I'm doing an autocross event this sunday, and I'll decide then, if I want to upgrade to the AP Racing 6 pot and 2-peice rotors. My Wife's Pontiac G8 GXP has the 6-pot Brembo calipers stock, and they are a lot better than my Akebono :(

+1 Josh!

The Akebono's do fine at the average length auto-x (e.g. 60 seconds) with an average number of runs (3-4). In longer sessions of 2+ minute runs and 5-runs you can definitely cook them to 800+ degrees and the stock style pads no longer work. At that point you have to swap in track pads such as the Carbotech. Forget the Hawk HP+, the MOT is too low and the grabiness freaks out the ABS.

Yeah - Gary and Chris really outdid themselves on this one. I'm hoping it nets both companies some brake sales...

im willing to put my paycheck down against this absurd statement on the results of a 370Z w/ Alliance setup that will be touring the country this upcoming season hitting many tracks around the country.
EDIT: editing the rest of this post to prevent flames. we will just have to see how they do on this twin turbo 370Z that will put dozens and dozens of hours of track use on these brakes, and let the results speak for themselves.

Just curious to your relationship with Alliance.. you've spent a good amount of time promoting their products, was it a sponsorship deal or more?

Not trying to be harsh, it's just nice to know if statements like this come from personal experience, such as a lot of information in this thread, or if it's just because someone really likes a company or products because of a personal relationship.

Yeah chris's comment was completely ungrounded in regards to the Alliance kit. I will be tracking the car this season and pushing it to its limits. So far the brakes are living up to and beyond my expectations!

Mike has personally used the product on his 350z so he speaks from experience.:tup:

Cool! I would assume Mike is 'battlewagon'.. I would also assume people would get more out of his experience than making statements of throwing down paychecks as a testament..

The reason that people can look to brands like AP Racing (yes, we develop kits with AP products, and brought Brembo to the aftermarket brake market originally) and Brembo is the established, timeless professional racing pedigree where money is no option, and performance is crucial.

Other brands pop up all the time.. and unfortunately not always to the quality needed to perform when pushed.. Especially when the country of origin can come into play. (general statement, not about a particular brand)

Anyone going to the track looks at pedigree, and technology into the development of brake products.. much beyond the looks involved with a kit, which was Chris' original statement.

yeah im not mad, i just hate statements like that because they are the same as people bashing products just because they dont cost a lot, such as wheels or even cars as a whole. and i know what AP is to the brake world, probably the best brakes on the planet given their history, though ive never used them or experienced them. i know when respect is due, and AP gets mine

and obviously id put a paycheck down because i think id win the bet and win my money back and then some :)

OK. I took his comment to mean that without a reputation of performing at the highest level, it is difficult to see how grandiose claims can be supported. And I agree. I've seen a variety of systems "survive" at the hands (and feet!) of an amateur during 5 lap time attack sessions, but failed miserably when put to a more serious test. Some didn't even last that long (C6 Z06). I have heard many massive failure stories from people who thought they were saving some money on brakes. They just had no idea they were going to be spending that saved cash and more on K-rail replacement, not to mention a car rebuild.

Anyone can easily claim a product performs to their satisfaction -- great! Now can a company make a product that performs to the satisfaction of the larger market, continually develop and introduce new products, have reproducible and repeatable set of of quality procedures, manage quality gates with suppliers, ship kits and replacement parts in a timely manner, deal with packaging and shipping companies, support their jobbers, provide high levels of customer service and stand behind their products with reasonable warranties? These are just some of the issues that are underestimated far too often by companies new to the market. Just getting a few of these wrong will be their ultimate downfall.

AP has over 90 years of total automotive experience. Brembo has over 40. Both have been tested and are continually tested in the most brutal environments possible by professionals who get paid to win (not save the car), much of it on live television with nowhere to hide. Alliance??? It's a reasonable question for anyone to ask. Reputations are earned, not claimed.

Chris

Good point Chris. I believe Alliance is out here to earn a reputation for high quality and parts that perform no matter at what level they are used.

We all have to start somewhere just like AP and Brembo did 40 and 90 years ago.

I agree, one just has to walk down the aisles at SEMA and AAPEX to see all the no name cheap caliper companies and the foreign manufacturers who will make your own brand for you on the cheap with no testing at all.

I agree, one just has to walk down the aisles at SEMA and AAPEX to see all the no name cheap caliper companies and the foreign manufacturers who will make your own brand for you on the cheap with no testing at all.

I just powdercoated a set of calipers called WP Pro for a guy. These were the worst things I have ever seen. Machine screws holding a finishing plate around the tiny pistons and shrink wrap tubing to insulate the crossover tube!


Not knocking Alliance, I know nothing about them.

