Touring BBK Upgrade: Worth buying Rotora over Ake

AP - Chris_B

The answer is a bit more complicated than the question, but here goes...

Stillen is an AP Racing engineering partner, and has been since 1996. Stillen was the company that originally brought Brembo to the North American aftermarket, starting the Big Brake Kit (BBK) market in earnest first with the 300ZX. Originally, Stillen was forced to use whatever they could source from Brembo (mostly Ferrari F40 components) and adapt them to cars, trucks and SUV's. Brembo did not take the market seriously at all for the first few years. Eventually, a few more choices became available.

Moving up to AP Racing, Stillen drove the development of several new caliper and rotor lines, including the first aftermarket upgrade 6-piston caliper. Today, AP's road car line has been heavily influenced by both Stillen and a variety of supercar manufacturers (Ascari, Bugatti, Caterham, Gumpert, Koenigsegg, Lotus, McLaren, Noble, Pagani, Zolfe and many others -- dominating the top 10 of the Top Gear Power Lap chart!), plus OE programs like Holden HSV in Australia.

So when I hear someone say that Stillen simply uses AP calipers, I know that they just don't know the history or fully understand the 20 years of brake system engineering that Stillen has under their belts. Some brake systems have more AP Racing content that others, and the AP Formula Brake kits come from the UK entirely designed and built by AP Racing. Of course, many of those do not fit North American models correctly as there are often differences that AP would never be aware of.

Many rotors are supplied by AP Racing and many are supplied by DBA. Either way, they are most often designed by Stillen or at least finished to Stillen's specifications. DBA, in fact, supplies AP Racing in Australia for several GM platforms, such as OE the Holden HSV vehicles. Between the two, it just doesn't get any better!

The Carbon-Ceramic Matrix (CCM) system for the GT-R was co-developed by both AP Racing and Stillen, with Stillen now supplying AP with several components in that kit. So it could also be said that some of AP Racing's components are sourced from Stillen. Confused yet?

I guess the best answer to your question is (if I haven't put you to sleep yet!): It depends. Regardless, all Stillen/AP Racing customers benefit from the decades of street performance and track experience that AP Racing and Stillen both have -- from a simple pads/Sport Rotors/lines upgrade all the way to the big track-capable 6P/4P kits. These are fully engineered systems, not a collection of semi-random parts that a machine shop was able to hog out, then anodized some "pretty" color.

Chris

wishihadnav

thanks Chris..yeah that was a long answer.