turbocad6

hey guys, I have searched and have seen a few guys ask about this through the years but haven't seen anyone do more than just ask and haven't really seen any conversions done. I recently got my R500, and the brakes, well to put it quite bluntly the brakes just suck in this car.

now my research shows that the R500 had a slightly larger brake setup than the r350's, the R500 uses a 350mm(13.8") front rotor and thicker vented rear discs (some even came with the smaller 330mm(13.0") brakes too) but it is still just a front 2 piston floating caliper design, and this braking system still doesn't really give a really solid and confident braking experience when we're dealing with a 5,300lb car with almost 400hp so I intend on upgrading but sure am not looking to spend 6-7 grand on aftermarket bolt on solution either.

I have done a ton of research and my choices have been boiled down to 3 good possible candidates

1 is the new S65 AMG brake setup, the one with the dual front calipers. surprisingly these brakes do look to be relatively easy to fit to the R class if ML63 rotors are used but they are also pretty damn expensive even used and even though they are close in fit in that they will be able to be made to work they are by no means just a bolt on. drawbacks are cost and the extremely heavy caliper design which will add a lot of unsprung weight to each wheel

2 is just swapping out the whole setup from an ML63, which happens to be exactly what came on he R63 too... if the whole set was obtained from an ML63, complete with all 4 spindles, then this one would actually wind up being a direct bolt on, and is probably the easiest way to go, but the ML63 brakes are also extremely heavy, and a full setup with spindles and all is also a bit on the expensive side of things.. this is probably the most direct and sane route though, I love the massive 390mm(15.4") rotors in the front but the calipers really are less than beautiful to say the least and again with the floating caliper design they are unnecessarily heavy. the 2012 up ml63's use a much better setup, they have done away with the stupid 30lb bracketry and added more pistons and a non floating caliper design, actually reduced the size of the rotors a bit to cut down on the excessive extra unsprung weight, but the problem with them is $$$$

3 is using 8 piston front/4 piston rear AMG calipers from the 03-06 S65, S55 and the like. the good thing about these is that they have massive clamping force and they really are beautiful to look at too. they use the same sized rotors as the R500 and they don't seem to be extremely difficult to fit to the R, they are the lightest out of these options by far and this is probably the route I am leaning towards most. brackets will probably need to be made to mount them, and if so, then it may also be possible to actually use these with ML63 rotors, although that may be pushing it a bit. more likely I would be pairing these up with ML550 rotors which are inbetween the R and ML size at 375mm(14.76") in the end this setup will be very much like the new 2012+ ML63 setup

4 I'll only mention here because they actually are surprisingly an almost perfect match for what I'd need and are an even better fit overall than even the 4/8 AMG calipers, and that is retrofitting Porsche Cayenne S calipers. these are plentiful on the market and they are relatively inexpensive because of that. this would be a 6 piston front 4 piston rear and this one is actually very close to my 3rd option in many respects, but I think all else being equal I'd rather have 8 piston AMG's rather than 6 piston porsche calipers. to be fair though it really doesn't make all that much difference as to what car they originate from as both the AMG 4/8 and the porsche 4/6 are both made by brembo and neither have any distinguishing characteristics that would make either one look any more or less proper here

thoughts? input? anyone have anything to add or share here? I have researched piston diameters and fluid displacement and except for the S65 4 caliper front setup, all the others seem to fall right into the range I'd ideally need them to be, I'm not 100% sure about the displacement values on the S65 because data there has been scarce but I'm pretty much leaning away from this option anyway as they are just very heavy and very expensive and in the end I can't even say that they are even good looking, not that that is my main concern really, but it also at least a factor I think.

xxGenericSNxx

I think Option #2 will be the best choice in terms of direct swap/ install. The car stops well with the AMG brakes but don't expect it to be amazing like a lightweight sports car. We're still dealing with a 5,000+ pound car.

BTW from the literature I have on MB brochures, all R Classes have 13.0" rotors on all four corners except for the R63 which is 15.4" front and 14.4" rear.

Where did you get the brake weight info?

