Porsche Brembo 996 BBK Conversion-- let's figure out how to fix the dust boots/seals

[Casa de Mesa]

Essex has a whole section on why your track car don't need dust boots:

https://www.essexparts.com/essex-designed-ap-racing-competition-brake-kit-front-cp8350-e46m3

Yep, well aware. Look at post #11.

They are a very helpful bunch though and might have ideas, was my thought. Even if they are anti dust boot 😛

[mrgizmo04]

I want to say that the last few 996/7s I saw at the track had aftermarket BBKs on them. It seems a little ridiculous to expect heavy track use out of a caliper designed for a street application.

They would be ok, if seals and dust boots would not blow out. On budget racecars, e36 and e46 guys have been running 996 kits for ages.

Has composition and formulation of the materials changed vs 5-10 years ago so they don't last as long now? Possible.

One of the inherent problems with 996 kits that folks forget about that gets lost among some "benefits" like "lighter", "pedal feel", is that they were originally on cars lighter than ours and with rear bias. So rear pads actually add significant size upgrade to deal with heat vs stock m3 pads (few pics below). For front bias cars like ours, 996 fronts just don't provide enough heat capacity (+ inefficient rotor cooling setup as I discussed before). I shove as much air as possible into the rotor, but that semi floating hat just deflects most of it back. Not surprising that newer m3 gen guys switch brake kits with similar style semi floating rotors to expensive kits. I think simply a proper rotor would go a long way to evacuate the heat. But swiss cheese rotors were all the rage.

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[Epsilon]

You might want to try reaching out to Essex. They aren't a Brembo dealer, but are in the industry and a great bunch of guys.

Heck I may call them later if my day frees up.

Essex has a whole section on why your track car don't need dust boots:

https://www.essexparts.com/essex-designed-ap-racing-competition-brake-kit-front-cp8350-e46m3

High Temperature, Low Drag Seals Without Dust Boots


We are often asked by potential customers if the calipers in our kits require frequent maintenance and rebuilding because the pistons don't have dust boots. We are perpetually shocked by this question because it makes no intuitive sense. If you have a product that is specifically designed to handle the extraordinary high-heat conditions of track use, why would it require more maintenance when used under those conditions vs. brake components that were designed to cruise around on the streets at low speed and temperature?

Many people confuse piston seals with dust boots. All calipers have seals. They're the little rubbery rings inside the piston bores (see pic below). If a caliper didn't have a seal, your brake fluid would leak out around the pistons! OEM caliper seals aren’t designed to handle constant trips to several hundred degrees without becoming brittle and leaking. Our calipers use special high-temp seals designed for track use. They are the exact same high temperature seals used in NASCAR Sprint Cup, ALMS, DTM, etc. That means they are less likely to get brittle and wear out when used under high-heat track conditions, and they require far LESS frequent replacement and servicing.

Most aftermarket calipers are designed for year round road use, and as such come with a bellows style external dust boot like the ones shown below. The rubber boot stretches as the piston extends, and its objective is to keep contaminants out of the piston bore. It's a nice concept, but we've seen customers burn those up in a single 20 minute track session! Once that happens, you're simply driving around with some tattered, burnt rubber bits attached to your pistons. At that point they're providing zero benefits to you. If you're going to instantly destroy them when you go to the track, why worry about having them in the first place? We skip making that mess for you by eliminating them from our design.

[mrgizmo04]

Same, Dave made sure that I received the correct high temperature gray (Stoptech branded) vs "regular" black (Centric branded) ones, even though Centric is parent of Stoptech.

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[Obioban]

Dave was our first call

[D-O]

https://www.zeckhausen.com/catalog/i...h=82_1169_1170

If you haven't already, you may want to give Zeckhausen a call. When I needed seals etc. to do my 996 conversion he was very knowledgeable, and cheerfully spent 30 minutes on the phone with me answering questions. He may know of a solution.

[Casa de Mesa]

You might want to try reaching out to Essex. They aren't a Brembo dealer, but are in the industry and a great bunch of guys.

Heck I may call them later if my day frees up.

[Obioban]

Disappointing that there's no easy solution here. Ian - if I remember right you started this conversion to fit a BBK under 17s, did this end up working?

They fit under the wheels I was running (APEX ARC8s in 10" ET25, but I got annoyed with the front offset and small amount of tire options in 17"... so I'm on 18s now.

I'm not sure there's no easy solution here. Seems like some blue high temp dust boots and titanium heat shields, and we may be good to go.

[blazenXLT]

Disappointing that there's no easy solution here. Ian - if I remember right you started this conversion to fit a BBK under 17s, did this end up working?

[Obioban]

Maybe this is a stupid question - but do the stock M3 boots disintegrate or are they fine?

Disintegrate.

[Slideways]

I want to say that the last few 996/7s I saw at the track had aftermarket BBKs on them. It seems a little ridiculous to expect heavy track use out of a caliper designed for a street application.

[cobra]

Maybe this is a stupid question - but do the stock M3 boots disintegrate or are they fine?

[mrgizmo04]

Also, a lot of posts use seals and dust boots interchangeably, in some contexts incorrectly.

