We’ve had these Brembo calipers sitting around for some time. After our first track test day at The FIRM, we traded the car’s original 16-inch wheels for a set of front Brembo calipers off of one of their STIs.
Unfortunately, the rotors they gave us were from a later STI, so while the calipers bolted up, the rotors had a different hole pattern than our 5x100mm hubs. We ordered a pair of rotors for a 2004 STI from RockAuto. The price came out to about $90.
Why not rears? Price. To install the Brembo rears and still have a functional parking brake, we’d need different rotors in addition to the calipers. We’re not ready to shell out a thousand bucks to upgrade the rear brakes, so we’ll correct any problems with brake bias either by changing brake pad compounds or installing a proportioning valve.
The Brembo calipers are about 12 pounds themselves—about 2 pounds lighter than the stock Subaru calipers—but there’s quite a bit extra mass in the rotors. Total weight gain is 5 pounds per corner: The Brembo caliper and bigger rotor combined are 31 pounds. Until we decide to buy two-piece rotors, that’s the way it’ll stay.
This WRX is now a real global melting pot. British wheels, Italian brakes, American tires, Dutch dampers, Australian anti-roll bars and some miscellaneous Chinese parts on a Japanese car driven by a half-Brazilian man and his wife, who’s part Jewish and has a Greek name.
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The best bang for your buck on the rear rotors is to get the legacy rear rotors and caliper brackets while re-using the OEM calipers. Look it up on the forums. Other than a little dust shield trimming it is plug and play. There are no trade offs other than the obvious unsprung weight increase.
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