best front brake disk setup on the market now

[H2OSB]

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 wanted the CSP vented disc, 42mm piston caliper kit something fierce, but getting the kit(shipping) is VERY cost prohibitive. I, then, thought I'd be crafty and special order it through CIP1 since they are the US importer for CSP products. Nope, if it's not an item in their regular catalog they charge a special order fee which is very close to the direct shipping cost when buying directly from CSP in Germany.

In the end, I've decided to go with a multi time proven kit made by VeeDub Engineering. My set up will use late n/a 944 rotors with Boxster REAR calipers. The Boxster rears are 4 piston, but have a combined piston area of almost exactly equivalent to 43mm two piston calipers.
This is all to go along with my 944 rear set up.

H2OSB

[UKLuke72]

Are those kirscher calipers regular calipers with a spacer between the two halves?

As above though, if you're gonna drop £2k on brakes, they'd be hard to ignore.

[davidt]

Hi everyone,
Since I am not made of money, I built my own vented front discs/4-pot calipers, solid rear disc with single piston sliding caliper and E-brake, larger master cylinder brake setup for my turbocharged 1972 Superbug.

Front:
276mm Mercedes Benz Vito ventilated discs
4-pot Volvo 240 calipers
Custom 12mm mounting plate
REMSA (660C) pads

Rear:
Blank Empi 280mm solid discs
Suzuki SX4 rear calipers
Standard Suzuki pads
Sharpbuilt alloy caliper brackets

T2 Bay Window 22mm brake master cylinder (68-69 L/H/D)
Shortened clutch and brake pedals with revised brake pedal ratio of 4.4:1 which gives a stiffer pedal action with less travel for improved heal-toe down-shifts.
Braided front and rear brake hoses
Brake discs and hubs converted to modern VW and Mercedes Benz 5/112mm PCD with longer 35mm Audi wheel bolts.

I live in Tasmania, Australia but you should be able to source everything bar the front caliper mounting plates, brake pedal master cylinder pivot plate (I have those) and the rear alloy caliper mount (Sharpbuilt - Toowoomba, Australia) in your local area.

Feel free to contact me at thieledj@optusnet.com.au if you want more info or the mounting brackets.

This conversion has been fantastic, with great pedal feel, brake balance and so far no fade.

[H2OSB]

Hi everyone,
Since I am not made of money, I built my own vented front discs/4-pot calipers, solid rear disc with single piston sliding caliper and E-brake, larger master cylinder brake setup for my turbocharged 1972 Superbug.

Front:
276mm Mercedes Benz Vito ventilated discs
4-pot Volvo 240 calipers
Custom 12mm mounting plate
REMSA (660C) pads

Rear:
Blank Empi 280mm solid discs
Suzuki SX4 rear calipers
Standard Suzuki pads
Sharpbuilt alloy caliper brackets

T2 Bay Window 22mm brake master cylinder (68-69 L/H/D)
Shortened clutch and brake pedals with revised brake pedal ratio of 4.4:1 which gives a stiffer pedal action with less travel for improved heal-toe down-shifts.
Braided front and rear brake hoses
Brake discs and hubs converted to modern VW and Mercedes Benz 5/112mm PCD with longer 35mm Audi wheel bolts.

I live in Tasmania, Australia but you should be able to source everything bar the front caliper mounting plates, brake pedal master cylinder pivot plate (I have those) and the rear alloy caliper mount (Sharpbuilt - Toowoomba, Australia) in your local area.

Feel free to contact me at thieledj@optusnet.com.au if you want more info or the mounting brackets.

This conversion has been fantastic, with great pedal feel, brake balance and so far no fade.

Brilliant set up! I love to see people think outside the box.

I TRIED to do something like this with my first go-round, using 944 spindles, hubs and rotors with Porsce 914 front calipers that were spaced to fit over the rotors. The two biggest problems were I had to turn the diameter of the hub down to clear the caliper body. This because the other issue making it less than ideal was the need to turn the rotor down so the calipers became bolt ons(huge appeal to have NO adapter, but huge detractor to have to mod a consumable part). Ultimately, the hub could not be safely reduced in diameter enough for the caliper body to clear. I thought all was good but did not realize I'd used to wrong calipers for my initial measurement (there are 2 versions of the 914 caliper with slightly different offsets, but only one would work for my set up), thus, after much time and $$ I was forced to abandon my work. Certainly I could have corrected the issues, but I felt I'd already spent too much and I never liked that I needed to have the rotors modded to work.