I see them every year as well. Now, due to the struggling economy, they are desperate enough to offer any tuner a 10 car set deal to get their own logo on the calipers right out of Taiwan or India. The Chinese just copy the big names logo and all! So now almost anyone can be in the "brake business" overnight. Let's just hope they are all keeping current on their product liability insurance payments...

Thank you Josh, that was the general point I was trying to make. When you go to the track you want a company with reputation to stand behind you. Alliance is essentially unknown here in the US (seem to be from somewhere in Asia). Maybe they will be able to build a reputation at the track, and hopefully for them they do, but so far there isn't any reliable data other than a couple of enthusiasts doing a single track day. Much more data would be required before I would be willing to invest in such a critical component.

Mike correct me if I am wrong but from my knowledge Alliance is an American based company.

most companies we deal with are, but do they manufacture their products or simply engineer them?

Equinox that would be a question for Mike. Maybe he can chime in on that question.

Is Mike from Blackline Motorsports or somewhere else?

Blackline is the only reference I can find anywhere on the net about Alliance, and thats only on Z forums and a prelude forum.

I'm not the Mike in question.

:iagree: not the Mike that I am referring to.

Blackline is the exclusive distributor and reseller for all of alliance's products as far as I know and understand.After I talked with Mike their main focus was on the Nissan market with their brake kits. They however are looking to expand beyond Nissan in the future and can do one off kits for customers who want them. :tup:

I think if they start a brand they should do some better research on brand names.

Alliance Parts is a brand of Daimler Trucks North America LLC, a Daimler company.

And these guys make brake parts, but I don't think they make the brakes from this thread.

So I'm pretty sure there would be some infringement here.
It's confusing to say the least...

(for reference Alliance Brand Parts -- Truck Parts and Accessories)

Xan the name of that company is ALLIANCE Parts... not Alliance.

I don't see any infringement there.

Bullitt5897, they are referred to as Alliance by everybody and they themselves refer to all parts as just Alliance. Look at their product line, they have "Alliance Brake Kits".
http://www.alliancebrandparts.com/_A...gAxleBrake.pdf

I don't know the Alliance in this thread (as I can't find any info on them), but if they want to build a strong own brand, I wouldn't have chosen a name that is so close to/the same as another company that makes brakes as well.

But more on topic, if someone can post up some more info on these brakes and the company, such as the origin and experience of the company and such, we can learn about them.

XAN,

Maybe a coincidence, but a lot of these Chinese knockoff companies do things like that to intentionally to confuse the consumer. They may not start the rumor that "Alliance" is an American made brake company, but they know that someone will spread it when they accidentally end up on the wrong site during a GOOGLE search.

Similar situation here...
DaTruth: The Chinese Are Bad For Your Health
LOL :icon18:

My big gripe is that all of these new brake kit "suppliers" try to market their products head to head with the real manufacturers like Brembo, AP, PFC, Alcon, etc... (stated "SUPPLIERS", because the majority of them do not manufacturer their own products) The consumer who may not have enough cash to buy a Brembo or AP kit right this second falls for the marketing,...thinks he "saved" a bit of money,... and then justifies his purchase in the first place by making his own claims about how "it's just as good". For many people, it may actually be "good enough" for themselves, but I really get frustrated by the propaganda and false claims that may influence by someone who really doesn't know there are major differences.

The reason why people like Chris and myself have soo much pride for the brands we represent is because we know exactly what goes into the products that we offer. Whether everyone acknowledges it or appreciates it means very little to me, as long as we are able to get the truth out there. The guy who may not have been able to afford the real deal the first time around, can at least learn that there is a difference, wait a little longer to make his purchase, and get a product that may not be "cheaper" but is most definitely the better VALUE when you get down to the "nuts and bolts" of it. (almost literally ;))

No offense to Alliance or any other brand buying parts from over seas and slapping their name on it, but if you market your product for what it is...a low cost option for a segment of the market that can't afford better, or doesn't feel they need better...you will be a much better company for it in the long run. Over promising and under delivering will be your down fall.

Guys, I will let Mike answer all question in regards to Alliance. However, In response to the quality of Alliance's BBK. I will have to say after holding them in my hands and installing them myself. I feel that these brakes a of very high quality! As for Performance they are performing leaps and bounds over the Stock Sport brakes which is what I was looking for. I have yet to thoroughly test them at the track as they were just installed this past weekend. I will be running a few tests when the weather clears up and after my car gets back from Forged Performance after the TT install.

I will say this... The brakes are more than capable of initiating the power assist (ice mode) *i think thats what its called* at any moment and with ALOT less effort than the sport brakes. I know the brakes have the stopping power to get the job done and after I get done with testing I will post up figures for you guys. I feel these Brakes will do an amazing job and I am shocked at the performance I am receiving for such an affordable price!

