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0 Last August, we installed the street version of Alcon’s SuperKit for the GT-R and did some preliminary track testing at Atlanta Motorsports Park. The benefits of the kit were immediately apparent over the OEM brake system, but we wanted to test the kit on our local big track: the infamous Road Atlanta in Braselton, GA.
So this time around, we installed the “Race” version of the Alcon Big Brake Kit. The Race version shares all the same features as the Street kit with only two differences. First, the Race Kit uses a fully floating rotor. A full floating rotor allows the rotor to move around considerably between the hat and the caliper and maximizes immediate pad engagement, reduces knock back, and results in incredible braking feel and consistency. The reason you don’t see more cars using fully floating rotors is they are make a good bit of rattling noises at low speeds and through small bumps during normal driving. Those looking for quite daily driving operation should stick to extremely capable street version of the kit. The Race Kit also features a nickel finished caliper and hat. Otherwise, the two kits are identical in all other ways.
After Kerry installed one of the kits on a customer’s GT-R, he stayed late and installed another kit on my daily driven GT-R. As most of you know, my GT-R is a textbook definition of daily driver. Although it looks and drives like stock, the suspension wheels, tires, and brakes are optimized for aggressive track use and it’s seen several dozen track days so far. The OEM brakes perform very well, but when pushed to the limits things like pad knock back, lack of pedal feel, inconsistent release and so forth…all become issues that cost us tenths of seconds here and there. It all adds up.
And of course, the Alcon Super Kit looks absolutely jaw dropping on the street. I caught myself staring on more than one occasion.
With installation complete, it was time to brake the kit in at Road Atlanta. Although we were running the fairly mild and included Pagid Yellow RS29 pad I wanted to see how the kit behaved when hauling my GT-R down from 160mph into the braking zone of 10A at Road Atlanta. With the OEM braking system, I never really knew how the brakes would engage…not so with the Alcon Super Kit. Every time I pushed the pedal, the car immediately slowed and with a with excellent consistency. Knock back was completely eliminated, and replaced with consistent and linear pedal feel. The RS29 yellow pads did a pretty good job of slowing the car, but initial bite will be vastly improved once we move to a more aggressive pad. I’ve never liked the RS29 pad for cars above 3200lbs. It’s a great pad for Porsches, but not for the 4000lb + GT-R. We have custom made Carbotech XP12′s in production right now, and will be testing out some more compounds from Carbotech and Endless in the near future.
Hope you enjoyed the review and photos, and let me know if you have any questions.
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