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Originally Posted by stevesrt8
BTW, I can't believe a car like the ZO6 has any issues with brakes. They are massive, and the car is surprisingly light.
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Remember that energy goes up with the square of the velocity, but only linerarly with weight. So, although the exotic materials in the C6 Z06 make it a couple hundred pounds lighter than the "normal" C6, the astonishing power to weight ratio allow it to go faster at the track, and that's where it runs into brake trouble.
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The standard brakes on the regular C6 are OK, but even the upgraded ones are still NOTHING like what I see on the ZO6.
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One of the most popular cars for StopTech big brake upgrades is the new Corvette C6 Z06. It's not because the passenger side directional rotors are backwards. It's due to a fundamental issue with the front 6-piston calipers that results in accelerated pad wear at the track.
Each OEM Z06 caliper holds 6 "padlets" and each padlet has a piston pressing against it from behind. With a normal 4 or 6-piston caliper with two pads per caliper, the pistons are staggered in size in order to apply a differential force to counter the pads' tendency to want to rotate and nose dive into the rotor. It's analogous to applying more weight to your back leg when surfing, in order to keep the front of the board from digging into the water. With the 6 pistons on the Z06 caliper each centered on a padlet, the padlets dig in and wear (under track conditions) at a severe tapered angle. So you get down to metal on metal much earlier than if the pads had worn evenly. The StopTech 6-piston front brakes (identical to what I have on my SRT8 now) have two gigantic pads per caliper and staggered pistons that hold the pads parallel to the rotors for even wear. One of the first track mods many C6 Z06 owners do is to replace those OEM front brakes (and usually the rears too) with StopTech brakes.
As an aside, the Brembo 4-piston front calipers on the SRT8 have four 44mm pistons, so they are not staggered either. Thus, tapered pad wear at the track is an issue for the SRT8 too, but nowhere near as bad as the Z06. More "serious" OEM Brembo brakes, such as those found on Ferrari, Lamborghini, and even Subaru WRX STi have staggered pistons and much better pad wear characteristics at the track.