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From YourSITE.com Technical Features In the first two segments of Project TT, we focused on improving both the car’s appearance and its performance. By adding a set of lightweight forged wheels and a fully adjustable coilover suspension, as well as making some other small but significant changes to the suspension such as poly control arm bushings and additional chassis stiffening, the car has taken on a whole new personality. For the third segment, we’ll build on these initial changes with the installation of a big brake kit.
Thanks to the commonality with the other Volkswagens, the TT has plenty of options when it comes to big brake kits. There are a variety of solutions out there from Brembo, AP Racing, StopTech, Stasis Engineering and Wilwood. Other options include the various different Porsche calipers such as the fabled “Big Red” calipers, Boxster calipers and even the six piston Cayenne calipers paired with all types of different single and two piece rotors. Although all of these companies offer an upgrade for the front brakes, only Stasis offers a rear brake upgrade to match their front kit. Another option would be to purchase the front kit of your choice and then mate it with a rear brake rotor upgrade kit by ECS tuning. We’ve long been intrigued by what the guys at Stasis Engineering have been up to since they’ve been running Audi A4s in the Speed World Challenge Touring Car series over the past three seasons. Thinking that their racing experience has taught them a thing or two, and the fact that they offer a complete front and rear kit for the TT, we made the decision to go with the Stasis Track Sport kit. Stasis Engineering features UK-manufactured Alcon 4-piston calipers and fully floating two-piece rotors with a unit crescent slotting. The Motor Sport Kit offers 14-inch front rotors, while the Track Sport kit offers 13-inch front rotors, both utilizing the same Alcon caliper. The rear brake kit for the TT includes 11.7-inch rotors and utilizes the stock calipers with the use of an adapter. The rotor design for the rear matches the fronts with the crescent slotting.
According to Stasis, the monobloc cross-bridged casting found on the Alcon calipers provides superior performance over open monobloc and cross-bridged two-piece castings by minimizing caliper compliance. This translates into superior pedal feel and brake control. Each caliper has differential piston bores to optimize pad wear and movement by balancing forces with temperature gradients across the pad surface. In addition, opposed piston sizing allows for OEM piston matching for proper loading of the ABS pump cycle rates. In plain English, this means that that huge calipers are extremely stiff, exhibit great pedal feel and are manufactured to work with the stock master cylinder and ABS systems. The rotors feature dual vane pickups on each disc for increased efficiency as well as dual heat treatment for increased performance. In addition, each rotor is balanced and tested prior to completion. The kits come complete with SBS front brake pads and Ferrodo 2500 rear brake pads, Goodrich stainless steel coated lines for the fronts and Motul 5.1 brake fluid. One of our concerns was any possible significant increase in weight of the front and rear kits over stock, due to the huge calipers and rotors. According to Stasis, the stock TT front calipers weigh in at just under 14lbs a piece and the stock 12.3 inch rotors just a bit over 19lbs each for a total weight of approximately 33lbs a side. The stock rear 10.1 inch rotors weigh in at a tad over 9 lbs each. We were pleasantly surprised to find out that the Stasis Tracksport 13" rotors weigh in at 15.5lbs each and the calipers an astonishingly low 9.6 lbs each. With the adaptors weighing in at less than half a pound, your looking at a total weight of about 26 lbs a side, a savings of about 7lbs! The rear 11.7" rotors weighed in at 9lbs each - so with the adaptors, they were just a bit heavier than the stock rear rotors. In this case looks were very deceiving. Due to the design of the rear suspension, the rear brake lines on the TT are mainly hard metal lines and only have a very small length of rubber line to them, so we felt it wasn’t necessary to use stainless lines on the rear.
