The great PCCB debate
Discussion
Steve Rance said:
Porsche911R said:
What’s the weight of those cars vs a road going gt2 RS ?
Weight isn’t really a factor, it’s more the brakes ability to overcome the rotational load of high grip sprint spec slicks. These put more load on the brakes than the weight differences.the race track is the ultimate test of performance parts. A road car cannot even over come a road tyre at 140mph, hit the brakes as hard as you can and no wheel is locking up, but heat is building like a b
d. Do that 3 times in say a GTS and you have no brakes for the 4th go.Same test in a PCCB car the car would stop ok.
Hence my flippant comment being blown away just how a road spec GT2 RS will just stop time and time again, very impressive, where in real life I faded a GTS steel disk road car in 3 stops :-(
Porsche911R said:
I back up every thing I do on track or at said vmax or mr 30-130 days.
Eye opener forum warriors over guys who love cars and want to pit the cars up vs the next man.
Mr 911R, are you attending the GT track day or days that 993rsr is organising? The track day that came about as a result of your forum bragging? I’m sure there are a lot of people here that could learn a lot form you, both in terms of driving prowess and personality traits...Eye opener forum warriors over guys who love cars and want to pit the cars up vs the next man.
On another note. When you had your GT4 (the one that the rear wing flew off, because you didn’t tighten it up), you used to bang on about PCCB’s not being suitable for the GT4, too much braking power for the BHP, too expensive to maintain and too much of a liability on track. What’s changed?
I love how each meaningful P'head thread starts off with good intentions, only to denigrate into an adolescent personal slanging match.!
It brings back not so fond memories of school days.
I wasn't aware until today that JZM provide a cost effective PCCB refurbishment service..I thought that only ST's continuous c/f CCB discs could be reskimmed to offer a financially sustainable long term CCB track use.
If its as good as JZM says then the cost disadvantages of PCCBs are largely negated IMO..
It brings back not so fond memories of school days.
I wasn't aware until today that JZM provide a cost effective PCCB refurbishment service..I thought that only ST's continuous c/f CCB discs could be reskimmed to offer a financially sustainable long term CCB track use.
If its as good as JZM says then the cost disadvantages of PCCBs are largely negated IMO..
Taffy66 said:
I love how each meaningful P'head thread starts off with good intentions, only to denigrate into an adolescent personal slanging match.!
It brings back not so fond memories of school days.
I wasn't aware until today that JZM provide a cost effective PCCB refurbishment service..I thought that only ST's continuous c/f CCB discs could be reskimmed to offer a financially sustainable long term CCB track use.
If its as good as JZM says then the cost disadvantages of PCCBs are largely negated IMO..
There is the same catalyst as always I'm afraid. It brings back not so fond memories of school days.
I wasn't aware until today that JZM provide a cost effective PCCB refurbishment service..I thought that only ST's continuous c/f CCB discs could be reskimmed to offer a financially sustainable long term CCB track use.
If its as good as JZM says then the cost disadvantages of PCCBs are largely negated IMO..
I assume what JZM is offering is what these guys do:
https://www.rebrake.de/?lang=en
Rather than re-facing the disc which can be done on ST rotors.
in a (likely futile) attempt of getting the thread back on track (sic!): If I tracked my 3s regularly I'd always go steels with some upgrades on pads, braided hoses, fluids etc. The pads may squeal a bit during daily drives but that's a low price to pay compared to PCCB replacement cost. And yes, all my 3s are on PCCBs as I use them as road cars
jcosh said:
Mr 911R, are you attending the GT track day or days that 993rsr is organising? The track day that came about as a result of your forum bragging? I’m sure there are a lot of people here that could learn a lot form you, both in terms of driving prowess and personality traits...
On another note. When you had your GT4 (the one that the rear wing flew off, because you didn’t tighten it up), you used to bang on about PCCB’s not being suitable for the GT4, too much braking power for the BHP, too expensive to maintain and too much of a liability on track. What’s changed?
don’t make up stuff. That’s daft regarding my GT4 wing.On another note. When you had your GT4 (the one that the rear wing flew off, because you didn’t tighten it up), you used to bang on about PCCB’s not being suitable for the GT4, too much braking power for the BHP, too expensive to maintain and too much of a liability on track. What’s changed?
