I haven't hefted mine, but was astonished at how much something similar, but with more aluminum, weighed when I did a 280mm to 320mm upgrade on my last car.

Both anvils and anchors come in many sizes. I may change my mind once I do the rotor swap, so couldn't vote honestly until then. Still not sure when that might be.

Maybe a fishing scale or a handheld luggage scale would be easier. I'll see if I can borrow one for my swap.

Those look like the pads we put on our LeMONS car, more or less. They're Porterfields, but a different size/shape. I didn't notice any change in braking power with wear. I suspect it's related to noise. The swept area doesn't change, so a given clamping force will just have slightly less pressure (force per unit area) as the pads wear.

Anyway, I didn't give it s second thought at the time because in all my years I've seen pads with and without grooves, and with and without bevels and never noticed anything other than compound that I could feel behind the wheel.

 

Competed passenger side rear, weighed caliper, got 10 lbs, 6 oz. Feel that is pretty accurate, as it matched the driver side pretty closely and on the passenger side the brake line seemed to interfere with the scale even less.

Decided black bolts look better, brushed on a couple coats of rust oleum oil based BBQ paint rated for 1200 degrees. We'll see...

 

If that center hat reaches 1221 degF, it'll be a molten mass anyway, so the paint will be the least of your worries.

 

We reached that in the cylinder head of our LeMONS car. The only up-side of that is that we made page 1 of the LeMONS blg on the C&D page. We did get a little aluminum plasma spray on parts outside the engine, so even I was impressed with the level of mayhem under the hood.

 

In fact, I wrote "Fahrenheit 1220" on the roof of the car (rounded down from 1221). The Judge inspecting the car afterwards gave a chuckle and nodded.

 

For those of you like me that suffer from OCD, I must warn you of a matter of grave concern.

As awesome as the rotors look now, if you are going for the blacked look (excepting the swept area of the rotor) painting the bolts is not enough. You will want to paint the splash/heat shield behind the rotor, because, alas as I pulled my car out of the garage, I realized to my horror that the silver shield is visible through the openings in the rotor, and it ruins the black out look. @#X$! Now I have to remove the rotors and paint the darn shield behind. Should have looked at my photos, the flash illuminates the shield and makes it show, but I wasn't paying attention to that.

Just a bit of advice from someone that worries too much about the details....

 

Definitely a First Word only problem, for those who have two piece brake rotors. With anything else the splash shields are completely hidden by the rotors.
Suggestion - use two maybe three coats from a rattle can of gloss black caliper paint, should work well and be fairly easy to do as long as you mask off the area behind and thoroughly clean and prep the splash shields beforehand (they are aloooooominum).
If you are really picky you could take the splash shields right off and paint them up on your workbench, but the problem is two of the three fixing points are rivets which would need to be drilled out and then refixed somehow. I did this when I upgraded the rear brakes from 326 mm to 376 mm and I used some 10 mm nuts and bolts to hold two of the fixing points, but I don't know if this would work for the front splash shields (it's a question of access to the rear). I wouldn't bother and I would just leave them in place and use a rattle can.

 

You didn't leave the OEM pads on long enough. With 24k miles worth of OEM pad dust on those shields, they're the perfect matte black. (and probably far more durable than any paint)

 

Started the fronts today, and its quite a project. At least half my time is spent removing brake dust so I can see all the parts. Couldn't get anywhere without pulling the caliper pins, but once I did that so much easier to get in and clean.

Despite all the talk about the front caliper weight, I don't think they are that heavy. Using my scale, fully assembled I got like 18.5 pounds, which sounds like a lot, HOWEVER, the pads weigh 3 lbs 4 oz, the mounting bracket weights 4 lbs 9 oz, so the caliper alone is only about 11lbs. According to the web, Brembo 6 piston calipers weigh 7-8 lbs. So I don't think I'd upgrade for weight reasons alone, not a good cost/weight savings ratio.

I wonder if the mounting bracket could be made of Aluminum?

 

I think both the bracket and the caliper are aloooooominum alloy.

 

You may be right, I'm no metals expert, but the bracket seems much heavier than it looks like it would be, whereas (once the pads and bracket are removed) the caliper itself feels light for its size.

 

Swapping to a Brembo 6 piston calipers is an 8.4lbs savings in weight (with adapter bracket)

 

Take a blowtorch to it, if it melts into silver puddle, then it is aluminum. If it gets red hot, then it is cast iron. If it gets red hot and warps, then it is stainless steel.

:_P

 

more info, please!

 

Rotors and new pads installed.

 

On the old XFR (same brakes as the F-Type R) one of the rear wheels was fouling ever so slightly on the caliper (I later found it was touching a too high balancing weight) so I filed the outer edges of the caliper down about 1 mm, using a fairly small and blunt file.
It filed real easy and the filings were bright silver colour, which leads me to believe it was alu alloy not cast iron.

 

Are the heat shields easy to remove and replace once the rotors are off?
If so, I may purchase a new set, have them painted and ceramic coated before sending the car out to have the new rotors and pads installed.

 

No, they are riveted on in two places (bolted in another), so if you remove them you'd have to fashion a new way to reattach. Best to either let them get dirty or clean and paint while on the car.

 

Agree, I'm pretty sure the caliper itself is aluminum/alloy, it is the mounting bracket that is disproportionately heavy and screams cast iron. But I imagine it's cost prohibitive to get one made of another material, so it may not matter.

These stock front rotors were crazy heavy, I'll see what these lighter rotors (in conjunction with my forged wheels) do to make the front suspension come to life before worrying about chasing the last few pounds in the caliper and/or bracket.

 

And the splash shield is only on the rear - at front you'll be cleaning and painting the spindle and hub as they will show through the rotor.

You might as well just do this yourself at home, then you can take the time to do the cosmetic things correctly - not sure too many shops would take the time to do it right, or if they do, the shop rates could get pricey.