Brakes are always a hot topic (zinger!). Most of the latest high performance cars have factory big brakes now instead of the standard cast small piston calipers. Brembo is usually the choice of OEM’s in the aftermarket world, but there are a ton of options from companies like WP Pro, StopTech, Alcon, AP Racing, and a slew of other companies. Over the years Vivid Racing has used many brake systems on our Project Cars from the likes of Brembo on our 996TT, CLS63, FRS, Focus ST. Even brakes from StopTech on our BMW M3, 335I, Mitsubishi EVO VIII, and others. But now there is a new manufacture on the blog bringing some serious brake technology and beautification in function to the big brake world. Here we show you the WP Pro Big Brake Kit for the Mercedes CLA45 AMG.
The factory Mercedes CLA45 brakes are pretty big looking and impressive in stopping power already. The front is a rather large 4piston 1 piece cast caliper with a 13.8inch 1 piece drilled rotor. The rear is a 1 piston caliper with a 13inch 1 piece rotor and integrated electronic parking brake. Factory testing revealed that the stock brakes do 30-0mph in 29ft and 60-0mph in just 111ft. So how can you improve upon the stock brakes? First is weight saving. Brakes are a heavy part of each corner and when you can reduce rotational weight from the rotor and caliper weight, you gain a pretty nice advantage in acceleration and handling. The WP Pro rotors save almost 50% weight over the stock ones. Typical rotational weight savings has a factor of 3. So if the stock rotor weighs 27lbs per corner and the WP Pro weights only 15lbs, that means your 12lbs of dead weight is actually saving you 36lbs of weight on 1 corner. Thats a lot!
So technically in the braking world, having surface area for the pads is a must. The more contact a pad has, the better the stopping power. But brake pads are in a fixed position with the calipers. So they are only going to contact a certain surface area. What WP Pro has done is not only made their rotors 2 piece floating, they have removed unnecessary weight and added a different “blade” design for better cooling. The saw blade design comes from the motorcycle world which is very popular to keep brakes cool. Furthing the “cool” factor in function and style is the carbon fiber ducts. The front 6piston forged caliper connects with this carbon fiber piece to provide a straight cooling duct to improve air flow to the bads and rotor surface. Since the rear caliper requires maintaining the electric parking brake that so many new cars have, WP Pro actually provides a caliper spacer to push out the caliper to work with their rotor style. The WP Pro front rotor is 14.1 inch in diameter compared to the stock 13.8 while the rear rotor stays at 13″ but pushes the caliper out to be center on the rotor surface.
While the brakes are bed in, we have not had time to thoroughly give it a proper test. So next up will be our testing video and driving video to show how improved the WP Pro Brakes are on the CLA45. Stay tuned!
Shop all WP Pro Big Brake Kits Here.
Comments 2