I said I did not spec PCCB as it was too big a % of the cars value and if the steels were off the GT3 they should be good enough for the slower GT4, we were all new to the GT4, seats inc, which I said was a no brainer to spec 918 seats, but I hate the things now hence both my cars have the folding buckets.
What I ended up with is 2 Porsche’s both with the folding buckets and both on PCCB's.
993rsr said:
There is the same catalyst as always I'm afraid.
I assume what JZM is offering is what these guys do:
https://www.rebrake.de/?lang=en
Rather than re-facing the disc which can be done on ST rotors.
My guess is that Rebrake does the work for JZM..Still works out at 5800 Euros+VAT for a full set of four discs for 991GT3/RS, but even so a fraction of OEM replacements.I assume what JZM is offering is what these guys do:
https://www.rebrake.de/?lang=en
Rather than re-facing the disc which can be done on ST rotors.
They also do the Brembos which my Ferrari has..All of a sudden both my PCCB Porsche and CCB Ferrari are much less worry to track than yesterday..
Good find 993rsr..
I've had PCCBs on all my sports Porsches since 2004 - so about 150k mls road use, and occasional track events, in 7 different models. I love them, and have never had any issues, and they've always been immaculate at point of sale.
I didn't buy them for the ultimate stopping power, but they have always been totally reassuring under all conditions, and I find them better than steels when cold.
I didn't buy them for the ultimate stopping power, but they have always been totally reassuring under all conditions, and I find them better than steels when cold.
993rsr said:
I assume what JZM is offering is what these guys do:
https://www.rebrake.de/?lang=en
Rather than re-facing the disc which can be done on ST rotors.
Might be interesting to note that I believe rebrake are formerly sicom that have had a change of name fwiw.https://www.rebrake.de/?lang=en
Rather than re-facing the disc which can be done on ST rotors.
Wow, lots to read there!
I do a lot of track days so I think steel seems to have the edge.
That said, getting a PCCB car and putting some steel rotors and aftermarket pads on sounds interesting.
I’m suprised at the cost. I used to sell Alcon and AP rotors when I had a small rally parts business. Are these kits using the PCCB bell with a steel rotor, or is that not being done?
Also, how do Porsche view that warranty wise? If my engine blows up, are they going to tell me it’s down to my brake rotors?
I do a lot of track days so I think steel seems to have the edge.
That said, getting a PCCB car and putting some steel rotors and aftermarket pads on sounds interesting.
I’m suprised at the cost. I used to sell Alcon and AP rotors when I had a small rally parts business. Are these kits using the PCCB bell with a steel rotor, or is that not being done?
Also, how do Porsche view that warranty wise? If my engine blows up, are they going to tell me it’s down to my brake rotors?
Exactly Isaldri , that is why I specced them ( OPC said maybe spec them for re-sale but said the ashtray cover was more important to spec ) , bought the car for myself ( maybe Was wrong but who cares ) and hence have put miles on it . The only real way to not lose money is to not drive it .
Was with yellow491 at SS on a relaxed day with 993rsr , on Dunlops and standard setup and we seemed to catch some of the GT2RS's relatively easily, mainly under braking and through the corners as they were faster on the straights as are many cars these days .
We have standard steel 380mm disc's on the other cars and yes on slicks over 24 hours they seem fine .
But Track days are only a bit of fun so I do not press that hard and prefer to be safe and mannerly to others .
Was with yellow491 at SS on a relaxed day with 993rsr , on Dunlops and standard setup and we seemed to catch some of the GT2RS's relatively easily, mainly under braking and through the corners as they were faster on the straights as are many cars these days .
We have standard steel 380mm disc's on the other cars and yes on slicks over 24 hours they seem fine .
But Track days are only a bit of fun so I do not press that hard and prefer to be safe and mannerly to others .
Edited by hunter 66 on Sunday 3rd March 15:15
If you are buying a used GT3 with PCCB's I would definately get them checked out as if they are chipped or cracked you wont be able to renew any Porsche warrant (assuming its a 997 / 991 GT3) without replacing them for new items at considerable cost.
