Rennbay big brake kit for the Porsche 944

The brakes were totally shot on this Porsche 944, imagine that… 

My buddy Elliott Grafton from 944 Barn put me on to a guy name Travis O’Steen who owns a company called Rennbay out of Florida. Rennbay makes a big brake kit for the front of the 944 utilizing Wilwood calipers & pads. The kit comes with custom Rennbay brackets to mount the Wilwood calipers up to the 944. The kit also includes ‘944-to-Wilwood’ stainless steel lines. You still use the OEM Porsche 944 rotors, because the OEM Porsche rotors are really good & heat tolerant. The kit clears 15-inch wheels, and it was designed to work with the factory master cylinder, and take front & rear bias/balance into account. Performance-minded collaborative efforts like this makes life SO MUCH EASIER in the aftermarket!

Rennbay does not make a big brake kit for the rear of the 944, because honestly, nothing is needed…

The OEM brakes are plenty strong on the rear on the 944. All you need to add, is a set of killer pads, high-temp fluid, and stainless lines. Rennbay has endurance raced cars with this setup without problems with performance or longevity. It’s solid. 

Pads…

Although we’re using Wilwood calipers on the Rennbay big brake kit, and although Wilwood makes awesome pads… the guys at Wilwood brought up a good point: They suggest to always try & run the same friction material front-&-rear on a car. And that being said, Wilwood does not make a stock/OEM replacement brake pad for the rear of our 944. So they suggested using the same friction from Hawk all-around, to make sure the car is balanced-out. Wilwood explained that this is really helpful, especially on new builds, when you’re sorting out the car & what level of performance you can anticipate from it. 

So that being said, a really badass Hawk compound is HP+…

Hawk’s HP+ pads are very popular with auto-crossers, and the guys doing canyon runs & mountain runs, etc. It’s popular with these boys because it produces RACE pad friction levels at STREET pad temperatures. In other words – they simply don’t need to warm up. There are, however, what some would consider downsides. It will make dust and most likely squeal. It’s a performance-oriented pad, so if dust and noise are not your thing, you might want to look at a more street friendly compound. Another downside – on a road course, they do have a temperature limit. Bottom like is: you can’t do everything well with one pad, and anyone who says otherwise is trying to sell you something lol. BUT – the HP+ covers the aggressive middle-ground very well, and will make for a pretty rowdy car.