AsianR350

I believe that R500 has 13.8"diameter front rotor not 13" diameter, rear are 13" diameter.

Spud_Racer

Yup, 13.8 vented in front and 13.0 vented in back.

turbocad6

virtually all performance cars use an alloy aluminum or magnesium fixed caliper multi piston design. it is just the most efficient way to do it for both weight and clamping force evenly distributed over a large swept area. even the best of the best really high end money no object exotic brake setups that use ceramic rotors and pads are all still universally of the solidly mounted multi piston design.

as great as a solidly mounted multi piston setup is, it is not without flaws. because the caliper is fixed this setup is much less tolerant of any rotor issues and it is not uncommon to sometimes experience minor pedal pulsations or even a slight vibration in the wheel while braking and they can be a bit finicky if you don't really heat them up often or if you get into the habit of heating them up really good, then coming to a stop and holding the brakes for a few minutes like at a stop light or something, this causes a pad print that you will feel also as a slight vibration or pulsation, these problems can become even more prevalent when multi piece rotors come into the picture too, however most performance cars would rather have these minor annoyances than to add a ton of weight to the braking caliper system just to ensure a more silky smooth brake feeling

in a nutshell the R63/ML63 and new S65 multi floating caliper brake setups are designed to stop very well and just as importantly to be silky smooth at all times, but they are also trading off performance in the weight department big time to do it.

Mercedes is building a touring car, not an agile performance car when it comes to this particular design. you will not find a floating caliper on there much more sport oriented designs of course. now I'm not saying that's so bad if that is what you want. as a grand tourer type ride then the massive freight train like silky smooth brakes are fine too, very rolls Royce/Bentley style luxurious, but when you lean more towards the performance end of things then not so much so.

I don't have any actual data on weight but it's pretty obvious that a single alloy caliper is going to be significantly lighter than a cast steel caliper with a cast steel bracket and steel sliding mechanisms, assuming they are indeed cast steel which I really expect they are. maybe the center caliper portion is aluminum but that huge support bracket I'm almost sure is steel. I really do wish I could find some data, but even without it I'm very confident there is a big difference in weight. it is obvious to me just by looking at them while considering the difference between steel and aluminum. I'd be curious If anyone has these brakes and a magnet to just confirm weather the caliper and/or bracket is indeed steel

I believe Mercedes switched the ML63 over to the fixed multi piston calipers and slightly smaller rotors to be more competitive with the cayenne's and bmw's, there competition with the ML63 is not rolls and Bentleys... I mean I guess I can see how the 4 caliper floating design is appropriate on the S65, but here, on these trucks, I think the more straight forward performance approach is more suited to what I'm looking for, and fixed multi piston Brembo's are really looking better and better to me the more I think about this. unless I get the killer deal that I'm working for a complete set of ML63 brakes atm then I think I'm just going to go for the 4/8 AMG Brembos. again I'm not totally against the R63/ML63 type setup but do realize that it is a trade-off. at this point though either/or would just be a huge improvement over the stock R brakes, that's for sure


this is the front 8 piston AMG caliper I'm talking about. that is a 20" wheel for size reference. the 14" rotor does not look so puny





here is the R63/ML63 setup in a 22" rim











and this is the new 2012 up ML63 with the more conventional performance oriented fixed calipers







this is the exact wheel I have on my R, I can't help thinking that it would also just look better with the 8 piston caliper too








here is Porsche and Mercedes ceramic monsters









this is exactly what I think of when I think of the ML63 and new S65 floating calipers, looks like this with some huge stabilizing bracketry added, X2 on the S65 I can't even imagine painting the R63/ML63 caliper any kind of hot color either, or it will just wind up looking tacky because of the floating caliper/bracket design, I think it will start to look like this even more if it was painted almost any color, unlike the 8 piston fixed which would really look great

turbocad6

sorry about those 2 huge pics, just grabbed stuff from the net to show what I'm talking about....

well I haven't heard back from the guy I've been working for the ML63 setup and I just decided to pick up the set of the 4/8 AMG's this morning. I'll test fit a bit later and see exactly where I'm at with these...

