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Will Carbon Ceramic Rotors work on the GT350?

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My eagle eyed son noticed the calipers on the FGT and GT350 look to be identical. Not that I'd want CCB's for track use but I wonder if SHW or anyone else makes CC rotors that fit the GT350?

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VoodooBOSS said:
My eagle eyed son noticed the calipers on the FGT and GT350 look to be identical. Not that I'd want CCB's for track use but I wonder if SHW or anyone else makes CC rotors that fit the GT350?

I think we're going to find that there are many interesting Easter eggs hidden by the Ford Performance engineers in the GT/GT350/GT500 hub, wheel and brake setup. If the calipers are interchangeable between the GT and the GT500, then the rotors will fit the GT350 as well.
 
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VoodooBOSS said:
Do you have any info on the GT500? I'm pretty sure the rotors are smaller on the GT but I bet someone makes them to fit.

Sorry no info on the GT500, but if you think back to the problem that Ford Perf has to solve with the whole series of cars, they have to find parts that work on as many models as possible to get sufficient volume to make the cars affordable. The 2007 GT500 had the same brakes as the 2006 GT for instance. As your sharp-eyed son noticed, the calipers are the same on the GT350 and the GT. So, think about the GT500 for a moment - it's unlikely that Ford will make a different front spindle for the GT500, so it'll probably have the same spindle and caliper as the GT350. If those two parts are the same, then the rotor has to be the same dimensions too, regardless of what it's made of.

So remember back when Ford first showed the GT350 to the media and it had CC brakes? I think this was actually in 2013. Then they disappeared and we got iron rotors at the real launch. My belief since then was that the CC brakes would reappear on the GT500. And if the GT500 spindles, calipers and pads are the same size as the GT350, then the rotors are too.

Now fast forward to the GT setup. I've done a pretty thorough search and the only brake rotor dimensions actually published are for the Le Mans race car at 380mm, and those are special racing rotors. The thing is, racing rotors and calipers use a narrower pad, which means that if the caliper "floor" (the plane of the mounting points) is the same, a smaller pad width means a smaller rotor. The difference in pad width between the Brembo racing pads and the "Enzo" pads in the GT350 is very close to "the right amount" to enable a racing setup with 380mm rotors to interchange with a street setup with 394mm rotors. It's not exact, but it's close, and the correction is done by putting a thin spacer under the racing caliper mount to bring the pad up to the right level.

So, what does all my theorizing and speculation mean? I think that the caliper mounting points and the caliper setback will be the same on all three GT vehicles. Even if the rotors are not the same size - for instance if the CC rotor is 380mm instead of 394mm - there'll be a matching caliper that just drops into place for each and makes it work. Won't be cheap, but for parts-bin engineers it'll be doable.
 
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FWIW my 07 Gt500 with the brembos take a different wheel to clear the side of the calipers, in fact I cannot use any of the old wheels off the IMSA or the Pirelli cars since they won't fit around the calipers without a spacer.
Not sure exactly what the deal is but forewarned is forearmed.
 
VoodooBOSS said:
I see where you're going with that and I like it! Now if the GT500 uses the same CF wheels that might help drop the cost of those too. At $10K that's a bit rich for me but at $5K I'm a buyer.

You can get them for about $8k a set. Still 2k more than a forgeline that is practically the same weight.
 
VoodooBOSS said:
My eagle eyed son noticed the calipers on the FGT and GT350 look to be identical. Not that I'd want CCB's for track use but I wonder if SHW or anyone else makes CC rotors that fit the GT350?
Just wondering, why not? Aren't there unsprung weight and rapid cooling benefits in addition to increased longevity?
 
Understood, I did a search and they can run between 1300 for a ZR1 to over 3500 for an M6 as well as require specific pads. I suppose they would have to last 2-3x longer for the price difference to be justified.
 
So JAJ and I have been having an offline conversation and Racing Brakes has a CC rotor kit available for our cars for $5,652. I'm not going to track my car enough to worry about the extra weight but doing some additional research on this subject I ran across the link below. Looks like other than the obvious merits of weight savings the jury is still out. So who's going to try a set and report back?

@Black Boss

http://www.racingbrake.com/RB-394mm-Carbon-Ceramic-Rotors-for-2016-Ford-Must-p/2c67.htm

2C25-2.jpg


Also read this from a Corvette owner:

https://www.corvetteforum.com/forum...25-ceramic-to-rb-steel-rotors-conversion.html
 
I would really like to try a set to see how it goes but...given the impending move it might be a while. I wonder how they would affect the ABS/magneride/TC settings? From what I've found a good CCM rotor can last around 27-30 track days with the proper pads and cooling. Assuming pads wear out about the same time for steel vs CCM (and pad prices are about the same if you're running Pagids) that would mean there's about a 60% savings with steel so it would be hard to justify whatever performance gain you get...but the technology is cool so I'd still like to try it someday. Here's a link talking about disc and pad life:

https://driveviper.com/forums/threads/15670-Racing-Brake-CCM-Brake-Pads
 
A lot of money for a wear item. You can not run an ultra aggressive pad compound with them because as the metallic content goes up so does the wear rate. On the Z06/Z07 C7 with CC rotors G-LOC suggests staying in the R10-R12 range so the rotors do not disappear. Large weight savings on GT350 due to ring size, they manage heat well but still nothing is as tough as steel/iron for durability. It would buy a lot of track time, tires and personal training ;)
 

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