When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
Are there any options to upgrade the brakes on a 2009 W12 car? Does anyone know if it would be possible to fit the 2014ish rs5 caliper set up on a D3 with little modification? The man in reason I want to change them is due to the ugliness of the factory calipers. They do their job just fine but look very unsightly behind the very open design 5 spoke wheels. It would really surprise me that nothing in the Vw/Porsche/Audi world would be an easy swap into these cars.
Ceramic brembo brakes are a direct fit and look awesome. The price might tough be higher than the car is worth.
One new disc 5208€, calipers 1900/1400€/pc.
Just swap in brembo 4/6/8pot calipers in the front. Easy swap, RS calipers will probably fit, but you will probably need to make an adapter. RS/S6 C6 2006-2009 or RS/S4 (B7) might be the easiest fit, because their chassis parts are the closest to our cars (basically same front wheel parts).
Rear calipers i wouldn't start to do, because you will either add a caliper to keep the electric handbrake (there is no multi pot electric caliper as far as I know)
If the ceramics were anywhere near affordable readily available in the states I would be all for getting those. I had read some of the R8 ceramics were the same but I can’t seem to find a definitive answer for that or which model/option.
Originally Posted by volvopentaman
Ceramic brembo brakes are a direct fit and look awesome. The price might tough be higher than the car is worth.
One new disc 5208€, calipers 1900/1400€/pc.
Just swap in brembo 4/6/8pot calipers in the front. Easy swap, RS calipers will probably fit, but you will probably need to make an adapter. RS/S6 C6 2006-2009 or RS/S4 (B7) might be the easiest fit, because their chassis parts are the closest to our cars (basically same front wheel parts).
Rear calipers i wouldn't start to do, because you will either add a caliper to keep the electric handbrake (there is no multi pot electric caliper as far as I know)
I wrote a long post about this, specific even to W12, but AudiWorld eventually lost the pictures to it. Still in my autosignature below. Mentioned it to AW BTW a couple of times and they just blew it off.
Some pictures are still in my user picture file. One is here: https://www.audiworld.com/g/picture/1155410 and I will do a screen shot below. Shows what you can do cosmetically with the stock calipers.
You can also buy everything you need for caliper rebuilds if you tear it down all the way for paint. That includes the pad retainer backplate, which is the thing that probably looks the worst over time as it gets some surface rust. See picture from rock auto site where those are all of $12 for a jobber set. The S8 ones I used are a dealer option, but now even more pricy and probably 10x rock auto's, each.
MY net is probably live with what you have and get the rocker can out. The brakes work fine. Size wise they are 385mm in front.
About the only thing meaningfully bigger are the 400mm's used on the D4 S8 or C7 S7. Or, the Bentley 400 or 420 mm for really obscure, but probably hardly findable either. Those D4/C7 ones have great Brembo 6 piston calipers and all, but hard to find, pricy and not sure on bolt up. They also use the lighter quasi two piece rotors found on better Audis now; the D3 W12 ones are really boat anchors of unsprung weight at 39lbs EACH. A guess it those D4/C7 era ones would go, but there is enough offset shift that only a test fit would probably answer question. You also have to deal with center hub increases from D3 to D4, though I again suspect at rotor level this still works from some research I did. From experience, the rotor hat offset shift (or not) is probably the subtle area that can burn you on fitments like these. The data on that is hard to come by--with a lot of searching can sometimes be found for other brand rotors like Centric.
Be especially wary on any RS crossover, though it could work. There is no C6 RS6 in USA that volvopentaman mentions. Those are also nice and very similar to D4/S7 at 390mm. Those would be euro ebay and again quite hard to find at a good price. It can take literally 1-2 years of checking every few days to find something obscure like this in Europe where they will ship to USA and at a decent price; even harder with brakes where rotors weigh so much. Rear offsets especially have to be watched. RS's often push the wheels out in back, which they do by changing the hub. That throws the whole rotor offset off compared to other stock set ups. Known issue in back with RS5 set ups (and why I never did rears on Q5 mentioned in next paragraph). Might be true on RS6 in back too.