now something a bit funny, and maybe explains why I really think my brakes suck... I was just looking at my R and looking at the size of the rotors from across the street and I just noticed that for some reason on my R the front rotors look to be exactly the same size as the rear... now I know I have read that some early R500's came through without even the upgraded 13.8"/13" vented rear setup, although most R500's did have them... well I walked across the street and felt my rear rotors and to my surprize they are not even vented. so I really just have the 13"-13" non vented rear on my R500, just like any R350 would have... wow, ok this confirms what I suspected all along, that the brakes on my R500 are totally inadequate. this should be solved soon I think

these 8/4's are pretty massive, I think I made the right choice for myself over the R63/ML63 setup. hopefully there not a nightmare to adapt. honestly I'm even holding a vey slight amount of hope in the possibility that they may actually just bolt on... not impossible but then again I'm not really expecting them too either, I'll know more tonight when I get a chance to pull a few wheels and play

xxGenericSNxx

Can't wait to see how it works out. Please keep us posted!

turbocad6

I test fit everything tonight. one thing I've learned from the many cars that I've built over the years with swapping stuff around is that manufacturers love to share there basic engineering across models in there line where they can, and this sometimes makes swapping stuff between models easier. this is the case with most manufacturers in many areas and this is the case here too for the most part, in the front at least. for the most part there pretty much a bolt on. this caliper could be just bolted on with the 350mm rotor and that's it done.

technically to be 100%, the center line of the rotor is off center to the caliper by 5mm, this is easily solved with a 5mm shim at the 2 caliper mounting bolts, easy, no compromise and factory perfect in almost every way. the only other slight discrepancy from 100% to factory spec is that this caliper calls for a rotor spec that is 4mm thicker than the 350mm rotor of the R. this is almost a non issue but technically, if a situation was to arise that had a set of completely dead pads, and at the same time a rotor machined or worn to it's minimum spec, then at that point there runs the risk of the pistons overextending enough to possibly leak fluid. truth is again this is really a non issue as long as you replace the pads when the wear sensor triggers, and also this is mainly a concern only after the rotors have been cut to it's minimum spec. this can also be easily solved with a 2mm shim at each pad and isn't something that I'd say is absolutely necessary tbh but I may make these spacers too just to be 100% to spec.

last thing, also kind of minor, but might be a little pita to research the solution is, because none of these AMG cars were 4matic there was no reason why they couldn't put the brake line smack in the middle so it juts out right into where the cv joint boot is. I'm sure a banjo bolt setup will solve this but I have to research the thread size and pitch, then match something up to the length and other end threaded line fitting. I don't want to just pull the line and tie it off under tension to gain the clearance needed so I need to play a little more there...

the rear are a little more of an issue. I ran into about the same problem as this when I retrofitted G37s multi piston calipers to my FX35. the problem is that the emergency brake is enlarged by the manufacturer to compensate for the heavier vehicle. this makes the rotor different from the smaller car because the rear rotor also houses a rear drum that is used for the parking brake. this also enlarges the radius of the caliper mounting points as there on the edge of the diameter of the parking brake. on my Infiniti this meant having to use rear FX50s rotors and rear FX50s spindles. here I guess it's possible that Mercedes shared the rear suspension geometry with another sedan, and it may be possible to swap out my rear knuckles with another and just switch over to a smaller parking brake. this would take a bit of research but this don't sound like fun. also my gut tells me it's unlikely anything but ML GL and R is the same enough to be a direct swap

luckily there is a much easier, cheaper and more direct way with this hardware and a little creative engineering

for those that are bored with a bunch of technical stuff or squeamish with just the thought of machining drilling and tapping a brake caliper then just scroll to the pictures now I guess cause I'm going to explain it a bit

this rear caliper is designed as AMG's upgrade for the S55 CL55 and SL55 and 65 models. these cars all shared the same basic platform, and these cars all came factory base with a 300mm rear rotor setup. when AMG spec'd a larger 330mm rear brake on these AMG cars, instead of Mercedes redesigning the spindles to suit, they spec'd the calipers to fit and work with the existing spindle. how this benefits the R class here is that Mercedes spec'd an extra 30mm+ into the leg extensions that the caliper actually mounts with, kind of raising it up from it's bolting point. what this means is that I can re machine and re drill the caliper mounting pads to perfectly align with our rear caliper bolt pattern, which I've measured to be 20mm higher and spread 15mm further apart. this is possible and leaves plenty of room for mounting integrity and falls within the boss Brembo cast as the mounting pad, it's actually the more conventional close as possible to the pistons type bolt placement that most other calipers would normally use.

