I finally got my order through today at work for the front and rear kit. I chose the black powdercoated option and I got it for a stellar price! I will have a complete write up on installation and possibly photos. I just ordered it today so it will take a few days before we get the next shipment of powdercoated calipers in so whenever it gets here I'll make sure I post it up.

 

Like what kind of stellar price? The list is around $2100.

 

if you really want to know PM me because I don't think I can really post it up here. But seeing how I work there It's quite cheap......I was trying to get a "group buy" thing before but I was told I couldn't because I wasn't a supporting vendor.

 

I finally got the kit home today, and started pre-assembly with the brackets to make sure everything was going to fit together. I will probably do the instal, along with the help of a buddy this weekend. I suppose we'll take pictures and all that whatnot.

 

Just wanted to let everyone know that they are now on the car. I did NOT take any pictures of the install in progress as it was quite a pain in the ass. I will however post pictures of it all done sometime today. I started at like 6 yesterday and stopped at like 1 and then took another 4 hours today to work out all the kinks. Thank god for the help of friends.

 

that's awesome i can't wait to see

 

Congratulations...your stopping power just got reduced.

 

what do you mean my stopping power just got reduced? If this was meant as a "shot" at these kits it was quite lame. If you didn't mean it as a "shot" it should be worded like this; congratulations, your stopping distance just decreased. Anyway don't knock it until you try it. I put about 165 miles on the car today bedding them in and the brakes bite ALOT harder than they did before.....I think I am just going to have to bleed them again tomorrow and make sure that ALL of the air is out of the lines. Also if anyone plans on buying these, your pedal travel WILL increase because you have to move more fluid than before, but they seem to be pretty good.

 

It's simple laws of physics, let's break it down.

First off, SSBC is quite a good company and I am not knocking them at all. They make some damn good product, mostly as an upgrade mean for older vehicles. That is not the point at all here. The braking system in the Ion RedLine/Cobalt SS-SC is quite possibly one of the best sport compact braking systems out there from the factory. It puts the tire adhesion limits right to their edge, even on dry pavement. Your car was equipped with less than such, but that doesn't mean you can't swap from OEM stuff for much less money. Now let's take a braking system that can literally deliver twice that force. Let's say the tires you have on your car are capable of handling 2G of force on deceleration, which is roughly what the stock system does. Now let's double the surface contact area that slows down the rotor, we have more force applied to the rotor which in turn applies more forward force on the tire (If you really know how a brake works you will know that a brake is not what actually slows the car, but the forward force of the slowing rotor pushes the tire into the ground in a forward motion.). So now we have adhesion problems with the tires, which we will because they are a mighty thin tire and stock you 2.2s get all-seasons. Now we will have the ABS kicking in like crazy as the tires scream for grip. So we back off on the braking a little bit, but now the tires are not being pushed close enough to their maximum slowing potential. So you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't. Now if you could fit like a 245 UHP tire under your car or run a full 225 r-compound on the street, you'd stop with obnoxious quickness. But you can't so you kill your traction limits without a cure. Granted the SSBC kits are badass looking, but they are not worth it in my opinion or I would have bought the system for my RedLine a LONG time age. I'm just trying to fil you in. Research before you buy. That's the biggest mistake people make.

-Christopher

 

i think these brakes would be good for a long road race where the stock brakes would heat up quickly and larger slotted brakes would stay cooler and would have more resistance to warping. I was considering getting these for he longer autocross events where my brakes could heat up and begin to lose grip. For street they are probably for visual than anything because they will not be taken to their limits except for every now and then.

 

The Cobalt SS/SC brakes really have no heat issues. If anything the larger surface contact/larger parts on the SSBC kit would stay hot longer since they are not vented.

 

Oh I have got to chime in on this one. Oh my oh my....

That was quite a physics lesson there. Your description of how braking works was pretty good. You conclusions were so wrong I want to beat my head against a wall.

Yes, braking is mostly a function of tire performance, and yes, the stock brake units are matched nicely to the stock tires abilities. Yes, if you put better brakes on stock tires, you are probably not helping yourself very much.

Let stay with that for a moment, I have two other things to rant about afterward. Stock tires. There are 4 different stock wheel sizes out there on the Cobalt. 15" base, 16" LS/sport, 17" SS, and 18"SS/SC. There are 2 different stock brake systems, the one for the 15" and 16", and one for the 17" and 18". The SS cars have the larger wheels, have better tires, and hence have the better stock units for brakes.

Have I said anything wrong yet? Please stop me if I do.

Now, take a look at the SSBC kits. They make two, one of the 4 lug wheels, which are the 15" and 16", and one for the 5 lug (17" and 18"). Lets focus on the 4 lug kit. They specifically require a minimum wheel size of 17" in order to use them. Did you catch that? You MUST upgrade your wheel in order to use the brake. More then likely, if you are upgrading your brake, and hence your wheel, you are probably going to be putting on some new tires, eh?

