Pratt & Miller Engineer weighs in on our C6Z06 Brake Kit Performance

It's fair to say that Essex services a disproportionate number of industry insiders with our AP Racing brake products. People in the know come to us because they are seeking a certain type of product. They want a race-proven brake system that was professionally conceived, designed, and manufactured by the best in the business, and that is what we offer. This particular customer is an engineer at Pratt & Miller, the storied engineering firm that operates the factory Corvette Racing team, who have won their class at Le Mans nine times (most of which were won on AP Racing Brakes). When it came time to choose a track brake package for his personal C6 Z06 Corvette, he chose our CP9668/355mm Radi-CAL Competition Kit. To our pleasant surprise, we found the post below on a Corvette Track Enthusiast Facebook Group. We're re-posting here with his permission:

"My car is on 200TW, factory aero, and makes 530 whp and will top out 4th gear easily at tracks like VIR, Watkins Glen, Road America and even Mod Ohio. This means I regularly see speeds above 155 mph and need to get consistently slowed down from that over 2-3 laps consecutively. This led me to debate both the caliper (sprint vs endurance) and rotor size (355 vs 372). Being a time attack car, I wanted to minimize unsprung mass but not needlessly increase my consumable spending after splurging on this kit. I therefore chose to combine the endurance caliper for the thicker brake pads (roughly 2 lbs heavier vs the sprint CP9660 caliper) with the smaller diameter 355 mm rotors (10 lbs lighter across both axles than the 372 mm). My only concern with this decision was that I would miss the added heat capacity of the larger rotors and would potentially need to replace my rotor rings more often than I would like.
After running my setup for 8 events or roughly 50 on track sessions, I can happily say that the kit exceeded my expectations! I managed to run the whole season on 1 set of rotor rings and 1 set of Hawk Performance DTC60 1 inch thick pads! This is a huge improvement over my stock caliper setup that would melt through the same pads in 3 events and crack rotors in the same amount of time!

Even more impressive than that is how cool these calipers and rotors run during sessions. I have yet to experience brake fade on this setup and I never have to worry about cooling my brakes down before my tires overheat. I have full confidence on the brakes every time I go to them, every lap, no matter what. Last season I would have to bleed my brakes every couple events, sometimes more often. On this setup, I bled the brakes after 4 events just to be safe and got no air bubbles out of the lines and the fluid looked so clean, it was hard to tell when the new fluid was coming through.

Overall, if you push your C6Z on track hard enough and find yourself running through pads and rotors every couple events and regularly feel brake fade, I highly recommend upgrading to the AP kit. If you don't run any aero or slicks and run on bolt-ons for engine mods and are primarily running timed events, the 355 rotors will serve you just fine, don't slip too far down the slippery slope. If you're doing track days and want the minimal amount of consumable use, get the 372 mm rotors."