to expand...

Actually, if you look into the physical size of the rear Boxster callipers or rear Carrera callipers, and their respective piston sizes, I'd argue that they are the better match for the VAG master cylinder, if you want to keep pedal feel.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again....fitting the biggest brake callipers you can find does NOT give you better brakes in all cases.
The Boxster rears will be similar sized to the Brembo GT callipers but of a monoblock design...so could qiite possibly be a BETTER bet.

Certainly fitting big 6 pots like the GT3 will ruin all brake feel...you just can't move the required volume of fluid to keep the feel and balance.
 
Ess_Three said:
Certainly fitting big 6 pots like the GT3 will ruin all brake feel...you just can't move the required volume of fluid to keep the feel and balance.
Click to expand...

I totally agree and most people miss this point and more annoyingly, tuners and suppliers IGNORE this point. Well, either that or they just don't realise it which is pretty scary!

I certainly noticed a loss of feel when I upgraded to R32 calipers so I can only assume the S3 master cylinder is smaller than the R32.
We tried and tried to get a decent hard pedal (I prefer a rock solid pedal, a throwback to my rallying days with no servos and bias valves) and it was only when I sat down and thought about it did this most obvious fact make itself clear...

A good rule of thumb is to take the original Caliper, measure the piston diameter and then not exceed the TOTAL piston diameter of the original when upgrading to multi piston types.

I did some calculations a while back to work this out, I will dig them out...

EDIT : I have to say that the loss of feel I experienced after upgrading to R32 calipers is negligible and everyone who has driven the car comments on how fantastic the brakes are.
 
I know what you mean Stewart...
I went from 288mm to 312mm on my Mk3 GTI but made the mistake of fitting the S3 callipers (slightly bigger piston than the GTI Anniversary 288 callipers) and lost the feel.
It just feels 'bad'
Lots of braking...just no modulation or feedback.

On the 911 the brakes felt crap to start with...solid pedal, like pressing wood...you really need to give them a good shove...
Now I'm used to them they are epic!
You can really feel the feedback...brake to the point the ABS just starts to cut in, all weathers...amazing brakes.
Also, none of the typical over-servo'd feel of VAG cars...no long pedal travel and easy to heel-toe.
Great.

I'm struggling to get the GTI brakes up to scratch now...
 
Any particular reason why my brakes would be feeling spongey ? i know the rear pads need replacing soon but otherwise they should be fine.
 
mattyboy199 said:
Any particular reason why my brakes would be feeling spongey ? i know the rear pads need replacing soon but otherwise they should be fine.
Click to expand...

Overbraided brake lines (goodrich), new fluid, and new pads will change all that.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

marks-krazy-s3
R32 Mk4 front brake setup
Replies
2
Views
779
marks-krazy-s3
marks-krazy-s3
jack.s
R32 front brake setup Is it a worthwhile upgrade?
Replies
8
Views
1K
future
future
P
Rear brake setup
Replies
0
Views
770
Plunky
P
G
R32 brake upgrade
Replies
28
Views
3K
gez
G
B
MK5 R32 Brake Calipers
Replies
33
Views
6K
Barks
B
Top
Back