Most donors BTW will not have as big of rotors as the D3 W12 at 385mm, so while you try to improve the caliper, rotor often shrinks. True of your RS5 mention for example at 365mm (I have those on my Q5 where it is an upgrade from the 345's used on most bigger B8 platform set ups). Identical brakes were used on early R8's too, so you end up with punier looking rotors (and capabilities), which would not really meet the objectives.
For folks generally BTW--especially most with 4.2's--all stock D3 calipers are the same--at least for USA versions. It is only the attaching bracket that is bigger for the S8 and W12 larger rotors, plus that single S8 pad retaining clip. On mishar's old 4.2, I think he may have changed the brackets and then rotors to the bigger 385's.
Mp 4.2 ,
i have read through so many of your posts regarding your brake work. Do you know of anybody who has looked into Porsche caliper upgrades? There seem to me plenty of large brake packages with some of their cars and I’d be curious if any of those would work.
Originally Posted by MP4.2+6.0
I wrote a long post about this, specific even to W12, but AudiWorld eventually lost the pictures to it. Still in my autosignature below. Mentioned it to AW BTW a couple of times and they just blew it off.
Some pictures are still in my user picture file. One is here: https://www.audiworld.com/g/picture/1155410 and I will do a screen shot below. Shows what you can do cosmetically with the stock calipers.
You can also buy everything you need for caliper rebuilds if you tear it down all the way for paint. That includes the pad retainer backplate, which is the thing that probably looks the worst over time as it gets some surface rust. See picture from rock auto site where those are all of $12 for a jobber set. The S8 ones I used are a dealer option, but now even more pricy and probably 10x rock auto's, each.
MY net is probably live with what you have and get the rocker can out. The brakes work fine. Size wise they are 385mm in front.
About the only thing meaningfully bigger are the 400mm's used on the D4 S8 or C7 S7. Or, the Bentley 400 or 420 mm for really obscure, but probably hardly findable either. Those D4/C7 ones have great Brembo 6 piston calipers and all, but hard to find, pricy and not sure on bolt up. They also use the lighter quasi two piece rotors found on better Audis now; the D3 W12 ones are really boat anchors of unsprung weight at 39lbs EACH. A guess it those D4/C7 era ones would go, but there is enough offset shift that only a test fit would probably answer question. You also have to deal with center hub increases from D3 to D4, though I again suspect at rotor level this still works from some research I did. From experience, the rotor hat offset shift (or not) is probably the subtle area that can burn you on fitments like these. The data on that is hard to come by--with a lot of searching can sometimes be found for other brand rotors like Centric.
Be especially wary on any RS crossover, though it could work. There is no C6 RS6 in USA that volvopentaman mentions. Those are also nice and very similar to D4/S7 at 390mm. Those would be euro ebay and again quite hard to find at a good price. It can take literally 1-2 years of checking every few days to find something obscure like this in Europe where they will ship to USA and at a decent price; even harder with brakes where rotors weigh so much. Rear offsets especially have to be watched. RS's often push the wheels out in back, which they do by changing the hub. That throws the whole rotor offset off compared to other stock set ups. Known issue in back with RS5 set ups (and why I never did rears on Q5 mentioned in next paragraph). Might be true on RS6 in back too.
Most donors BTW will not have as big of rotors as the D3 W12 at 385mm, so while you try to improve the caliper, rotor often shrinks. True of your RS5 mention for example at 365mm (I have those on my Q5 where it is an upgrade from the 345's used on most bigger B8 platform set ups). Identical brakes were used on early R8's too, so you end up with punier looking rotors (and capabilities), which would not really meet the objectives.