You can chip a PCCB disc by not carefully taking the wheel off to change a tyre for instance or by getting a stone trapped in between the wheel and the caliper as there is very little clearance. This can happen on normal road driving or worse still if you have an off on a track day into the gravel. Heat from track use can crack the pads if not cooled properly.
They do look good though....
You can chip a PCCB disc by not carefully taking the wheel off to change a tyre for instance or by getting a stone trapped in between the wheel and the caliper as there is very little clearance. This can happen on normal road driving or worse still if you have an off on a track day into the gravel. Heat from track use can crack the pads if not cooled properly.
They do look good though....
Porsche911R said:
jcosh said:
Mr 911R, are you attending the GT track day or days that 993rsr is organising? The track day that came about as a result of your forum bragging? I’m sure there are a lot of people here that could learn a lot form you, both in terms of driving prowess and personality traits...
On another note. When you had your GT4 (the one that the rear wing flew off, because you didn’t tighten it up), you used to bang on about PCCB’s not being suitable for the GT4, too much braking power for the BHP, too expensive to maintain and too much of a liability on track. What’s changed?
don’t make up stuff. That’s daft regarding my GT4 wing.On another note. When you had your GT4 (the one that the rear wing flew off, because you didn’t tighten it up), you used to bang on about PCCB’s not being suitable for the GT4, too much braking power for the BHP, too expensive to maintain and too much of a liability on track. What’s changed?
I said I did not spec PCCB as it was too big a % of the cars value and if the steels were off the GT3 they should be good enough for the slower GT4, we were all new to the GT4, seats inc, which I said was a no brainer to spec 918 seats, but I hate the things now hence both my cars have the folding buckets.
What I ended up with is 2 Porsche’s both with the folding buckets and both on PCCB's.
Anyway back on track, I’m a PCCB fan. Not had them before, but would spec again. After 8k miles and a few track outings they showed hardly any wear at my recent service. I’m pretty sure I’d be replacing steel rotors due to cooling hole cracks after a few track days. I think an OPC allows up to 5mm for their 111point check. I remeber changing the steel rotors on my GT3RS quite often due to cracking, its a PITA.
Back to one of the OP’s questions which was “Purely performance wise, are the PCCB really worth the cost, or are they just a nice match for yellow seatbelts?”.
The delta for PCCB when speccing a new GT3 in 2017 was £6498 (roughly an additional 5% on the cost of the car). Anecdotally 1-2 year old cars with PCCB seem to warrant a premium over similar cars with steels. The extent to which that premium approaches the original delta gives a measure of the real cost of the option to the original owner. So if the used car premium were £6500 the first owner would be £2 ahead on the deal. To say the value proposition of PCCB is tragic does not necessarily hold true in all circumstances and for the first owner of a GT car it could even be seen as an investment.
As to the life of PCCB, I have never had to replace a set on cars that do see some modest track action and have a 13 year old car at 44k miles that is still on its original PCCB disks and pads.
The delta for PCCB when speccing a new GT3 in 2017 was £6498 (roughly an additional 5% on the cost of the car). Anecdotally 1-2 year old cars with PCCB seem to warrant a premium over similar cars with steels. The extent to which that premium approaches the original delta gives a measure of the real cost of the option to the original owner. So if the used car premium were £6500 the first owner would be £2 ahead on the deal. To say the value proposition of PCCB is tragic does not necessarily hold true in all circumstances and for the first owner of a GT car it could even be seen as an investment.
As to the life of PCCB, I have never had to replace a set on cars that do see some modest track action and have a 13 year old car at 44k miles that is still on its original PCCB disks and pads.
lowndes said:
Back to one of the OP’s questions which was “Purely performance wise, are the PCCB really worth the cost, or are they just a nice match for yellow seatbelts?”.
The delta for PCCB when speccing a new GT3 in 2017 was £6498 (roughly an additional 5% on the cost of the car). Anecdotally 1-2 year old cars with PCCB seem to warrant a premium over similar cars with steels. The extent to which that premium approaches the original delta gives a measure of the real cost of the option to the original owner. So if the used car premium were £6500 the first owner would be £2 ahead on the deal. To say the value proposition of PCCB is tragic does not necessarily hold true in all circumstances and for the first owner of a GT car it could even be seen as an investment.
