Ultimate Big Brakes
Stopping fast is more important than going fast.

It's about safety.

I consider brakes to be the most important safety item in a car.  Forget all the airbags, crumple zones, and even seatbelts... all of those are simply after-thoughts that assume you will hit something.  With good brakes, you can avoid that initial impact and take your car home instead of a taxi or ambulance.

Bigger is better.

Ever since my first really high-powered BMW, I have had an obsession with big brakes. That old '85 535i Callaway Turbo had a lot of "go" but the only "whoa" was from the relatively small stock brakes.  I warped through three sets of rotors within six weeks before starting the play with big brake swaps.  There hasn't been a BMW in my driveway that has kept original equipment brakes for long.

Even M5 brakes are not enough.

With the exception of the '95 M5's XXL-sized factory brakes, the E34 M5 is simply under-braked in comparison to the rest of it's abilities.  In fact, all E34 5-series are woefully deficient although the lesser-engined models can benefit from other BMW parts.  More information on these swaps can be found here on www.bmwe34.net.  

I found the M5's brakes to be too little at Road Atlanta where the back stretch gives the M5 an opportunity to top 140-150mph, and the sharp downhill left-hander at the end gives the M5 an opportunity to toast the rotors and pads.  Not a good thing.

red_full_rotor1.jpg (36114 bytes)UUC Motorwerks Ultimate Big Brake Kit

Here's where it gets interesting.  I have some simple but important requirements for a brake upgrade:

• Rotors and calipers fit under reasonable-sized wheels.
• Good serviceability in terms of rotor and pad life, replacement rotor and pad availability.
• Good options for pad material.
• Reasonable cost, both initially and for maintenance.
• Guarantee of technical support.

What we did was develop a line of performance brakes with SSBC utilizing a custom-built variation of their 4-piston calipers.  This setup offers these advantages:

• Oversize pad.
• Four-piston aluminum caliper design
• Two-piece 355mm (14") front rotors and vented 328mm (12.9") rear rotors, all swirl-slotted and plated.
• Availability of pads from the major pad manufacturers in any sort of compound, from street to full race.


At this point, all my requirements for a big brake system have been met.  The results are astonishing with much better braking force and even better modulation than the original brakes.  Although I have not had the chance to tackle the back straight at Road Atlanta again, I am confident the UUC Ultimate Big Brake Kit is more than up to the job.


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