Customer Perfects his Dream Porsche GT3RS with our Radi-CAL Brake Kit!

This is the type of customer review that gets us excited to wake up and go to work each day! We absolutely love helping our customers squeeze the most enjoyment out of their track cars!

The products being reviewed are our front and rear Essex Designed AP Racing Radi-CAL Competition Brake Kits for the GT3/GT3RS:

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"Thought I would post a review of the kit as well. No affiliation with Essex or AP, just love my brakes...
I suppose the appropriate place to start is by explaining my background - I’m a car enthusiast from a very young age and it’s a trend that has followed me into adulthood. Many years ago I stumbled upon a movie that solidified my love affair with Porsche, and I set out to get myself the pinnacle of automotive engineering, in my mind. I was 16 at the time. Twenty four years later and I have finally acquired my halo car - a Porsche GT3RS.

I purchased my RS second hand. It happened to be optioned exactly as I’d like it to be - minimally. No leather dash, no deviated stitching, no frills. Just a raw, unadulterated, driving machine. The only options it has are PCCB, fire extinguisher, sport buckets, and white dials. It is, in a word, perfect (for me).

The problem with perfection, especially when you’re a perfectionist as I am, is that you ultimately never find it. Unfortunately, this was also my experience with the PCCBs. While I wanted to love them for their dust-free operation, they lacked what I needed for my track-focused mentality.

My first track event with the car was at VIR - a very fast track with a few heavy braking zones. I was learning the car, and the brakes, the entire weekend - and I loved it; save for one issue: the PCCBs. They lacked the feel and initial bite (even with Pagid RSC1 pads) - it felt like my foot was mechanically connected to a block of wood that was rubbing against the rotors. Almost as if it was leaking fluid onto the rotors themselves. My perfect car was not living up to the expectations of my 24 years of dreaming.

Now is probably a good time to explain my “track pedigree”. I’ve been going to the track for 20+ years running machines from spec Miatas all the way to a fully built race car. I have logged several hundred days on track and have spent many hours jamming on the middle pedal to bring cars to a stop. I LOVE to brake deep into the corners and haul it out with a lot of speed - trail braking as necessary. This requires a lot of confidence in your brakes, however - an artifact that was missing from the PCCBs.

I struggled over the upgrade to the brakes as I didn’t want to miss out on the lack of dust. Sure, irons are cheaper, but at this point in my life I’m fortunate enough to not have to be concerned too much with cost. I was far more concerned with my ideal setup.

After a thorough amount of research I decided to bite the bullet and upgrade to the irons - which just led to more research. I’ve had many brake kits over the years and the latest version on my previous car was the AP Radi-Cal setup. I decided to go this route again given my previous experience. Wow, I’m glad I did...

I took the car out to Summit Point Main for a two day event and absolutely beat on the setup. I’m generally one of the faster guys out on track, and this wasn’t an exception. And the brakes were the star of the weekend.

Hauling the car down, turn after turn, without ever fading is an amazing feat - and these brakes lived up to it. They never showed a single sign of not being up to the task. I was amazed by the system, yet again. Pedal feel was back, initial bite was back, releasing of pressure was back. I once again had brakes - and my perfect car was back to perfect.

There are other benefits to the system as well which make it more trackable - including cheaper running cost and easier pad changes. However, those pale in comparison to the feel.

A quick word about dust - sure, there is a little bit of dust but it’s not bad at all. I think these cars are so over-braked that they never really build up enough heat to generate a a lot of pad wear and dust. However, I’d take five times the dust that these generate to get that feeling back.

Would I do it again? In a heartbeat. If I buy another car, it will be with the irons, and I’ll swap them out for the Radi-Cal, without a doubt. Dream perfected.

I love my car. I love these brakes."