Akebonos vs Upgraded BBK

worldfamousz · 11-22-2010, 10:44 AM

The Akebono setup is a good brake kit overall. The one thing I do not like is the overall weight of both the calipers and the rotors. For MOST people who do light track duty, these calipers and brakes will work great. Unless you're a full on pro, I doubt you'd notice much difference between an aftermarket BBK and the akebonos with proper pad choice.

The oem pads are good for the street but I would highly recommend upgrading them to some better more aggressive pads for the track or aggressive driving. I would suggest Racing Brake 500's at the least or Endless pads we've had good luck with these.

for the rotors, Swapping out to the Racing Brake 2-piece will save you some much needed weight. the oem rotors are tremendously heavy.

The cooling on the caliper side of things is not bad at all, but could be improved for track duty. Running ducting to the CENTER of the rotors / hubs can probably benefit long track stints. Running some better fluid as well will help overall performance, I recommend MOTUL RBF600. Also, if someone comes up with a titanium backing plate shim for the pads, this can help reduce heat transfer from the pads and friction surface to the piston / fluid. We have these available for the older BREMBO calipers, but nobody has made them yet for the Akebonos. These shims are pretty standard fare on track duty GT cars as well.

So the Akebono's have good room to upgrade still, to compare to an aftermarket BBK (since most BBK kits will already come with a two piece rotor, aggressive pads, and slightly better cooling capacity due to rotor design). But for not much $ at all you can upgrade a few choice parts and have an equally matched brake system, without having to ditch the OEM Akebono kit. I wouldn't change them out if it were up to me...

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11-22-2010, 10:44 AM	#24 (permalink)
worldfamousz Base Member Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: so cal Posts: 52 Drives: mazdaspeed3 Rep Power: 16	The Akebono setup is a good brake kit overall. The one thing I do not like is the overall weight of both the calipers and the rotors. For MOST people who do light track duty, these calipers and brakes will work great. Unless you're a full on pro, I doubt you'd notice much difference between an aftermarket BBK and the akebonos with proper pad choice. The oem pads are good for the street but I would highly recommend upgrading them to some better more aggressive pads for the track or aggressive driving. I would suggest Racing Brake 500's at the least or Endless pads we've had good luck with these. for the rotors, Swapping out to the Racing Brake 2-piece will save you some much needed weight. the oem rotors are tremendously heavy. The cooling on the caliper side of things is not bad at all, but could be improved for track duty. Running ducting to the CENTER of the rotors / hubs can probably benefit long track stints. Running some better fluid as well will help overall performance, I recommend MOTUL RBF600. Also, if someone comes up with a titanium backing plate shim for the pads, this can help reduce heat transfer from the pads and friction surface to the piston / fluid. We have these available for the older BREMBO calipers, but nobody has made them yet for the Akebonos. These shims are pretty standard fare on track duty GT cars as well. So the Akebono's have good room to upgrade still, to compare to an aftermarket BBK (since most BBK kits will already come with a two piece rotor, aggressive pads, and slightly better cooling capacity due to rotor design). But for not much $ at all you can upgrade a few choice parts and have an equally matched brake system, without having to ditch the OEM Akebono kit. I wouldn't change them out if it were up to me...