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Whats the best front disk set up on the market right now for a road coarse/ autocross ball joint beetle?

There are a few "best" options.

1. CSP vented rotors - very expensive with a custom made consumable who knows how long it will be availible for
2. Coolrydes brake kits - kits seem legit, but the guy has an absolute dogshit reputation online
3. Jeffyrs japan - the site has no information and apparently he is though to get into contact with
4. Just normal ass EMPI disks - FJ successfully runs them in historic racing but they feel kinda lame

For autocross the stock disks with good pads would be terrific. Good modulation and great stopping from cold.
road course is a different beast, you need a set up that will dissipate heat, so vented disks. For readily available parts, 944 setups are probably the best as the disk is still a reasonable diameter. VW is 277mm and early 944 is 282mm. https://vdubengineering.com does these setups.

We do run "stock" (if you accept crossdrilling) VW rotors on both our sprint Historic Sportscar Racing Ghia, and our 12 and 24hr Super Bug. The Ghia uses VARGA ATE-clone calipers with Porterfield AP-30 carbon Kevlar pads. The Bug uses Wilwood 4 piston calipers on VDubengineering adapters up front, with Wilwood hard enduro pads and Wilwood 540 degree brake fluid.

In the past ten years, we have not warped a single front or rear rotor on either car. This is not from lack of trying.

I readily concede ventilated rotors can handle more heat, but we just havn't reached that peak yet. Remember, the 924-944 cars are front engined and make their front brakes work very, very hard. Our rear brakes do more work stopping our cars, and for us, that just means more VARGA clones.

I have recently learned that Wilwood is now offering a bolt-on 2-piston caliper as a replacement for the common VARGA clone. I don't know if the fancy aluminum Wilwood is going to be better than the cast iron VARGA, but I hope so.

I will say, Mr Camper, I'm pretty excited about those calipers.

I have two curved window Supers, one running and the other in the "build phase". The running Supers has typical brake kits, in my case, from CB Performance (though I recommend the Topline kits for absolute completeness). I've run two autox events in the car and the brakes were absolutely perfect. The car stops on a dime, and never demonstrated even the slightest brake fade, even when doing back to back fun runs.

The build phase car has 944 rear brakes. The front set up is late 944 front rotors on custom Vdubengineering hubs, and Boxster REAR calipers. I do expect to have increased thermal capacity with the vented rotors, however, after two events in the other car, it's clear to me the custom set up is unnecessary. Those new calipers by Wilwood will not only save un-sprung weight, but also use a commonly available pad that comes in higher performance varieties.

H2OSB

H2OSB wrote: ↑Mon Oct 05, 2020 6:29 pm I will say, Mr Camper, I'm pretty excited about those calipers.
Those new calipers by Wilwood will not only save un-sprung weight, but also use a commonly available pad ...

Do you know what the pads are?
For me, any caliper I buy must be from an existing production car. I want to be able to buy them anywhere, anytime.

Thanks for the feedback, I agree with Bruce, I hope to get something thats common and easy to get, my beetle will also see street miles too. Any experiances with Ron Lummus , or Airkewl brake set ups?

Bruce2 wrote: ↑Tue Oct 06, 2020 3:11 am

H2OSB wrote: ↑Mon Oct 05, 2020 6:29 pm I will say, Mr Camper, I'm pretty excited about those calipers.
Those new calipers by Wilwood will not only save un-sprung weight, but also use a commonly available pad ...

Do you know what the pads are?
For me, any caliper I buy must be from an existing production car. I want to be able to buy them anywhere, anytime.

It lists them on the Wilwood site. 6812 is the size. I THINK that's typical Ghia pads.

Edit: Correction, Ghias use D88s

H2OSB

The major problem with both ron lumus and airkewl is that their rear kits dont have an e-brake option unless you get standard calipers.

AFAIK, the only two off the shelf kits with e-brake (that dont use the standard empi calipers) are Vintage v-dubs and Coolrydes

I have no idea what the rotor differences are with the vintage v-dubs kit, but they dont aprear to be stock as other of their pages directly say they fit stock rotors

EDIT: I emailed vintage v-dubs and they do use standard rotors.

I only need front disks, I have vented disks on the rear ......... https://photos.app.goo.gl/9GrpaC8GuoGMwam88

those wilwood replacement calipers make me go hmmm

Well that makes it easy. You want to make sure you get your bias at least close without a need for valving. I would personaly pick based off of that if you have the rears already figured out

I run airkewld front disc brakes with the 4 piston calipers. They seem to be a great setup if you want to be able to easily change your bolt pattern, and they also have an all aluminum hub that saves on rotating mass.

The subarugears Guy (who I have some choice words to describe) also makes a brake setup that uses Subaru parts.

I second what FJC is saying. I road race my Beetle with Varga calipers up front and CB performance rear calipers with the hand brake option. The pads are Porterfields RS-4.

The car brakes very well and the solid rotors have not wrapped yet. Braking is excellent!

My only issue is that the pads don't last long. I could get maximum 5 race weekends out of them. I wish the Wilwoods had bigger pads, as they don't look bigger than the original size.

hello,

Nobody speack about the Kerscher front/rear disc..they are bullet proof for 30 years on Kafër-cup in Germany..seems to be good plug-and-play stuff?

https://www.kerscher-tuning.de/kaefer/i ... emsanlagen

I ended up buying Ron lummus front brake setup with 4 pot calipers