If your opposed to saving money thats fine. However, I bought mine based on reviews and from talking to people who actually owned and ran the kit on the track. Check My350z for some of the reviews they have on this kit. I have not heard of one issue or bad thing said about these brakes nor can I find any faults so far. Trust me if there is something I find wrong with the kit I will have it in my extensive review.

Until then I will hold my final judgments until I have fully tested the brakes with the street compound pads and then with the race compound pads. :tup:

just got back from 5 hours on the road, 2AM and im passing out, so ill answer any questions tomorrow morning, but I'll answer the most recent one. Alliance's legal business name is Alliance Automotive Products. AAP (obviously Alliance for short as most people say) is NOT a brand of Blackline Motorsports. Separate companies, BLMS is the exclusive sole vendor for Alliance until the summer (Blackline is promoting Alliance and help them get off the ground into the market, and in return retain the exclusive sale rights) around June, at which point Alliance will be sold by multiple vendors who meet their eligibility and application process.
Will get to the other questions tomorrow, but maybe I'll start a thread about Alliance after Mike gets some pics and a light review, because we are getting off topic from the point of this thread. Night guys.

I'm sure the American-based company is trying to 'accidentally' have their brand name confused with a OE parts supplier that no one has ever heard of that makes brakes for Dodge trucks. Hopefully they can nab a few sales when a Dodge Ram owner searches for $200 Daimler brake parts, and accidentally buy an Alliance Nissan Z BBK :ugh2:


I myself have already expressed my respect for such brake brands earlier in this thread:
Ahh now I'm going to bed and will answer questions when I'm up. Going to bed for real this time!

Sounds good.. would love to hear some backstory on Alliance..

Question still remains though.. I'm guessing you're a vendor selling these correct? And we can probably assume that bullitt5897 has a sponsorship deal with his TT car?

Neither are negative things, but important for everyone to be on the same page as they're processing information..

Made it to bed but made the mistake of bringing my laptop.
Yes we are working out our sponsorship plan (Blackline Motorsports) with this site, just havent finished deciding if we are doing a basic package or banner ads and all that nonsense. And to answer a question I saw earlier, I am Mike@Blackline on my350z, and Mike@Blackline on ourvq.com (our vendor account goes active tomorrow).

Bullitt5897 is just our first customer to order the 370Z kit. On the same initial order, there are two G37 coupes. They waited a while for the kits to be developed after three purchases were confirmed, and received a few bucks off for their patience through development, and for the pictures they agreed to send us, and what we can all assume will be some initial exposure through creating threads (though they were not required to do that). He is under no agreement, pressure, or obligation to promote the kits at all. All I asked of him personally when I drove down met up with him to personally drop the kits off was to take a few pics of the kit, and to write a review on here, and emphasized clearly and boldly to write his unbiased, honest, and true opinion on the brakes. I couldn't emphasize enough that I wanted a true review on these. Whether people believe what I'm saying here or just thinking that I'm trying to cover up bullitt5897 and our's secret under the table payments for positive reviews, just know from my mouth on my word there is no such deal.

Mike is right on that. To be honest Mike has even told me that if these brakes dont "hold water" so to speak about their performance they would work with me on getting me something that will. Mike has great customer service and drove down last minute to personally give me these brakes! He doesnt even live in the same state as me!!! Like I said I will give an honest review of this kit. And from what I have seen while driving the car is that these brakes deliver! Its sunny and snowing today so I might be able to wash the car and take some pics.

Josh, I wish I would have gotten a sponsorship deal that would have been SWEET!!!

Stay tuned guys... Testing data and pics coming soon.

I'm not trying to say anything bad about the Alliance products specifically, but simply offering things for people to think about before they make their decision. I will say that you can't "hold" or "feel" quality. The reason there are soo many fly by night braking companies sprouting up all over the place is because this is a product that can very easily "look the part"...and they prey on the consumer that really will not be able to tell the difference.

You can't "feel" metallurgy. You can't "see" structural integrity in terms of stiffness and strength with the naked eye. It's not that difficult to improve performance over an OEM system by throwing more mass into a disc, and supplying a caliper with opposed pistons and a more aggressive pad. For many people this may be the first aftermarket big brake kit they have ever purchased, and they have nothing to compare it to except for OEM production brakes. (one of you even said you have no experience with other aftermarket brands)

With such a new company how can you speak in terms of longevity of the parts which should be one of the most important factors for the consumer? I know for a fact that Brembo discs, because of their superior metallurgy (only possible due to their experience in professional racing, and their capability as the largest high performance brake manufacturer in the world) last twice as long as even some of the other well know brake companies. I know for a fact that you can fake caliper quality, which is initially apparent in modulation and pedal feel (which I'm sure Chris will agree, the more experienced companies like Brembo and AP are best at creating), and becomes more apparent over time when you need to rebuild calipers and replace pistons, seals, dust boots, etc...

