gti with a bam brake upgrade?

[hobbiniho]

hi there one of my mates has recently purchased a nice gti with a bam 1.8t engine fitted and it still has the standard brakes (288mm??) and to put it simply they are rubbish  my caddy van with g60's stops better 
now he really likes the looks of brembos and the added benefits that comes with them except the price tag  we cant find a complete kit for less than £1200-£1500 and he really doesnt want to spend that much.
is there any cheaper alternative?? i cant seem to find many kits etc i have heard mention of hi spec and ksport but not really sure on the quality??
also i know about the 312mm set up but is that really that much better than the 288mm set up??
any help would be appreciated

[CJA321]

Im not sure. You can go 312mm. But need 17s. Those with some  greenstuff bpads would be ideal.
Thought you were talkimg about a mk4 earlier haha!!

[thai-wronghorse]

312mm will be more than sufficient if fitted with decent discs and mintex or ferodo pads. You'll need at least 16'' rims although some deep dish ones won't go over them.

[Wayne]

312mm will be fine anything bigger will need 17" rims

[sharki786]

i know a guy who fitted 312mm brakes & he had bbs rx2's 16" on he said he grinded the caliper down abit (is that safe to do?) or will adding a spacer be better? (i have the bbs rx2's & need to upgrade my braking to 312mm so was thinking about the spacer?)

[thai-wronghorse]

Yes,  fine as long as you're careful.

[Ess_Three]

i know a guy who fitted 312mm brakes & he had bbs rx2's 16" on he said he grinded the caliper down abit (is that safe to do?) or will adding a spacer be better? (i have the bbs rx2's & need to upgrade my braking to 312mm so was thinking about the spacer?)

I have RXIIs on and 312mm frakes...and you need to do a fair bit of work.
You do indeed need to grind the high spots off the front calipers...probably 4-5mm...at two points on each caliper.
You can't run a spacer - unless you are running 50mm spacers - because it's the thick section of the rim where the 16 M7 bolts thread in, that catches on the caliper.

Even if you get them to fit, it's feeler gauge close...so close in fact that when you brake, the caliper flexes and it'll remove the paint/powdercoat from the inside of the rim.
If your wheel is slightly out of round..you've got no chance.

In all honesty, 288s with DECENT pads, fluid and discs will give you almost as good braking, with none of the clearance issues.

[hobbiniho]

thing is the disks and pads he has are relatively new and they just cannot stop it from 140+ leptons  and i cant see 312 being much better or are they?? i take it that all he needs for the 312mm swap is the carriers and disks as the caliper is the same??

[tweed]

thing is the disks and pads he has are relatively new and they just cannot stop it from 140+ leptons  and i cant see 312 being much better or are they?? i take it that all he needs for the 312mm swap is the carriers and disks as the caliper is the same??

Then he bought sh!t disc and pads and must have sh!t tyres!

A vr6 has this setup and does 140mph all day everyday.

Buy good grooved disc's buy good pads that need to be hot to work and go spend £100 a corner on good tyres.

[hobbiniho]

thing is the disks and pads he has are relatively new and they just cannot stop it from 140+ leptons  and i cant see 312 being much better or are they?? i take it that all he needs for the 312mm swap is the carriers and disks as the caliper is the same??

Then he bought sh!t disc and pads and must have sh!t tyres!

A vr6 has this setup and does 140mph all day everyday.

Buy good grooved disc's buy good pads that need to be hot to work and go spend £100 a corner on good tyres.

hes only just bough the car and hes done nothing to it, nice too see you guys actually read the op  and as for the tyres yeh i have to agree with you toyo proxies are shyte