Now theres my first argument. My second is even easier to understand. Lets say you put on the 5 lug kit, which will fit on a stock wheel and tire since they are already at least 17". I'm not going to try to tell you that this will improve braking, because as I already agreed with you that its mostly a function of tires. But, um, worsen braking? Are you goofy? Should a driver apply braking on a stock car in excess of tire traction capacity, the ABS will kick in. Should a driver apply braking on a car modified with better brakes in excess of tire traction capacity, the ABS will kick in. There is no difference. Your argument is based on the driver not being able to manipulate the brake peddle correctly above the lock-up threshold. It has nothing to do with the brakes.

And my last argument has to do with heat. Being a guy who likes physics, you should like this. You claim the larger surface area would retain heat longer. Sorry, that's just completely wrong. The amount of heat generated by the friction of braking is directly proportional to the weight of the car, the speed of the car, and inversely proportional to the surface area of the brake. If your are faster or heavier, you are going to make more heat to stop. If you have more braking surface area, you generate less. More braking surface area DOES NOT mean more stopping power, it ONLY means less heat. The exact same thing is true about tires. Wider tires with a larger contact patch doesn't mean better traction. It only means less heat and wear.

Lastly, I hate people who say things like this:

No you are not trying to be helpful, you are being condesending. I love a good argument. I hate when ignorance is combined with arrogance, and that is exactly what a comment like yours above is.

 

What's the biggest tire you can fit under a Cobalt with a 17" rim without clearance issues? 225. Right. Unless he is "upgrading" his tires to something outrageous, like I said r-compounds, he is doing negative for his braking in that he doesn't have the extra tire force to catch the extra braking force. Let's go back to that physics that you seem to have a shabby grasp on. When you have a metal block that is 12x12x12, it will take twice the time to heat it up as a metal block 12x12x6. Which on the other side of the coin means it will take twice as long to cool. So a bigger brake, with more surface area applied to slow it will stay hotter longer than a smaller brake with less surface area applied to it. Got that? I am not being condescending in this statement. He bought the brake purely as a cosmetic upgrade because the capacity of his car will never need to fully utilize those brakes and if he had bought them for actual performance he should have researched and saw that merely upgrading stock components would have made a HUGE difference and saved massive money.

FYI, just because you put a bigger wheel on a car, doesn't mean a better tire. In fact putting a bigger wheel on that will weigh much more than a stock unit will require some of that extra brake force just to help the car get back to stock stopping power. And the more ABS is utilized, the less you are actually stopping the car. Granted a car coming to a screeching hault will take longer to stop than one at moderate ABS use. But a car not dipping into ABS at full tilt will stop quicker than a car utilizing ABS when stopping at full tilt because that is less time spent applied to the brake. Am I wrong? ABS is primarily used to help keep the steering under control during aggressive braking/loss of stopping traction.

I still want to see pictures man. Lol.

 

ummmmmmm, I thought a larger contact patch increases traction,as more tire surface contacts the road, traction is increased . also a larger rotor (more surface area )creates more heat but also allows it to transfer faster. A vented rotor sheds heat faster than a solid rotor ( I believe the ssbc front kit uses a vented rotor same as oem) slotted rotors(grooves cut into the rotors face) help to remove the gas generated by the brake pad to rotor surface, reducing break fade(heat transfer to the brake fluid) good for autocross type racing when constant heavy braking for long periods of time are common. as far as wheel size, lighter is better!!! a 20 inch wheel thats 25 lbs is harder to stop than a 17 inch thats 15lbs (basic inertia).the wheel size needed after the upgrade are for clearence only, has to clear the brake rotor. yes the tire is VERY important to braking but u guys left out a more important and much more effective tool , brake pad compound . but to say a ssbc kit is less effective than the stock brakes . and most importantly well when are we gonna see some pics???? can u say kinetic energy.

 

Actually, I was messing around with the stopping distances and what not yesterday. The ABS WILL kick in under a REALLY hard stop, but it bites an INSANE amount harder than the stockers. Also if your gonna make a statement YOU should do "research" as well. The kits have slotted AND vented front and rear rotors, as opposed to the solid disc rears and if I'm not mistaken the fronts are entirely vented. At about 15ft before a red light I can stop from 40+ like it's my job I still haven't got the damn pictures, due to the lack of the digital camera but I will have my buddy take them sometime today. O and for what I got these kits for it REALLY wasn't a waste of money in any way at all.

 

To start off, I can't wait to see the pics. I was wondering when someone was going to get those.

Back to the heat issue. Yes the 12x12x12 block would take longer to cool it was the same temp as the 12x12x6 block. But if you apply the same friction to both blocks, the heat will have more area to dissapate to in the larger block, netting an over all lower temp.