For folks genially BTW, all stock D3 calipers are the same--at least for USA versions. It is only the attaching bracket that is bigger for the S8 and W12 larger rotors, plus that single S8 pad retaining clip. On mishar's old 4.2, I think he may have changed the brackets and then rotors.
Mp 4.2 ,
i have read through so many of your posts regarding your brake work. Do you know of anybody who has looked into Porsche caliper upgrades? There seem to me plenty of large brake packages with some of their cars and I’d be curious if any of those would work.
Only ones I have casually seen along those lines are either Q7 related (connecting to Cayenne) or just use Cayenne calipers with some other brackets.
Keep in mind the combination of caliper AND rotor you have to solve for here, plus the hub offset. Casual memory of Cayenne stuff is maybe 350mm. That is already a lot smaller than D3 S8/W12 fitment in front, so doesn't seem to be on right track.I might be thinking of rears though, and then the electric parking brake problem comes in as volvopentaman spotted. Gen 1 Q7 also had the "seemed like a good idea at the time" manly 5x130mm bolt pattern. Maybe so did Gen 1 Cayenne and Touareg? Total oddball bolt pattern for anything Audi--used only on A8 armoured otherwise. You have to deal with bolt pattern correctly if rotors are part of the change. You want to be on the 5x112 pattern at least, and the hub center may still be okay. Gen 2 Q7 is back to 5 x 112 BTW. For hub centers older was 57+mm on D3 going to 66+mm on D4, most newer Audis and also Merc's. I did look at a 57mm rotor at one point (for a Golf R) against a 66 mm rotor, and the center hole where the rotor meets the hub did appear to be the same, which is another key checkpoint on al these inter-platform ideas.
If you instead mean 911, Cayman, etc, seems challenging with quite different platforms, bolt patterns, who knows what rotor offsets, etc. Might as well just buy a direct Brembo aftermarket kit at that point. Maybe a Macan if those have bigger brakes on turbo's, since it is basically a gussied up Q5 or B8/B9 type platform and I think it is 5 x 112 at 66mm+. And to be clear on that, "hub center" is actually the wheel center area where it bolts up to bub and rotor center, not the yet bigger hole where the rotor mates up to the hub. From my prior check, those brake rotor holes may be same for either 57+mm hubs or 66+ mm hubs--which surprised me and sort of undercuts Audi's spin for why they supposedly made the change.
As far as practical, I come back to rocker ball can (aka high temp spray paint) or long term watch ebay.de (auf Deutsch--Bremse____, etc.) for C6 RS6 set up. A corner case might be the D3 (OR Phaeton) ceramics like volvopentapan mentioned, but run them with cast iron rotors and related pads. What kills you on ceramics is the rotor cost. The calipers are out there and very nice Brembo stuff; no more expensive than other used performance calipers in general. They are 380mm rotors IIRC so would have to fish some. There are 380mm rotors stock on D4 A8 (4.0T I think), gen 1 SQ5, and maybe C7 S6, so if center hole of rotor agrees and also rotor offset (not wheel, rotor hat offset), it might just work. D4/SQ5, etc. rotors are the quasi two piece factory, so it pulls out unsprung weight too performance wise.
D3 is so low volume and hardly ever modded, so you are way at bleeding edge on this and would have to be inventive. I know about it by chance from poking hard at brake mods for several years, including the factory D3 Euro ceramic angle. Ended up with D4 S8 so never got further actually implementing on D3 beyond another nice rocker ball cosmetic job. If you were in SF Bay Area, might be more feasible to check measurements here and there. I think a real key to doing these unusual set ups cross platform practically is having access to a shop that does Audi/Euro car work routinely--on the higher end ones with the bigger brakes. Then you are able to check measurements on a car real time assuming one of interest comes in for some work--caliper bracket bolt spacing and mount method, how the fluid hose runs, dust shield, rotor offset, rotor rotor center hole size, etc. Lots more to this along those lines than the comparatively simple questions like does the wheel clear.
02-12-2019, 08:42 PM
Brake options for the D3.