Next, I investigated the CSP bolt on front brake set up. I even figured out exactly what calipers they use in their kit(they will NOT share that info). The calipers use a 42mm piston just like the 914 and have the same bolt spacing as your typical Ghia caliper, so this would bolt onto a Ghia type spindle OR any of the disc brake conversion adapters(like Topline's very reasonably priced adapters) and they are made for 20mm wide rotors of the same diameter as the Ghia and conversion kits use (278mm). The problem is the rotors are exclusively made by Sebro FOR CSP. I contacted Sebro about this. They were willing to give me every measurement from the rotors but said they were contractually obligated to sell them ONLY to CSP or on behalf of CSP. Certainly they could be purchased from CSP, but again, getting parts from Germany is expensive (shipping costs about as much as the parts), and as I stated earlier, having CIP1 get the parts was as much as buying directly from CSP. Btw, the calipers are from an early '70s BMW 3.0 CS, and are still available rebuilt from the various rebuild houses like Centric.

All the while, my goal was to match the front to the factory 944 rear set up which is a bolt in deal for an IRS car with two minor mods.

I've got much more, but this has gone on long enough

H2OSB

[davidt]

I feel your pain. My bug spent close on 5 months sitting in the shed in pieces during this conversion. It all started when I needed more grip from the front tyres. So I purchased a set of 16x7in alloys from a Passat and it snow-balled from there. I spent a lot of time Googling different brake setups from both companies and individuals. There was a great kit from an Aussie that used Commodore parts but it was designed for a Baja using Thing stub axles. In the end I didn't think they would fit on a Superbug and a Baja has a different braking balance requirement. I also used a few different brake pressure/balance calculators whilst trying to obtain the correct front/rear brake balance. That has worked out great and the rears can be felt pulling the car down into the road.

Hooroo for now.
David

[Ian Godfrey]

Even though the original poster has now sorted his brakes, I thought I'd put my set up on here to keep them all in the one place if peeps are looking for this info in the future.
My goal was to have something as light or lighter than the Type 1 disks (278mm), but vented and more thermal mass, and Porsche bolt pattern and still fit in a 15" wheel. I wanted to use a standard disk but I was happy to spend a bit in this area.
On the front I used alloy 944 hubs and vented disks, 282mm diameter. There are two 944 setups, this one where the disk bolts on the rear of the hub and the newer one where the disk bell or hat mounts on the front of the hub (heavier).
I used wilwood Dynapro 4 piston calipers with 1.25" (31.75mm) pistons to balance the rear Powerlite calipers 1.0" (25.4mm) pistons with a built in hand brake mechanism. Lanner in Canada http://vdubengineering.com made the brackets to fit the radial mount calipers to the VW (or Mendeola spindles). I cut some mass out of the back of the disk and used Ti fasteners. I ended up with 4 piston calipers on a vented disk and saved 1.332 kg.

1 disk front.jpg

the wilwood pad is narrower that the 944 pad so the caliper is postioned to the outside of the disk

2 disk back.jpg

This is setup on the Mendeola spindle, but I have also set it up on my Ghia spindle as I am not sure which one I'll use. I cut a fair bit of weight out of the back of the disk where the pad didn't touch

Caliper mount.jpg

Lanner's caliper mount which I anodised

disk and pads.jpg

3 old disk.jpg

all stock with Varga caliper

4 brake assembly weight.jpg

Very happy with how the weight came in

[H2OSB]

Lanner is a handy guy to know. The color on your rotors makes them look thinner. Is that an ABS wheel on the back side, or is that due to your lightening efforts? Can you use unmodded rotors? How was the hub modified to fit on a VW spindle?

Lanner made my set up using custom hubs turned(Beetle bearings) to fit inside Boxster rear rotors and adapters to mate Boxster rear calipers(radial mount) to Porsche 924 spindles.

924 spindles are like having 944 and 1303 spindles get together and have a baby. They use 1303 ball joints and the same bearings (thus Ghia rotors) but the 944 steering arm. They have a very different caliper mounting than the 944, but at least there are ears available to mount an adapter to. In order to adapt calipers onto 1303 spindles the backing plate holes must be repurposed for the adapter, however, I wanted a splash/dust shield for a factory look and the protection they provide. The 924 uses the same one as the 944 though they have to be trimmed a bit to fit over the Boxster calipers.

Anyway, another nice set up
H2OSB

[Ian Godfrey]

It's not an ABS wheel on the backside, it is the cooling vanes where the back got machined off the disk to cut the weight. I can use a stock 944 disk if needed. I do like the black anti rust finish on the DBA rotors
The Hubs are modified by Lanner with a bearing cup to take beetle bearings and seal, or as you note he can make a hub from scratch for many combos.
You've added some good spindle info to the thread as well