done accurate and correctly this will be as perfect as if it came from Brembo like this, and this is exactly how Brembo themselves would have built this caliper to this application. shortening the stilts that the caliper originally mounted with actually increases rigidity and reduces flex in the mounting, so this caliper in the R class application actually benefits from removing the compromise that was made because Mercedes didn't create a larger spindle for the AMG cars, to some tiny degree that I'm sure is measurable on some level at least, so technically it will work slightly better in the R than it even did in it's intended application

all bs aside this is a really nice brake. it's also massive but not very heavy. seeing it in the wheel and doing all my measuring I now realize there is no way to go with a much larger rotor, with the 350mm rotor existing setup I've only got 21mm clearance till wheel contacts the caliper, I can't even go to the GL550 size of 375mm, about the biggest I could possibly go and still fit within the 20" wheel is ~360mm, re engineering and building custom caliper brackets to gain 10mm is not worth it, and the only 360mm rotor that's close is the E63 which is a floating 2 piece rotor but it don't line up properly, it sits in further almost 10mm more than the R and this will contact the steering knuckle at the outer tie rod, so at this point trying to find the best stock replacement R500 rotor to pair up with these calipers is next and then bolt them on, rear needs a bit of machine work and then they too will just bolt on with new vented R500 rear rotors.

turbocad6

first, this is a rough approximation as to where the new mounting holes will need to be machined to alter the rear caliper and make it a direct bolt on

all of that material you see there is intended to be for mounting and machining to suit the application. this same caliper casting could possibly be used in other applications and machined to suit each one, much like most billet wheel centers are built with excessive offset and then machined to the required spec as the wheel is finished and drilled/cut to spec for it's application




and some front shots, if my R had the 13.8" rotors then I really could have drove home tonight with these front calipers completely installed









straight from the junk yard top set of pads removed for measuring to rotor















here you can see where the missing extra .8" of rotor needs to be
it will look so much better with the larger correct size rotors of course, whether dimpled drilled and/or slotted





and here you can see there's not much wheel clearance for a larger rotor, this brake pretty much fills the wheel up nicely and the wheel/brake assy as a whole looks really good I think, beefy and def non wimpy

turbocad6

also forgot to mention thatI think it's very likely the new 2012+ ML63 is using just about the same thing as this caliper setup and chances are pretty good that I can use rotors directly from the new ML63... going to look into this more, no replacement specs out there yet to know for sure if it's 350mm, from pictures it really looks to be 350mm, fingers crossed on that one, I'm sure they use really good discs paired to 8 piston calipers like these

Spud_Racer

You are a braver man than I. With a lot more knowledge of MB cars. Good luck with this. So what's it like? Can you feel a difference? Do the tires become the limiting factor in stopping 5,000 lbs of German station wagon?

xxGenericSNxx

That's pretty badass!

turbocad6

yeah, been kind of tied up and haven't had a chance to update this thread but this is actually turning out to be way sicker than I thought when I started this, it turns out in my haste I winded up having a serious brain fart, making me think for a minute that the 15.4" rotor won't fit with this caliper, I was wrong... it will fit...

