I played around with the brakes on a few cars and you can pretty much lock the wheels up on everything regardless of what brakes you have.
I haven’t noticed “brake fade” either. So what is point to getting better brakes if no matter what ones you use, you can still brake to the limit you car’s tire traction?
I’m no tuning expert. But for me. I love being able to balance the breaks and adjust the pressure to my driving style. I bet if you play with them enough and track your lap times. You’ll find you’re faster on cars where you use the professional brakes. Again. That’s just the opinion of an amateur driver/tuner.
Pretty much this. Upgrading brakes allows you to adjust the braking pressure and the bias of the brakes (front or rear). On some cars this has a massive impact on how easy they are to drive fast. Op do you drive with ABS on or off? As with it on ( although i haven’t used ABS since FM2) I’m fairly certain you won’t see as much of a difference with ABS on compared to if you drive with ABS off.
[Mod Edit - Abbreviated profanity, profanity and profanity that is disguised but still alludes to the words are not permitted - D]
Look up unsprung weight. Brake fade hardly exists in modern cars, but lowering unsprung weight has significant benifits.
Oh no, this is very untrue. Brake fade is a huge issue, especially on heavier performance cars (above 3500 lbs). Within 3 laps at Laguna Seca you’ll start experiencing brake fade with almost all modern cars without ceramic brakes - and due to softer compounds on pads to reduce squeal a lot of those carbon ceramic fitted cars (bmw m4 for example) start to exhibit brake fade as well soon after.
A car with well vented rotors, air ducts and race pads can go upwards of 12-18 minutes without getting too much fade, but even with all that fade happens and is a huge issue on the track. In race conditions you have to balance this out over time, but most race cars are much lighter thus helping this equation.
It’s one of the places Forza didn’t seem to simulate in any perceivable way. Which is a bit of a bummer as its been done any a few other sims.
80% of the time in real world settings you upgrade brakes for brake fade, the rest is longevity of over-all life and weight savings as removing unsprung weight is one of the best performance gains you can make.
Tires become the actual limitation of braking harder.
NathanW
Slow down faster, surely
Brakes do definitely lower the weight. Sometimes they do this and do not alter the PI allowing you to get better braking capabilities, lower weight, and there is no penalty for it making it a must have upgrade.
The other use for the race brake upgrade is that you can adjust the brake pressure and the brake bias. On many cars adjusting the brake bias is very useful. I know that tuning and driving in Forza is not 100% replicated of reality, but look at cars in the real world and let me know which ones have a brake bias set at 50/50 and I bet you won’t find many. In Forza, you will notice that the default brake bias is set to 50/50 which can poorly affect car handling.
Most people don’t tend to use realistic brake bias settings - much more bias towards the front - because it introduces too much understeer and forces you to brake more on the straight line thus not allowing trail braking or turning under braking. Most people tend to leave the settings at 50% and play with other aspects of the tune or set the bias rearward between 50 and 45% front bias.
Not true all the time.
Not true, PI always gets altered except for the Diff upgrades. Also when you think the PI doesn’t go up it does not change the weight.
Race brakes lowers some weight and it shortens the braking distance but at the cost of PI that could be spend on only making the car lighter and thus would be a lot lighter than brakes alone.
Not true uber, not true.
You can add the race differential for no PI change true. You can also add brake upgrades, driveline upgrades, and clutch upgrades - though not always as high up as race - and not gain PI by a whole point.
Sure they may alter the PI by a fraction of a point but not an entire index point.
For example, I may be sitting at A700 and add sport driveline and I remain at A700. Then if I add street clutch I jump to A702. If I remove the driveline and keep the clutch the PI becomes A701. If I remove the clutch and add the driveline back I remain at A700. Just an example but I have seen that happen with brakes as well and it’s been particularly interesting because like the differential I was able to add race brakes with no PI change. Unlike the race differential however, this does not work on every vehicle. It is very dependent on vehicle, class, and upgrades selected.
Unsprung weight is most noticeable in how the car feels, which is probably not something that translates well without a really good wheel, and a fairly detailed SIM controlling it. It will give you shorter stopping distances because the inertia of your wheels has a much greater impact than most people realise. That said it will be measured in feet, so if the feedback the SIM gives you doesn’t change, through ffb, or through a controller where you get none, you probably won’t notice and change your habits, leaving a bit of performance on the table.
Edit: I should also add, it’s unnecessary unless you change wheel size or width, or add downforce. Larger rims need bigger brakes, I don’t know the exact ratio but adding 10lbs to your unsprung weight is going to add the equivalent of hundred or so pounds to the car.
Edit: looked it up 1lb unsprung is the equivalent of 2lbs to the car.
Forza does not simulate unsprung vs sprung weight. Weight = weight that is it nothing more nothing less.
And to answer the original posters question the answer is yes they do. If you look at the upgrade speed it says % of increase in efficiency. Although many people dont like to use the skid pad numbers because they arent always good look at them for the brakes. Should show 100-0 and 60-0 stopping distance in feet. Check it before and after you upgrade and then also check it as you adjust the brake balance.
Does upgrading the brakes actually do anything other than weigh less?
they can add weight
Sport brakes in particular.
For C Class I usually wouldn’t bother upgrading brakes other than maybe to drop some PI (see Sport brakes above). You aren’t typically going fast enough to need heavy anchors and the PI can usually be better used on power or grip. You can only stop as fast as your rubber, no matter what brakes you’re using.
They can increase you braking distance (unless they fixed that)
With ABS on it seems about the same, since the ABS kicks in plenty even with stock brakes. Without ABS it does seem a bit stronger when upgraded, but not a big difference.
Personally I put the racing brakes in every single car. I’m a G920 user and for me it is mandatory to adjust the brakes.
I like to have them at 60-65% to the front brakes so IF my wheels lock up I’d rather go straight than loose the rear of the car.
i use 140 or 160 brake pressure so kind of a must.
It has many effects.
You can tune in oversteer or understeer during braking by adjusting the Bias.
Adjusting the braking pressure lets you control how much you input you need.
Some cars can get by without them and some tracks they aren’t as necessary, but overall they are better.
they are way more expensive in F6. Not needed unless you need to tune them