And Bullit, it's not about "being opposed to saving money",... it's about educating yourself on why other brands may cost more initially, and making the decision for yourself based on whether these products will be a better value over time vs. a "cheaper" purchase today. I can't even count how many people have come to me to buy Brembo, AFTER they have had an unpleasant experience with another brand. Or how many people who have had a chance to drive a properly tuned Brembo system, have realized that their system is really not as good as they thought it was. Sinnce it's very difficult to be able to "test drive" different brake systems befre you make a purchase, a lot of times we have to explain our features and benefits in words. The problem here is that anyone can win a "verbal weight lifting contest" (BTW, I can bench press 640lbs.). The real proof is when you have the ability, experience, feedback, and reviews of real people, with real time invested, into the process to back it up.

I've only taken the time to respond in this thread because the initial topic was "BBK Comparison thread: Brembo vs. StopTech vs. AP Racing"...not "let's talk about Alliance in the thread where the 3 more prominent brands are discussed and see if we can capture some attention".

Thanks for the reply Gary! I agree with you about the performance and performance quality from any kit cannot be felt in ones hands. I was refering to the visual design and the look and feel of materials used. I look forward to testing this system and getting actual numbers for u guys. I have driven cars with stoptechs, rotoras, and brembo brakes and I think these brakes have good merit to them. Like I said before I will let the numbers speak for themselves and hol my final judgement until testing is done.

Being a business owner I understand why brembo, ap racing, endless and many others charge an arm and a leg for their products. Part is due to r&d costs while a good portion is because they have an established reputation and feel that the market can bare the weight of that pricing. Why should brakes from japan cost $15k a set while brembos and others cost half that? It's all about what portion of the market u wish to capture. Alliance has marketed themselves as a less expensive alternative. That doesn't mean that they lack the performance as other brands. I feel that Alliance can compete in this arena and after my testing we will see how they fair. :tup:

no one asked for attention. a random user mentioned he was looking at the Alliance kit, and another user posted the Alliance kit weight, and then an uninformed and unfair statement was made. it was simpily defended, and then all of this happened. its not just (even if i was an uninvolved party looking at this thread, my opinion would be the same) for someone to speak negatively of a product without knowing anything about it, even though their questions and concerns may be valid, because for the hundreds of eyes scanning this thread, if they see no rebuttal, then they'll assume the uninformed statements are true. agree or disagree?

the same day we finalize our vendor status here, ill make a thread about Alliance an everyone can ask their questions and ill address the ones in here so that we dont pull this thread further off-topic
(edited for spelling)

Dam Gary_C, I think that your insinuations are hurting his new reputation, right off the back. When people read this they will see your comments which may sway or alter the initial thoughts of this brake kit. Don't you think you should ask a question before assuming potentially false information??? I think everyone deserves that chance. I’m sure most of what you said is true in the bbk realm, but there is a better way to go about addressing this as a whole. The way you choose to direct your comments are very Nazi like and almost brain washing. However this is a public message board and everyone is to express their personal thoughts...This is mine.

So what are the thoughts on the "vs. StopTech" portion of the original question? The thread has primarily focused on Brembo vs. AP, and general concerns about BBK's overall. I'm looking at a StopTech BBK.

Since S/T is in a different category than AP or Brembo, it might be better to start a separate thread? It does confuse things to label so many brake systems into one category.

Chris

Different category how? That's kind of my question. :)

AP and Brembo (both owned by the Brembo group, but operated very independently) are at the pinnacle of global motorsports and braking worldwide. Between the two, they practically own F1 (AP has over 651 wins!) and NASCAR (87% of the field currently run AP), the two most demanding applications in the world for brakes. OK, you could also say the 24 Heures du Mans is amazingly brutal on brakes, but they own that, too!

They are both chosen as OE equipment on virtually all supercars on planet Earth from Bugatti Veryon (AP) to Gumpert Apollo (AP) to Pagani Zonda R (AP & Brembo), including all offerings from McLaren (AP), Porsche (Brembo), Ferrari (road - Brembo, race - AP & Brembo), Lamborghini (Brembo), Lotus (AP) and many, many more. There are two other companies that command respect at the most demanding levels of racing and extreme road vehicles, where the real lessons are learned. S/T, being a much younger company, is not one of those yet. Virtually all motorsports professionals will acknowledge this fact.

I'm not saying their product is no good, but no one can honestly say they are in the same category at this point in time -- never mind the even cheaper knock-off stuff coming from China/Taiwan/India. Of course, much of S/T's equipment originates in the Far East as well. I will say they have done a remarkable job with their marketing program for the time they have been in the industry.

For some, the price point is a determining factor (which is not much lower these days!) and that is fine for them. For those demanding the very best -- just like with everything else -- the choices narrow significantly.

Chris