so were talking 8 piston 4 pad brembo mono block calipers with 15.4" rotors... ohmygod, going to wind up with ~2.1mm clearance to the wheel on top of the fact that these are 8 piston brembo monoblocks, they are designed to have a special pad setup spec'd by AMG that uses ~65mm pad sweep area as they do on most of there AMG spec'd brembo setups inluding R63/ML63 and the CLS63, SL65 etc, all use a 65mm pad sweep area, look at all the aMG brakes and notice how the pad area always seems a bit fatter than on almost all other big brake setups, most aftermarket big brake kits only give ~55mm pad sweep, this 65mm pad sweep is kind of a special thing that AMG does that even those really expensive aftemarket big brake kits don't even give... I also learned from more researching that the SL65 and the SL63, CLS63 etc with what's called a P30 performance package actually comes with the 390mm 15.4" rotors like the R63/ML63, BUT it comes factory from AMG with a 2 piece rotor... that is the one pictured in post # 5 on the SL65

I also learned that the SL65 front rotor is exactly the same offset and dimensions as the R63/ML63, so what this means is that anyone with an R63 or ML63 can go buy factory AMG 2 piece front rotors as a direct bolt on. 2 piece rotors can go a long way in reducing unsprung weight.

I also learned that the new 12+ ML63 uses the same size 390mm 15.4" rotor, but it uses a smaller 13.6" rear. think I'm going to go with this 13.6" rear new ML63 rotor setup, I may wind up doing a 2 piece rotor in the front, if not initially then certainly down the road I think... right now I'm trying to decide what rotors to order.. I'm thinking of just using the new ML63 rotors all around initially, there cross drilled and slotted from the factory and there not overly expensive, a bit heavy but 2 piece rotors can always be done in the future.

timfountain

Negative. My 06 R500 has solid rotors at the rear. When I did the brake job, I bought vented (as indicated by RockAuto as being the correct ones for my car).

Bottom line - they didn't fit into the caliper space. I went to the dealer, they put in my VIN and confirmed they were solid (which I already knew as I took the old ones off).

turbocad6

yeah, some 06 500's came through without the upgraded 350mm setup with the vented rears... if you have one of these early 500's then a brake upgrade of some sort would def be something to consider, the extra weight of the V8 and the heavy glass panomonstrosity roof thing all add up to something that really needs more stopping power

a big brake is not just about more total stopping power, it's just as much about modulation and feel. it's like having a really powerful car, sometimes it's not so much about it's maximum speed it's more about you only need to press down slightly on the accelerator and woosh you're off, effortlessly... sure you may be able to accelerate as much with a less powerful car but it will take way more effort, flooring it, downshifting and reving to redline, motor screaming and def braking a sweat...

stopping with a big brake becomes much more effortless and the modulation is wonderful, you never really have to step on it hard you more just feather the pedal and get way more feedback and feeling of control, always feel like there's so much more left, like if you did floor it you're going to throw yourself through the windshield, it improves overall performance, especially on a vehicle with brakes that are lacking to begin with

I called my Mercedes guy and ordered a set of 2012-13 ML63 factory rotors, hopefully have them Monday. I measured this 8 piston caliper and made a template to check clearances and internal pad contact radius and it's actually ideal for a 390mm rotor. since it's pretty much a bolt on for a 350mm rotor, in order to fit this caliper with a 390mm rotor all that is required is to raise the caliper by half the increase in diameter, so a 20mm spacer between the bracket and caliper and 20mm longer bolts is all that is required, fronts are as easy as sourcing the correct bolts and/or making the spacer

rears are a little more tricky but not too much . I did machine the mounting pads for the rear calipers but I didn't drill them because although I'm fairly sure of exactly where to drill I really can't be sure of 100% accuracy without having some actual dimensions from both the R knuckle and the knuckle from the donor vehicle of the rear caliper. instead what I'll do for 100% accuracy is to fit the new rotor and then slide the caliper in place, pump it up and hydraulic clamp it to the rotor with the pads centered in the sweep then mark the caliper through the mounting tabs, foolproof and guaranteed 100%. so far all I did was machine away the material that was blocking it from sliding down enough, now it will slide all the way into place so I can mark the new holes precisely

pics in the next post so size don't ruin this text's readability

turbocad6

now I think it's only fair to warn here that although I'm showing you modifications to a brake caliper mounting boss,
this does NOT mean that you can just go and grind your own caliper down and just drill new holes yourself
without having the right equipment to insure accuracy and maintain a perfectly flat and square and true mounting surface
in other words, don't try this at home unless you have the facilities to do so correctly.