As to the life of PCCB, I have never had to replace a set on cars that do see some modest track action and have a 13 year old car at 44k miles that is still on its original PCCB disks and pads.
PCCBs rightly or wrongly are increasingly seen as a 'must have for easy resale of GT3/RS Porsches..I seem to recall a while ago a 991.1RS in UV struggling to sell as it had steel brakes..The delta for PCCB when speccing a new GT3 in 2017 was £6498 (roughly an additional 5% on the cost of the car). Anecdotally 1-2 year old cars with PCCB seem to warrant a premium over similar cars with steels. The extent to which that premium approaches the original delta gives a measure of the real cost of the option to the original owner. So if the used car premium were £6500 the first owner would be £2 ahead on the deal. To say the value proposition of PCCB is tragic does not necessarily hold true in all circumstances and for the first owner of a GT car it could even be seen as an investment.
As to the life of PCCB, I have never had to replace a set on cars that do see some modest track action and have a 13 year old car at 44k miles that is still on its original PCCB disks and pads.
Taking PCCBs off a brand new RS and fitting Alcoa etc if intending for heavy track use makes sense..In my amateur hands only doing an occasional track day then PCCBs are less of a concern.
993rsr said:
How are you 'blown away' ?
What performance metrics have you measured to draw this conclusion?
do not state any performance advantage versus steel.
Porsche say:What performance metrics have you measured to draw this conclusion?
do not state any performance advantage versus steel.
"PCCB enables shorter braking distances in even the toughest road and race conditions. Safety under high-speed braking is also improved thanks to its excellent fade resistance.
Another advantage of PCCB is the extremely low weight of the ceramic brake discs, which are approximately 50 % lighter than standard discs of a similar design and size. This results in better road holding and increased comfort, particularly on uneven roads, as well as greater agility and a further improvement in handling."
So to recap the points stated by PORSCHE, non are my words.
1: Shorter braking distance
2: More fade resistance
3: better road holding
4: greater agility
5: an improvement in handling
But this is a forum of course so people can say back is white, one would think these rich name calling guys on here would take them to court by now.
Points 1, 3, 4 and 5 are all due to lighter weight, point 2 is I suspect possibly due to the physical size of the discs in comparison to a standard cars rotors.
2 can be answered by fitting the replacement steel discs of the same physical size as the PCCB's, but of course don't answer the weight question.
However - it does seem to suggest that we have two subjects here, being conflated.
1. Outright braking performance differences
2. Effect of shedding a significant chunk of unsprung weight
I suspect 1 is pretty neutral - people on here who track their cars and whose word can be trusted (leaving out 911R, who can contradict himself twice in a single sentence) say braking performance is too close to tell the difference.
2 is to me more interesting - and probably more relevant to road cars that have to deal with surfaces that are not perfectly smooth.
I'd looked into fitting PCCB's to my (road) car pretty seriously for the weight savings, but have decided to go to lightweight 17" wheels and floating (steel) rotors with alloy bells, as otherwise I'd have needed to go up to 19" wheels and tyres, and it looked like the weight savings on the rotors would be lost elsewhere.
2 can be answered by fitting the replacement steel discs of the same physical size as the PCCB's, but of course don't answer the weight question.
However - it does seem to suggest that we have two subjects here, being conflated.
1. Outright braking performance differences
2. Effect of shedding a significant chunk of unsprung weight
I suspect 1 is pretty neutral - people on here who track their cars and whose word can be trusted (leaving out 911R, who can contradict himself twice in a single sentence) say braking performance is too close to tell the difference.
2 is to me more interesting - and probably more relevant to road cars that have to deal with surfaces that are not perfectly smooth.
I'd looked into fitting PCCB's to my (road) car pretty seriously for the weight savings, but have decided to go to lightweight 17" wheels and floating (steel) rotors with alloy bells, as otherwise I'd have needed to go up to 19" wheels and tyres, and it looked like the weight savings on the rotors would be lost elsewhere.