Pressure seals or seals or caliper seals normally refer to the ones that go inside the caliper bore and has the pistons slide against, holding the fluid from spilling out and are not visible unless the pistons are completely removed from the caliper. They seal the piston bore and the piston.

Dust boots or dust seals (sometimes just referred to as seals, incorrectly) are the boots that prevent contamination from getting into the piston/caliper bore and are the ones that melt first behind the pad backing plate.

Thread here is for the dust boots.

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[mrgizmo04]

Brakes. My favorite topic.

My experience with Stoptech seals/dustboots on 996 kit.

I wanted to rebuild the calipers when I got them used. After installing the Stoptech seals into the bores I went to press in the pistons. I needed to use A LOT of force with my fingers and in pretty much all bores needed to use the caliper spreader to push the pistons in (I could not simply do it by hand, not normal feeling compared to all the calipers I rebuilt in the past). They did feel tighter than what I expected as normal, but I had a track day coming up, so I rolled with it.

I run my track pads rather low and swap to street pads, so the pistons get a good workout with being in/out of the bore. After a few events on inspection I noticed a bit of fluid running down the caliper and a rip/hole in the dust boot (first pic).

I thought of just replacing the boot, but something told me to just rebuild the entire caliper again, given how tight the seals were when I installed them and the slight accumulation of fluid. Removing the dustboots uncovered shreds from the seals (second pic with black dust).

I went with Girodisc kits to rebuild. When pushing the pistons in by hand, they felt "right" in terms of resistance with their seals. There must be some small bore differences and seal tolerances between Stoptech (made for Stoptech caliper/piston/bore) and Girodisc, even though they are stamped the same bore. Now interesting thing with Girodisc dustboots, they come out of the bore...not rip, just come out, they are just slightly too small in the bores and when pistons come out they must get pulled out (third pic on bottom right). I found this on several of the pistons. Before this turns into a "Stoptech sucks" thread, Stoptech seals and dustboots actually worked perfectly fine for me for years on my ST40 kit, like I said there seem to be some slight differences in bores/sizes when cross used on Stoptech parts vs Brembos.

I ordered the dustboot replacement for the 2 Girodisc ones that pulled out (on different calipers) from FCP, they seem to be Brembo, yet to install, see how they last. Rest that are not pulling out from Girodisc have been through a few events and seem to be holding up.

For all the above I ran cooling ducts and 1mm Ti shims.

Now this won't answer your question directly for how to solve it, but I'll go back to my comments I made in other 996 threads, and it's related to "a" solution. 996 front kit with "stock" 345 rotors is not a great setup for track. Take FCP out of it and it actually kinda sucks. Main part of a brake system for proper heat evacuation is the rotor... the semi floating design of these 345 rotors actually makes it hard to pull air between the hat and both ring surfaces, and the hat/hat mounting actually kind of obstructs air flow (pic 4).

Also don't forget that in terms of heat capacity the 996 front pad is just BARELY larger in size vs the stock m3 pad (see pics 5,6,7), so there is a lot of energy that little pad takes in, combined with poor rotor flow and heat evacuation, well, it transfers on down to the caliper, even with Ti shims slowing down the heat xfer.

So bullet proofing the dust boots and seals on their own I don't think will solve the problem, the problem is somewhat inherent in the holistic system where all components contribute to the problem.

I am also not a fan of frequent rebuilds. On a dual duty car that swaps pads track to street I think dust boots are essential. Track time generates a lot of metal shavings that you would then compress into the pistons/bores as you put in fuller/less worn street pads. At some point the bores and pistons will get scored and the seals themselves could get cut.

So I don't have a solution, but some combination of resistance to heat xfer in forms of shims, potentially swapping out Alu pistons, getting a "proper" rotor design that actually cools ala Girodisc, ducts to cool the pads, Brembo or Girodisc dustboots is in the vicinity.

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[cobra]

On motorcycles, dust boots are not used - likely due to space constraints since the calipers have to be as narrow as possible to clear the wheels. But... they do have a dual seal: the inner square cross-section brake fluid seal and an outer dust seal. I believe this is to prevent oils, dirt/debris, chemicals from coming into contact with the critical inner seal which is made from EPDM. EPDM is great at dealing with brake fluid and water, but will degrade quickly under exposure to unforeseen chemicals and I am sure you want to keep grit out of that interface as the seal rocks back and forth during each brake application.

That said, the pistons on motorcycles do not hold up well. For decades they were made from chromed steel (like stock M3 pistons) and they will eventually get pitted and rusty. This is fine until you go to change brake pads and have to push a nasty pitted piston past the seal, causing a leak or friction. Newer/nicer brakes use hard anodized aluminum pistons that won't corrode and hold up a lot better with this arrangement.

On a car, boots are used and are super nice because they can seal the entire piston from the elements, hopefully keeping the entire thing clean. As long as the boots are good, when it comes time to change pads you just push them back in and you're good to go. I can see the argument for not needing a boot on a race/track caliper where it might get rebuilt frequently, but I would absolutely want them on a street driven car for longevity. The OEM's don't put them there for funzies.