most will need to sublet this minor machine work to a professional machinist.
with a few pictures and a simple blueprint any machinist would be able to machine this, converting it to a simple bolt on



before:




during:







and after:












and confirming the fronts for a 390mm radius rotor





here you can see pad engagement is fine, all the way past the outer edge even on the larger radius rotor
actually the inner radius on this caliper is perfect for a 390mm rotor,
I believe it's used on the SL65 in exactly this configuration just uses either a different knuckle or different caliper bracket I think

turbocad6

ok, I received the 2012-13 ML63 rotors and I have an issue with the rear, seems the 2012-13 ML setup does NOT use a conventional drum parking brake, it seems that it must use an electric parking brake like many newer cars are now using, so this means that the rotor is not usable for us unless we eliminate the parking brake or obviously upgrade it to an electric, which I'm not totally ruling out yet either. I'll play with it tonight and see what I see while in there test fitting again

if I don't use this rear 345mm disc then my only other 2 choices are to either use a 330mm vented slotted and drilled aftermarket EBC rotor as intended for the rear vented R500 application or use the larger old style 364mm ML63 rear rotors, again,there I'd use aftermarket EBC's cross drilled and slotted too... I may just go for the 330mm over the 364mm for less unsprung weight and easier caliper mounting...

Viper98912

Nice, looks like fun. I've always loved brake upgrades, and the 8 piston front caliper MB used for a few years was just gargantuanly awesome.

turbocad6

yeah man, AMG spec'd the brakes on these cars with brembo's gt80 front calipers and gt40 rears, awesome hardware, almost the best calipers money can buy and def one of the best brake setups I could ever put on this thing,anything with more than 8 pistons is more about bling and bragging rights than actual performance, where an 8 piston 4 pad setup is about as good as it gets performance wise, but since there just oem used parts they are somewhat reasonable to buy. not too many realize or appreciate exactly what this brake setup is all about and for that reason they are relatively inexpensive... if I were to buy the new equivalent to these, with of course 2 piece rotors all around the whole setup would easily be well over 10 grand... here, if I did actually do the 2 piece rotors all around my total cost would still be under 4 grand... doing it with one piece rotors though I'm going to wind up keeping this whole thing under 2 grand...

under 2 grand for 8 piston monoblock front/ 4 piston rear brembo's with 15.4" front/14.3 inch rear is def a cost effective upgrade I think... unfortunately it's looking more and more like I'm going to have to build a custom bracket to fit the 14.3" rear rotors though, I could do the 13" rear rotors much easier with just re-drilling and tapping the calipers instead of making custom brackets, but I think I'd rather just go for the larger rotor setup in one shot... yeah they're pretty damn heavy but at least these calipers themselves are much lighter than the R63/ML63 setup, and overall the 24 piston 12 brake pad setup with huge drilled and slotted rotors all around will have awesome modulation and feel and heat handling capabilities, not to mention big stopping power for this big heavy monster of a car

7seater

Quite an intense setup you got there, and I'm also working on fitting a BBK for my ride also, would love to see the updates and thanks for the valuable info.

Jon

D2FORGED

Just a great project you have there. Let us know if you wanna play with additional clearances and custom made wheels for it. Projects like this let us be as creative as we can be.

turbocad6

thanks D2 but this car is more of a daily driver/beater and work car, not looking to do 3 piece wheels on this one really, factory AMG wheels are more than good enough for this thing, I just need it to stop as well as it goes

I'll update this in a bit when I get these things installed. when I seen the 2012-13 ML63 rear rotors didn't use the same parking brake setup, I decided to order, and received the older ML63 rear rotors... and man these things are just so friggin huge and extremely heavy, I winded up just sending them back and I winded up going with the 2012-13 factory Mercedes ML63 AMG rotors all around, drilled and slotted. 15.4" front 13.6" rear. the rear rotors seem to be almost half the weight of the older ones, but in doing so I do also wind up having to eliminate the drum parking brake, instead I'll have to add a separate spot caliper for the parking brake.