Don't believe me, fill a small pot and a large pot with water. Put the small one on a stove and see how long it takes to boil. Now without changing the heat on the burner, put the large pot on it and see how long it takes to boil.

 

Wow, could we all have just congratulated TheExorcist rather than going through all of this? He never mentioned anything about wanting extra performance out of the package anyway.

Congrats on the buy and install man, got any pics up yet?

 

Can your old rotors and calipers fit on my 2.2 with aftermarket 16" rims?

 

I don't know if the mounting points on the 2.2 are the same for the 2.0 I will be taking pictures shortly(like 5 mins).correction he forgot his camera I will have them either later or tomorrow......sorry for delays, cause' I really wanna show off

 

WOW! Okay, I don't know where to start, from the beginning I guess...

And your point is what? My point was that you will have to get new tires to go with your new wheels. If you are getting new tires to go with this kind of a performance set up, then more then likely the new tires will have better traction then the stock one you are replacing. I didn't even bother to talk about how the increased rotational mass will benefit from the better brakes because I figured the tire argument would be enough.

A: yes, he will have improved tire force with improved tires
B: Once again, as I said the first time, if more braking is available, its a function of driver control before lock-up occurs. It has no effect at all on when the tire is going to skid.

This is flatly and plainly incorrect. The more surface area used on a brake pad, the less heat is generated during a stop. At the conclusion of braking, the brakes enter a cooling cycle. The larger brake, having not produced as much heat to complete the stop, enters the start of the cycle at a cooler temperature then a smaller brake would. Then, with that heat spread out over a larger surface area, it ABSOLUTLY will cool faster. You are confusing total mass (your 12x12x12 example) with available surface area. The greater the surface area, the more surface is available to the ambient atmosphere for heat exchange!

Not condenscending, now you are just being rude.

So now you can read minds?

Now you are back to being condescending again.

This is correct, you got this part right.

This is correct too, but you still seem to think that a bigger brake is somehow going to cause ABS to turn on sooner. ABS turns on when a wheel locks (differential speed detected). Wheels will lock whether the car has small or big brakes, again, its the drivers use of brakes that will cause it, not the brake itself.

Okay, next guy...

This is actually a common misconception. Traction is not a function of surface area. Its about how sticky the actual rubber compound in your tire is. A larger contact patch simply increases the total square area of rubber on the road, which in turn reduces the weight per square area that the tire is being asked to carry. If you put a hundred pounds in one square inch, you've got a hundred pounds per square inch (psi). If you put a hundred pounds into 2 square inches, your got 50 psi. All you have done is reduced the load on the tire, which results in less wear and heat. The traction isn't a factor.

Also incorrect. More surface area means LESS heat, not more. It does transfer heat faster however, that part is correct.

Not quite. No gas is generated by brake pad to rotor contact, just heat. The slots once again increase the available surface area to improve cooling. Brake fade is caused when too much heat is built up in the brake assembly and causes the brake fluid inside of the caliper to vaporize (boil) into a gasous state. That results in the ability to compress that gas, and hence loss of braking effectiveness. Thats why you bleed brakes, to make sure no gas (air usually) is present.

 

lol how do slots increase a surface area ? Im not here for a pissing contest. but its a known fact a gas is generated by the friction between the pad and rotor and slotting them helps to remove it as well as helping the cooling process .you seem to understand brake fade so how does reducing heat transfer not directly relate to it ? and if so why bother slotting in the first place?and as a former racer I also know that a larger contact patch increases traction thats why we put 10 inch wide tires on . if u decrease the load u decrease the sheer force between the tire and the road under cornering, increasing traction thats why we adjust camber and such to keep as much contact patch on the road as possible increasing traction. more contact patch =more traction please dont take this as a flame 1/2 cent its not ment to be

 

Just to add some fuel to the fire.

Since the brake pads rubbing the rotor causes the heat, you are going to GENERATE the SAME amount of heat no matter the rotor size. The amount of heat generated is controlled by the friction created due to the pad surface area, materials the pads are made out of, etc. The only part of the rotor that will cause more heat to be generated is the material it is made of.

The larger rotors will just dissipate the heat better, due to more MASS to accept the heat and not reach the same temperature as smaller rotors, which have less mass to absorb the heat.

If the rotors have the same density, and mass (no matter the size) then they will reach the same temperature when given the same amount of friction applied to them. The difference comes in the cooling phase where the larger surface area will cool faster.


BTW Congrats on the kit!!!

 

man it's a little hot in here. we need some bigger rotors with more surface area, cool it off a little bit.

congrates on the kit. might get one myself.

 

here's 2 pics, thanks to Articzap for taking them for me at such a short notice.

 

yup np...brakes are freakin amazing, even as a passenger you can feel a huge difference.