2021 Tahoe/Escalade Performance Brembo Brake Upgrade

[L's Truck]

Once again, absolutely and completely false (as the only advantage to bigger brakes, to be clear). Bigger brakes stop better under all circumstances. Larger rotors and pads have more friction area which is equivalent to “there’s no replacement for displacement” as they say. Sure you can upgrade to more aggressive pads with the stock brakes but at the expense of much shorter life (and they eat up the rotors so that they have to be changed when the pads wear out), noise, and dust. The Brembo pads in these kits aren’t super aggressive. The EBC Yellowstuff I put on the rear easily made 2-3 times as much dust.

Add to that the increased biting force of multiple pistons spread more evenly across the larger rotor and you will have more stopping power.

 

[Polo08816]

Once again, absolutely and completely false (as the only advantage to bigger brakes, to be clear). Bigger brakes stop better under all circumstances. Larger rotors and pads have more friction area which is equivalent to “there’s no replacement for displacement” as they say. Sure you can upgrade to more aggressive pads with the stock brakes but at the expense of much shorter life (and they eat up the rotors so that they have to be changed when the pads wear out), noise, and dust. The Brembo pads in these kits aren’t super aggressive. The EBC Yellowstuff I put on the rear easily made 2-3 times as much dust.

Stopping distances are limited by the coefficient of friction of your tires way more than your brakes as long as your brakes are capable of locking up the tires (without ABS).

 

[Polo08816]

Add to that the increased biting force of multiple pistons spread more evenly across the larger rotor and you will have more stopping power.

No matter how much 'stopping power' your brake system has, your tires will still be the limiting factor. Almost all OEM brake systems are capable of exceeding the friction limits of street tires.

Now it is possible that with a 'better brake' system with better and more consistent brake pedal feel, the driver can more consistently transfer weight to the front of the car smoothly to increase the dynamic friction of the front axle. But that's not going to be the majority of your end users for any large SUV.

 

[91RS]

Stopping distances are limited by the coefficient of friction of your tires way more than your brakes as long as your brakes are capable of locking up the tires (without ABS).

Once again, one piece of the puzzle does not the whole puzzle make. Do you only drive your engine at WOT? The peak power numbers DON’T MATTER! What does the power curve look like? That’s what matters.

 

[Kpwweb]

One thing left out here is inertia. Upgrade to larger/heavier wheels and/or tires and you will want larger brakes with more torque just to recoup the loss imposed by more inertial force due to the larger rotating mass.

 

[Polo08816]

Stopping distances are limited by the coefficient of friction of your tires way more than your brakes as long as your brakes are capable of locking up the tires (without ABS).

No matter how much 'stopping power' your brake system has, your tires will still be the limiting factor. Almost all OEM brake systems are capable of exceeding the friction limits of street tires.

Now it is possible that with a 'better brake' system with better and more consistent brake pedal feel, the driver can more consistently transfer weight to the front of the car smoothly to increase the dynamic friction of the front axle. But that's not going to be the majority of your end users for any large SUV.

Once again, one piece of the puzzle does not the whole puzzle make. Do you only drive your engine at WOT? The peak power numbers DON’T MATTER! What does the power curve look like? That’s what matters.

You're missing pieces of the puzzle. I've quoted them above.

If you're able to better modulate your brake pressure, of course the braking is going to be more stable but the variance in minimum stopping distances is going to be minimal.

Furthermore, braking performance at the limit isn't tied to brake rotor size or caliper size either. Take a platform that I'm more familiar with such as the F87 BMW M2 Competition. It has a massive 400mm rotor in the front with 6 piston Brembo calipers. But it actually does not outperform aftermarket systems that actually have a smaller rotor diameter at 372mm.

But I'm not sure that use case really matters in the world of large SUVs. The only practical benefit I see is a higher heat capacity for towing applications since light duty chassis vehicles don't have the benefit of exhaust braking that diesel 3/4 and 1 ton pickups have.

 

[Polo08816]

One thing left out here is inertia. Upgrade to larger/heavier wheels and/or tires and you will want larger brakes with more torque just to recoup the loss imposed by more inertial force due to the larger rotating mass.

Maybe if you are running R compound tires and have gobs of traction. Otherwise, it won't matter, the stock brake system is more than capable of handling larger and heavier wheels for any street application.

If what you were saying was the case, then there needs to be a corresponding rear axle brake system upgrade unless you're only running larger/heavier wheels/tires on your front axle.

 

[91RS]

Ok. You’re clearly the expert. I guess
I wasted my money, must be a placebo effect.

 

[Polo08816]

Ok. You’re clearly the expert. I guess
I wasted my money, must be a placebo effect.

I probably wouldn't buy the GM Performance Part when you could get a nearly identical product from GM which is on the PPV vehicles for significantly less:

2021 Tahoe PPV massive oem brakes, 16"

Fyi The new ppv is going to have 16in disc brakes. That's great news for the folks that like to upgrade. No more aftermarket, oem baby!! https://gmauthority.com/blog/2020/11/2021-chevy-tahoe-ppv-features-highlighted-video/amp/

www.tahoeyukonforum.com

Personally, I would buy the PPV brake kit because I plan on using a 1/2 ton based full size SUV to trailer a track car on a tilt bed trailer to and from the track.

 

[robgreg75]

Add to that the increased biting force of multiple pistons spread more evenly across the larger rotor and you will have more stopping power.

Absolutely not true that is not how friction works.

Once again, absolutely and completely false (as the only advantage to bigger brakes, to be clear). Bigger brakes stop better under all circumstances. Larger rotors and pads have more friction area which is equivalent to “there’s no replacement for displacement” as they say. Sure you can upgrade to more aggressive pads with the stock brakes but at the expense of much shorter life (and they eat up the rotors so that they have to be changed when the pads wear out), noise, and dust. The Brembo pads in these kits aren’t super aggressive. The EBC Yellowstuff I put on the rear easily made 2-3 times as much dust.

Friction area is irrelevant, you clearly do not understand physics, I have a mechanical engineering degree I know physics. Bigger pads only make for longer pad life the physical area has no relation to stopping power, all that matters is the coefficient of friction of the pad. Larger rotor do give more leverage for stopping power yes, but I don't think this kit is changing the size of the rotor just the rotor has more contact area. You do realize that if these upgraded calipers have more piston surface area then the pedal travel would actually get longer/softer. From the link to the kit from Chevy it said the rotors have 22% more surface area, are the diameter the same as stock?