these rear calipers did need some machine work that I'm finishing up now. here's a shot showing some of the machine work in progress. the mounting boss is machined down to the new thickness required for alignment to the rotor on the R, the old holes sealed with threaded aluminum inserts, and the precise new hole placements pilot drilled. the new holes will be getting custom flanged steel threaded inserts to allow for the high torque these bolts require. this was necessary because at this reduced flange thickness aluminum threads alone wouldn't have enough of a safety margin, where steel inserts eliminate any issues as far as fastener strength. turned into a bit of a job but the results should be worth it

turbocad6

almost finished this conversion, the rear calipers were the most work and this part of the project is now done, the calipers needed machine work and I also needed to machine some inner and outer threaded bushing inserts but the results are perfect. should be able to install these things in about a week or so, need to paint the calipers and I'm not so sure what I want to do paint wise, also not sure wether I want to restencil "AMG" on the calipers, or just go with "BREMBO" text, or I guess also the option of just going with "MERCEDES BENZ" text? I guess the most proper is just as they are, AMG, but don't want to look like a poser either, I would never purposely stick AMG anywhere on my car, so I'm a bit leary about even duplicating this AMG text on the calipers, even though they are really AMG calipers and should say AMG...

as far as color, I'm thinking either stay with the low key silver look, or go bold with red just like the newer ML63's, or maybe just go with something else like black or yellow or ???... still up in the air but I'm about ready for paint so I really have to decide on color and text... opinions?

turbocad6

I finally finished this brake upgrade.

the fronts proved to be a little more difficult because the tolerances are so tight, when I thought I had a perfect measurement and built the precise sized spacers and bolted it together it was still off a bit, I had to measure from there and alter and fine tune the fit, keep adjusting till I got it perfectly centered and full centered pad engagement to the rotors. the fronts ended up needing 15MM tall D shaped riser blocks to accommodate the 15.4" rotor, and 6.5MM shims to space the caliper towards the rotor for perfect centering. it also required extended bolts for the caliper mounting to the bracket and extended length bolts for the bracket to knuckle. new sizes required are M12X1.50 socket head bolts in 85mm length( I used 90MM which is also fine) and M14x1.50 hex head bolts in 45MM length ( I used 50MM with additional 5mm washer outboard). it also winded up requiring the removal of a little bit of non critical material from the caliper to fit the larger radius of this rotor,

this took a lot of trial and error to get the exact specs so I'm listing them here if anyone wants to do this in the future.

I finally settled on a color and painted the calipers. because of the problems I had with the front fitment needing tweaking afterwards I winded up installing just the rear 4 piston calipers first, and drove it with just the rear's installed for a week or two.

rear brake upgrades don't usually make anywhere near as much of a difference as front upgrades, many cars will only upgrade the front alone and I wasn't expecting any huge results from just the rears installed but boy was I wrong. I swear that with just the rears alone installed the whole truck felt like it now had a complete big brake upgrade. honestly at that point it stopped well enough that the brakes were pretty damn good and could say that I was almost satisfied with the stopping power at that point. this is coming from a truck that stopped like an overloaded freight train before.

the rears were so strong by themselves that they made the whole truck stop with authority, but it was a weird feeling because you could almost feel that it was the rear pulling the truck down to a stop from the rears more than the fronts, no nose dive really, the whole truck almost felt like it lowered evenly when braked hard instead of the typical nose dive feeling when braking hard in a normal well stopping car. it felt good but weird at the same time. heavy braking through a washboard type road surface definitely showed that it was the rear doing most of the stopping because they would skip and activate the abs under those conditions, the rears could lock but fronts never locked...

couldn't wait to see how good it would be with the fronts installed too, well I finished all the final tweaking of the front spacer and riser bock setup and got to install the fronts tonight.

