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1. Narrower space limits the thickness of brake pad can be installed. Although OE's 15.7mm might be adequate for street driving but a thicker pad (like can be installed on red caliper with wider spacing) can lower the braking temperature, prolong the brake pad life especially for track applications.
2. The large flat surface of the piston cap is less forgiving to un-even surface (against backing plate), caliper performance will be compromised when the pad has a taper wear.
3. Unlike most modern caliper pistons with open end, the piston end is caped with a wide plate makes the dust boot replacement harder.
Here is a picture showing the piston impression on the brake pad backing plate.
RacingBrake offers pistons made of stainless steel, which are a very popular upgrade in most motorsports communities like Nissan GTR, Corvette, EVO, Camaro, or Porsche etc.
RB pistons feature a thin wall cut so the extra weight over aluminum is almost negligible but the benefit is huge and significant.
1. It transmits only about 10% heat of an OE aluminum piston, so your brake fluid will run cooler and requires less replacement. Neither you have to install titanium shims (to block the heat transmission)
2. It's chrome plated for the smoothest piston movement that will extend the seal life.
3. SS piston is stronger and stiffer than aluminum, and will never corrode.
4. RB piston has 6 vents for quick brake release w/o dragging - Save your wear and tear on pad and rotor and improve your overall braking performance.
Right is for Silver caliper (33.5mm), middle is for Red caliper (32mm), left is the upgraded RB pistons (32mm)
By replacing with RB pistons your C63 6-pot caliper can accommodate a brake pad with 17-19mm vs. OE's 15.7mm (see below posting for usable lining calculation)
We carry the complete caliper rebuilt components including heat temperature dust boots which are made of Teflon and can sustain up to 450 deg F vs. standard boots of 300F if you ever need them.
Nice - especially for rebuilds in case of uneven pad wear, for example. Definitely an upgrade from stock even for the red calipers. And even better that parts are available a la carte and not just as entire caliper! Great addition to the community!
I am upgrading this winter to Clubsport coilovers and track wheels with R-compounds. I will definitely put my RB big brake upgrade to good use next season.
I thought the C63BS has E63 front calipers/rotors?
I think RB shouldve done a bit more research on what is offered from AMG.
All C63's 2008-2015 have the same caliper, EXCEPT the Black Series. The difference between the colours on calipers on regular C63's and 507 editions is that the rotors were 2 piece for Red and 1 piece for silver/dark grey, and the pads may have been different -Im not sure. The Black Series had larger brakes fitted from the E63 with 2 piece rotors which is why the caliper is different as shown above. Now I do not know what caliper the new 2015+ C63 and C63S models come with, or which ones the higher end AMG Models come with.
If you have a C63 Caliper silver, dark grey, or red from 2008-2015 the RB option above should help improve braking performance.
There are basically two types of wear sensor used in Mercedes brake;
1. Plate (surface) type - used in silver/red/gold calipers
2. Pin type - used in 8 pot caliper and some rear pads
Left is of pin type, right is of plate type which is more common and applicable to all 6 pot calipers such as:
Silver - C63
Red - C63 BS, GTS, C63S etc.
Gold - All Carbon ceramic brakes (CCB)
They are different in how they were attached to the pad but serve the same purpose - As the pad wears, the pistons keep extending out of calipers and the sensor surface will break into the rotor surface and trip the circuit so you get warning in dash board to replace your pad.
Sensor installed on C63 brake pad:
Top view - This is where you can see how much thick is friction material remains (usable) before the rotor hits the sensor.
From above picture you can see there is a minimum lining thickness to keep in the pad, in other words you don't want to run over that limit which is about 3-5mm and trigger the wear sensor.
Technically the friction material near to the backing plate is not exactly same as those above - This 3-5mm base layer serves also for heat insulation and better bonding to steel backing plate than for just for stopping, so the COF (Coefficient of Friction) is not as high therefore once you break into that zone you will accelerate the pad wear and result other negative consequence.
So it's always a good practice to replace the brake pad as a regular maintenance by visual inspection before the wear sensor is tripped.
When we make C63 pad, we add slotting (as we noticed from some used OE pads, where the sensor connector is actually a stress point to crack.)
These slots not only acting as a stress relief but also can collect the brake dust/derbies. They also allow you to visually check how much friction material remains. - If your pad slots are gone that means time to replace.
OE pad total thickness =15.7mm (per FMSI#8407) - Excluding wrap around shim.
Measurement from the backing plate to wear sensor surface is 11.2mm
Therefore OE usable lining thickness is 15.7-11.2=4.5mm
If the pad total thickness is increased to 18.5mm* (by replacing the OE pistons to same as red caliper) your usable lining will become (18.5-11.2)=7.3mm or 2.8mm thicker than OE.
Because this 2.8mm is a net gain for 100% usable friction, although it may not sound a lot but it's a whopping 62% increase.
*C63 pad is interchangeable with Nissan GT-R (D1382) which is 18.5mm (FMSI# 8491) in thickness.
Last edited by RacingBrake; 12-18-2015 at 06:10 PM.
Reason: Update GTR pad thickness to 18.5mm
I thought the C63BS has E63 front calipers/rotors?
I think RB shouldve done a bit more research on what is offered from AMG.
All C63's 2008-2015 have the same caliper, EXCEPT the Black Series. The difference between the colours on calipers on regular C63's and 507 editions is that the rotors were 2 piece for Red and 1 piece for silver/dark grey, and the pads may have been different -Im not sure. The Black Series had larger brakes fitted from the E63 with 2 piece rotors which is why the caliper is different as shown above. Now I do not know what caliper the new 2015+ C63 and C63S models come with, or which ones the higher end AMG Models come with.
If you have a C63 Caliper silver, dark grey, or red from 2008-2015 the RB option above should help improve braking performance.
Critical caliper feature such as offset and mounting height between two calipers (silver and red) are duly verified to be the same although the body shape (other than color) can be different.
Our discussion is focused on different pistons assembled to the "same" caliper body and possible room for improvement in pad choice. Not specific in models/year which we are not very good at.
But thank you for adding clarification to applications.
be careFUL; Brembo Engineers should watching you..
ZAYED,,
Thanks for that LOL!!.
We have a good collection of OE calipers (Akebono, Brembo, PBR, Sumitomo, TRW etc. ) and spindles in our library, and that helps us to develop our brake with confidence.
12-16-2015, 10:34 PM
