Great to see more brake options for the Stinger Brembos!
A more robust brake pad will do wonders for the brake vibration issue plaguing some of us GT owners.
I was about ready to pull the trigger on a set of these until I noticed something...
A quick bit of research revealed that the DNA pads are two different pad compounds.
The fronts are more aggressive and rated GG.
Those rear pads are less grippy and rated FF.
This is important to know because the Stinger Brembo system is (in my opinion) to heavily front biased.
Simply put, the rear brakes are not working hard enough. On the stock RWD GT's the front brakes ALWAYS reach lockup/ABS before the rear do. This is very old school brake tuning. Back in the day (before ABS), engineers designed in extra front bias because it kept the car stable during panic stops and low traction situations. If the fronts lock first you skid in a straight line, if the rears lock first the back end can get loose. Made plenty of sense back then.
Eventually ABS, Electronic Brake Force Distribution (EBD), and Stability Control entered the market.
These systems, individually and in combination, have allowed engineers to shift more and more brake bias to the rear of the car.
Mind you, the front brakes still do the majority of braking. Just note that rear brakes are doing more than in the old days, particularly under light braking. The electronic systems allow more rear brake pressure without fear of losing control or vehicle stability.
The benefits are numerous.
Additional rear bias:
Provides lower stopping distances - By maximizing braking force at each wheel.
Reduces brake dive - Stronger rear brake application resists the forward pitch of the vehicles chassis.
Reduces system fatigue - By braking each wheel more evenly, the fronts are less burdened.
Anyway, back to the Stinger. I've found that the fronts lockup/ABS point comes wayyyy before that of the rears.
With that bias so heavily loaded up front, the front brakes are always stressed easily while the rears seem to be mostly along for the ride. It takes relatively little brake pedal application to overcome the front traction, making it hard to fully use the full traction the rear tires have to offer.
Adding gripper/better pads up front than at the rear, is going to exacerbate this issue a bit. It's just not optimal (as far as I can tell).
I did an experiment and added OEM Euro Semimetallic pads to the rear and left the OEM ceramic Pads up front. Instantly, the brake bias shifted to the rear and felt like most modern vehicles. The rear brakes were then braking to their full capacity and the stopping characteristics changed much for the better. I didn't keep this combo, as the rear Euro pads were downright filthy. But the braking was excellent. All brakes reached lockup/abs at about the same time. And at low speeds/heavy braking, the rears reached abs slightly before the fronts. A very sporty setup indeed. I tried other pad combinations, but ended up going back to the stock ceramics because I was spoiled by their dust free operation.
Through my experimenting I found out that alot of the
aftermarket pads were not really an "upgrade."
Most diminished initial bite. At the time, most were only available for the front. And all I tried had more brake dust. Most made occasional noise. That left the
aftermarket pads really only shining at preventing deposits and track fade. However, this was accomplished by muting the brake "feel" on the streets a bit.
I guess all of this is a long way of saying, I wish dBa had made both the front and rear in BOTH Xp and Sp compounds.
I'm extra picky about brakes and feel this car needs matched compounds front and rear.
Most probably won't even notice, though.
I do see that dBa has specific part #'s for the Stingers pads. So it does seem that they made these pads uniquely for the Stinger, rather than just repurposing GM/Honda/Subaru/Mitsubishi /etc pads that also fit. This is good, if they truly tested these on the Stinger, the bias issue would be rather obvious and hopefully they'd have addressed it if need be. We can't see the actual friction material in those pics, so dBa may have adjusted the pad shape to compensate. We'll see.
Also this is just my armchair assessment of the Stingers braking system. Perhaps Kia had a specific reason for the GT's seemingly excessive front bias. It just comes across as less than optimal to me. For the record, my last 2015 BMW 535i was setup the same way... So I may very well be missing the point of why these two cars are turned this way. These are the only two cars I've driven in recent years that are like this. Everything else uses the new brake tuning philosophy.