Now that we knew what we kit wanted, it was time to place an order. Since we’ve experienced nothing but excellent service from Eric at Supreme Power Parts, we placed a call asking if he could source us this kit. “No problem” Eric responded and the order was placed. Although not listed on their website, Supreme Power Parts often can order the parts you want and have them shipped directly to your place, as was the case with the both the front and rear Stasis Track Sport brake kits. Although big brake kits are the type of upgrade the typical shade tree mechanic can tackle with relative ease, with both fronts and rears to do, we decided to leave it to the professionals at Tomas Sport Tuning to install the kit. Of course we also had other intentions once at Tomas, which was to also add some spacers to the car. When we last visited Tim, he mentioned a new line of TUV approved German made spacers they would be carrying and convinced us to give them a try. The SCC Fahrzeug Technik spacers are very high quality aluminum units that come in a variety of widths and drillings. We opted for some 15mm rear spacers. It should be noted that the Neuspeed wheels do not need spacers to clear the Stasis Alcon calipers and offer plenty of clearance without them. However, the 35mm offset results in the wheels being inset into the wheel wells, especially in the rear, and we wanted to move them outward for a more aggressive look. Not quite set on what size front spacers to run, we opted to just install rear spacers at this time. While wrapping up the install of the front brakes, the rears were being disassembled in preparation for the rear install. That’s when we hit a snag. Two bolts were missing from the kit and the ones that were included were the wrong size and pitch. We called up Stasis to see what the problem was and lucky for us, one of their customers was coming our way and could drop off the correct bolts. Once they arrived Tim tried again to install the rear kit. With the caliper off, we test fit the rotor on and ran into snag number two. The center bore that slips over the center of the wheel hub was chamfered too deep into the hat of the rotor and the rotor wouldn’t center correctly on the wheel hub. So we placed another call to Stasis and they weren’t quite sure why they didn’t work. Somewhat dismayed, we put the stock rears back on along with the 15mm SCC spacers and called it a day. Being the standup company that they are, Stasis offered to fix the problem and install the rear brake kit for us.
We then ventured to Stasis Engineering headquarters located at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma to have their engineers take a look at the problem first hand to see what type of modifications would be necessary for the rotor hat. After taking numerous measurements, it was determined that the hat needed to be slightly thinner to match that of the factory rotor. After everything was bolted back together we headed home to wait for some new rotor hats to be machined, anodized and reassembled with the rotor rings. Once the new hats were made we took another trip back to Stasis to have them installed. Jason and the crew at Stasis had them on the car in a little more than an hour and Project TT was back on the road. With the adjustments made, the install was pretty straight forward with the only issue being the removal of the factory rear rotor dust shields. Unfortunately, the bolts that attach the shields to the hub carrier assembly are too long to remove without removing the hub from the carrier, so we opted to simply cut the majority of the shield off. With the installation behind us, we found some time to venture out to some deserted county roads to bed the rear pads into the new rotors. After half a dozen or so hard braking efforts from 80 to 10 mph, we could smell that we had accomplished the brake in successfully. I guess it’s finally time to put all the tech and installation talk behind us, get to the point and answer the proverbial question. Do they stop better? Well yes, yes they do. Although we were initially disappointed that we were unable to install the full front and rear kit at the same time, it did give us an opportunity to see how the car reacted to just the front kit and stock rear as well as the full kit, with new rear rotors and pads. During the initial bedding in procedure for the front pads and rotors, we noticed that the car exhibited an increase in front brake dive, not dramatic or bad, but it seemed to be more than we felt when we had the stock brakes on the car. One thing that was immediately felt though was the much improved brake pedal feel. This can be attributed to the stainless steel brake lines and also to the stiffness of the Alcon caliper. Modulation was excellent, far better than the stock brakes and the SBS pads had a nice initial bite, with no hint of squeal, even after several spirited canyon runs and about 2,000 miles of continuous day-after-day commute. We tried are best to get the brakes to fade, but there was never any hint of it or even reduced pedal feel. So far so good. Improved pedal feel, excellent modulation and fade-free braking. The addition of the larger rear rotors and Ferrodo 2500 pads did not make as significant a difference as the larger front rotors and four piston calipers, but it has made a difference in overall brake feel and balance. As we mentioned previously, it seemed like we had increased front brake dive with the addition of just the larger front brakes. With the new larger rear brakes, the amount of brake dive has been decreased to point where the car dives as little as it did when it was stock. I’m sure the difference will be even greater once we get the car on the track and have an opportunity to really put this brake kit to task. Overall, we are extremely happy with the Stasis Alcon Tracksport Brake kit. It has certainly lived up the company’s claims in every respect, and the guys at Stasis are a great group of hardcore Audi enthusiasts. We are definitely looking forward to the opportunity to see what this kit can do under the often-severe conditions of a closed course.
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