honestly I expected them to be really awesome, I've upgraded the brakes on other cars I've had before and I know how much difference it can make and thought I knew what to expect here, but again I was wrong and surprised, as good as I expected it to be it turns out that it is just even way way better than that. these brakes are f ing amazing. just feather the pedal lightly... flying at 90mph and need to slow down quick, just feather the pedal and it just stops and I mean stops... no drama, no skidding and no abs engagement, it's just you're going 90 one second and the next your down to 30. are the tires the limiting factor at that point, I would imagine they are, but if they are there is just no indication of this on dry pavement, the car just feels like it's glued to the ground and just stops like I threw out a parachute or something, and this is just feathering the pedal. I'm actually afraid to really jamb on the brakes hard... I need to empty the car first to even try it because everything that's not tied down is just going to be violently flying forward.

this is all just from the first drive and the front pads aren't even fully bedded yet. I'm delighted in the outcome of this upgrade and it has seriously improved the overall performance of this car as a whole... if I had to sum it all up in just one word that one word would just be.... WOW!

a few cell phone shots...

here you can see that the front pads aren't even bedded yet, when they are there will be 100% surface engagement





the rears are already fully bedded, took a few days but now the whole braking surface of the rotor is nice and shiny and fully engaged








and the whole car. these brakes must look sick on the highway when rolling at speed and the wheel kind of shows the brakes even more, def want to get a rolling shot I decided on doing the calipers gold, similar to the Brembo gold used on some sports cars, but this is actually a BBS wheel color. I think red would have been to bold, I think this is just enough bling while still keeping it classy, I love the gold on the white car and I'm happy with the way it turned out. still need to do the AMG text on the calipers some day, although I'm still not 100% sure on the "///AMG" text, and not fully settled on what color text to use just yet, gotta look at it bit and decide I guess, but who cares, there finally ON

turbocad6

drove her more yesterday and broke them in/bedded a bit more, then I decided to try to really see what these brakes can do and to push it a bit harder...

up until this point I have only feathered the pedal and in realty with how well these things work you really will never even need to do more than ever feather the pedal, as that alone will allow you to stop on a dime, but I wanted to see what more pressure would do

I took her up to around 60 and decided to try a quick harder jab of the pedal. well at 60 I gave her a quick medially firm jab and release, and the results, full and immediate wheel lock up, screeched all four tires with ease for that instant that I jabbed the pedal... wow, so I tried it again at up to 70mph and again, I can just fully lock up the wheels at will. this is on completely dry clean pavement on a warm summers eave where traction is very high

I'm not talking about really leaning into the pedal very hard even, I'm just talking about just firmly jabbing the pedal. from how well it feels an responds I think that I can lock up the wheels at will at any given time and at any speed , so what this means is that the braking ability is no longer the limiting factor and this brake setup is literally as good as a braking system could possibly be, the brakes no longer have any limits, and the limits now just come down to tire traction to the road and the laws of physics.

some of you may think I'm exaggerating but I'm telling you, this is not so. these brakes have just blown me away. if anyone doubts my account here then I welcome any local R class owner considering doing something like this the invitation to actually come and try mine. I could also shoot a quick clip and throw it up on youtube showing how I can just lock up the wheels easily at highway speeds... I honestly do not post any of this to show off, I just want to really communicate and share with you just how incredible this brake setup is on the R.

my R has went from being one of the worse stopping big heavy vehicles I've ever driven to being the absolute best stopping big heavy vehicle I have ever driven bar none.in the first month of ownership of my R I actually smashed the front of my R because it just couldn't stop. the front of my R is still smashed because to me it was more of a priority to fix the brakes than it was to even fix my bumper or replace the grille. now that it can finally stop as good as it goes I'll think about replacing the grille and fixing the bumper

if anyone here ever decided they wanted to pursue something like this I'd be very happy to help with any info I can provide to help you do the same. for what amounted to a little over 2 grand I have fully transformed my R's performance. I'm sorry if I sound like a little kid gushing over a new toy but really I'm just trying to communicate just how awesome these brakes are and to fully get the point across as to just how frigging AMAZING the R class can be made to stop with the right brake setup. I think someone here once said to me to not expect the R to ever stop like a true high performance car, well it can and it actually does...