Dammit said:
Points 1, 3, 4 and 5 are all due to lighter weight, point 2 is I suspect possibly due to the physical size of the discs in comparison to a standard cars rotors.
2 can be answered by fitting the replacement steel discs of the same physical size as the PCCB's, but of course don't answer the weight question.
However - it does seem to suggest that we have two subjects here, being conflated.
1. Outright braking performance differences
2. Effect of shedding a significant chunk of unsprung weight
I suspect 1 is pretty neutral - people on here who track their cars and whose word can be trusted (leaving out 911R, who can contradict himself twice in a single sentence) say braking performance is too close to tell the difference.
2 is to me more interesting - and probably more relevant to road cars that have to deal with surfaces that are not perfectly smooth.
I'd looked into fitting PCCB's to my (road) car pretty seriously for the weight savings, but have decided to go to lightweight 17" wheels and floating (steel) rotors with alloy bells, as otherwise I'd have needed to go up to 19" wheels and tyres, and it looked like the weight savings on the rotors would be lost elsewhere.
When I first purchased my GT nearly 13 years ago, due to the issues I'd seen with a GT2 I had with the same iteration of PCCB, we had some Alcon steel rotors made - three sets in fact as three of us had GT's at that time including Yellow491. 2 can be answered by fitting the replacement steel discs of the same physical size as the PCCB's, but of course don't answer the weight question.
However - it does seem to suggest that we have two subjects here, being conflated.
1. Outright braking performance differences
2. Effect of shedding a significant chunk of unsprung weight
I suspect 1 is pretty neutral - people on here who track their cars and whose word can be trusted (leaving out 911R, who can contradict himself twice in a single sentence) say braking performance is too close to tell the difference.
2 is to me more interesting - and probably more relevant to road cars that have to deal with surfaces that are not perfectly smooth.
I'd looked into fitting PCCB's to my (road) car pretty seriously for the weight savings, but have decided to go to lightweight 17" wheels and floating (steel) rotors with alloy bells, as otherwise I'd have needed to go up to 19" wheels and tyres, and it looked like the weight savings on the rotors would be lost elsewhere.
There was no noted difference in braking performance that any of us noticed on the road or the track, the key difference was how much more 'leaden' the car felt changing direction, it was very significant and clearly the impact of the increase in unsprung weight.
Taffy66 said:
I love how each meaningful P'head thread starts off with good intentions, only to denigrate into an adolescent personal slanging match.!
It brings back not so fond memories of school days.
I wasn't aware until today that JZM provide a cost effective PCCB refurbishment service..I thought that only ST's continuous c/f CCB discs could be reskimmed to offer a financially sustainable long term CCB track use.
If its as good as JZM says then the cost disadvantages of PCCBs are largely negated IMO..
Taff, i have done about 15k Plus track miles V- Max events on PCCBDs, on the likes of 991s Turbo S, 918s, GT2RSs GT3s and 91RS, and a few days in a 991.2 GTS on steels.It brings back not so fond memories of school days.
I wasn't aware until today that JZM provide a cost effective PCCB refurbishment service..I thought that only ST's continuous c/f CCB discs could be reskimmed to offer a financially sustainable long term CCB track use.
If its as good as JZM says then the cost disadvantages of PCCBs are largely negated IMO..
For what it worth this is my opinion based on my experience. Firstly Porsche upped the game on CCBDs back in Aug 13 first shown on the Turbo S and 991GT3 with the ceramic coated discs. This greatly increased the track life to the ones that were on the likes of the 997RSs. If you can get in few cooling laps, you will Easley get 40 Plus good track days out of a Set of CCBDs on say a GT3 or a RS. And still remain within the 111 Point inspection window. What is important is to not let the pads get down to below the last 20% left on them. Whist a lot with regard to feel etc is down to personal preference. The difference in distance's as set out above don't really tell the full picture. Were the CCBDs do come into there own over steels in my experience is when after say 30 mins or so of very fast laps when braking from high speed the CCBDs will be as good as the first lap were as the steels tend to go off a bit.
Edited by APOLO1 on Monday 4th March 09:27
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