Essex Parts Black Friday 2024 Curated Deals: Chevrolet C5 Corvette

The C5 Vette is one of, if not the best, "bang for your buck" track car options on the planet. Several of our staff members have owned and tracked these cars over the years, and we still delight in their performance once they've been outfitted with our brake packages. The stock brakes on these cars can be summed up in one word: budget. The discs are heavy and don't flow much air, while the calipers are ugly, flexible little bricks. Over the years we've had customer reports of needing to rebuild the calipers after every hard track weekend at The Glen, Road America, or Sebring. The stock brakes simply can't live up to the chassis' overall performance, and our customers have found the brakes to be one of the biggest limiting factors suppressing their lap times. The OEM brakes also need to be constantly fed spare pads, discs, piston seals, brake fluid, and maintenance hours.

Our curated solution for the C5 during our current Black Friday Sale is our front CP9660/372mm AP Racing by Essex Radi-CAL Competition Kits (Hard Anodized Finish or Electroless Nickel Plated ENP Finish)

We're currently offering these kits at over $500 off the normal retail price, and we're also throwing in a free set of Ferodo Racing pads that retail at just over $600 a set...an $1100 savings!

Despite having discs that are huge next to the stock units (372x34mm vs. 325x32mm), this kit shaves 16 unsprung pounds off the nose of the C5! Despite having pads that last much longer than a stock set, the CP9660 caliper in this kit is fairly narrow and fits inside many 18" wheels without a spacer, including most OEM C5Z06 rear wheels when run on the front of the car (be sure to check our wheel fitment templates, as we have seen variation in wheel dimensions). Caliper finish options for this kit include gray hard anodized and the ultra-durable ENP nickel.

Our recommendation for your free set of pads is the Ferodo DS1.11, a fantastic endurance compound that is super popular among our client base. They last a long time, are easy on discs, have great modulation, and are virtually impossible to fade. To round out your package, add a set of DS1.11 in the rear OEM caliper shape, along with some rear Spiegler SS Brake Lines, and a couple bottles of AP Racing R3 Brake Fluid (all of which are also on sale currently!). A complete rear brake kit is a luxury on the C5, not a necessity. We have customers who have raced thousands of miles wheel-to-wheel with only our front Radi-CAL packages.

The above brake setup will let you lap until you're physically exhausted at each event, and your brakes will feel the same on the last lap of the day as they did on the first. This package will also give you ample headroom for future mods: Throw an LS7 in the car, add boost, run a multi-hour enduro...our brakes will shrug that off and ask for more, and it's the last brake upgrade you'll ever need to buy!