Brake pads Project Mu or OEM BMW
The street type are great all rounders, reasonable bite and minimal drop off. Pretty low dust and noise, and wear was terrific. The set I had lasted longer than the oem pads I had before them. The performance of the track orientated pads is absolutely insane. The initial bite is like no other pad I've ever had. It drops off a tad but still great stopping power. However dust and noise are pretty terrible.
I run the Project Mu HC+ and DBA4000 rotors on a FK8 CTR that is also daily driven. over all very happy works ok when cold but 1 or 2 stops and its up to temp and has great bite. and really only minor pad sequel when stone cold.
M3 stock brakes are better, the GTI gets a little tail-happy under hard braking above 110-130mph.
Seems like there would be room in the market for a slightly detuned S55 base model without the fancy seats, brakes and wheels for about $5-8k less like the M3/M4: M3/M4 Competition.
I really love driving it though, particularly the brakes and the handling.
The best solution I have found is to use slotted rotors--cryo treatment typically gets me 10K more miles before hard spots develop and I get a pedal vibration--and an aggressive pad without any ceramics. My solution is to use the best quality slotted rotor I can find, cryo treatment preferred, and use either a Wilwood BP-10/20 pad or a Project Mu NS brake pad. I found those two pads were aggressive enough to have great stopping power and would wear out the rotor at the same rate the pad wore down.
I personally use Project Mu HC+800 for their fantastic cold bite and high temp resistance.
Have yet to find a better street pad than BMW's OE compound. Ceramics dust less but feel terrible.
The way the brakes begin to grumble during heavy braking is less impressive, but they work well enough.
the steering lacks the consistent weighting and tactile communication that a Porsche offers. For a car this rapid, it's not as talkative as it should be. We've also got reservations about the brakes. Our test car was fitted with competition-grade brake pads to cope with track use, but they still faded badly after a handful of hard laps.
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