Correct Brake Rotor Venting

We often get asked what is the correct orientation when installing directional brake rotors. The correct orientation of the vanes is a subject often debated. I wanted to take this opportunity to clarify it with help from my buddy Martin from Girodisc.

From Girodisc's website: For maximum airflow and superior cooling, the Girodisc system uses curved vanes. For a curved vane internally vented disc, the geometry of the vanes dictates the direction of rotation. A curved vane disc must be installed with the vanes running back from the inside to outside diameters in the direction of rotation. Your discs will come with labels indicating their correct placement on the vehicle. Orienting the disc in this manner creates a centrifugal pump. The rotation of the disc causes air to be pumped from the center of the disc, through the vanes, and out through the outside diameter of the disc. This greatly enhances the disc’s ability to dissipate heat. Discs installed backwards have very limited cooling.

Many clients wonder if their brakes are good enough. The truth is that most stock Lotus will run fine on track with the stock brakes. The advantage of our lightweight cars is that we don't actually generate that much heat when braking properly. We've tested brakes temps and posted about it last year: see brake temp post. Of course as drivers get faster they realize that the stock pads lack the initial bite they need to be confident when out braking those pesky GT3s. Or when they have burned through their original rotors they start looking for alternatives.

Our discNOIRs, ULTRAdiscs & CUPdiscs all come from Girodisc and therefore use curved vanes to maximize the cooling potential. Now that cars are running higher levels of power, with slicks and serious downforce, we are starting to see more heat in the brakes. Running properly vented rotors, better pads and fresh brake fluid usually is enough to keep a modified Lotus stopping on a dime - repeatedly. We use our AP Rotor paint to see how hot they are really getting - before jumping to conclusions.

But for those who need more, we have more BBK solutions coming.....we are now testing a bracket that relocates a stock front caliper to the rear - especially tasty for clients running our 308BBK or a Lotus Sport upgrade. Stay tuned as we are still mental as ever...

ULTRAdiscs Love You Long Time & Now For Less!

It appears we have made our 2-piece ULTRAdisc rotors almost too good!

We are getting awesome mileage out of our ULTRAdiscs. The Spyder had over 30k miles on ULTRAdiscs - lots of road and track use. Phil@BOE recently informed me that he has gone through 3 sets of ST43s pads (which are brutally aggressive on rotors) on his front ULTRAdiscs and they remain in great shape with plenty more life. His stock OE rear rotors don't appear to be wearing near as well. He also mentioned that a competitive rotor was destroyed by one set of ST43s.

These brakes have been very successfull in LCS. Several of the fastest competitors are running ULTRAdiscs or its big bro the CUPdisc. In fact Brent, the winner at the LCS Laguna Seca event runs ULTRAdiscs. Of course Nirvana is sporting them as well.

We worked carefully with Girodisc 4 years ago to sort out a high end 2-piece rotor. Martin@Girodisc clearly did a great job as we've had nothing but positive feedback from these rotors. The 10lb weight savings, true floating design, corner specific solution and now proven life has made this rotor the best solution on the market. Learn more about these rotors here: Info Sheet

Some of our features have been copied by competition but none have delivered a solution that is as feature laden or has years of track proven history. No reason to gamble with your brakes, our ULTRAdiscs have kicked asphalt for longer than any other solution.

To make things even better, we've ordered 50 car sets to get our cost down. We are reducing our price on a set of 2 to $600. A full car set can now be ordered for $1200. This is a remarkable savings over the original price. Fear not, we're keeping the same spec. We firmly believe you will not find a better, longer lasting rotor on the market.