Project 2.Slow Mazda3

[rherold9]

Catch me in person when you come to Summit and we can go over much more of it. It would take me hours to put together even a simplistic form.

Tires = available grip. If you are locking up tires at all, no brake upgrade will help braking distance.
Let's say you have put the nicest tires you can find on. Now what? Now that you have enough grip to use brakes, we have to increase their work done. We increase work by increasing leverage (larger rotor), or by increasing the coefficient of friction of pad. Your example? Increasing the leverage does 6-13% more "work" done, but that is still minimized by you now have more weight to slow down with a bigger rotor...

Still, 6-10% seems pretty decent until you realize the coefficient of friction in pads can range from .3 to .7. Meaning increasing brake effectiveness is far easier and cheaper with a simple pad change then larger rotors.

Edit: Great simple whitepaper by Stoptech
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I'll have to give that a read, but I can agree to a point until you get to heat capacity and heat dissipation issue with smaller brakes. I know my set up will be a bit overkill, but better safe than sorry especially with this being my DD right now and not having proper cooling on the brakes as I don't want to do anything crazy to my car right now.

Edit: Read it. All about the brake balance based on weight, tire, and braking force. I've read about that stuff before. My new brakes are just as balanced as stock just slightly heavier. My tires will be fine with the pads I have. If I really want to get serious aggressive carbotech in the rear and slightly less aggressive in the front for this car.

My thoughts then go to heat was my main thought on doing this upgrade along with obviously understanding short distances. I've talked to a few people about this. It is interesting stuff.

At first I did not notice heavier steering. I've noticed steering is not too much heavier at all. Like barely noticeable. With that on some turn ins you can feel it is a bit heavier and it doesn't feel slower right away, but feels slow in the fact of changing steering input while already turning feels a lot different.