Dispelling a Popular Misconception: Endless Brakes

By Ben Schaffer

The Real JDM

Have a look at the image below. Yes, it’s one of the GT-Rs I produced for SEMA last year and yes it sticks with some of the tried and true JDM brands that I trust and love. One of them is Endless brakes. It also so happens that the midnight purple GT-R I made for Mobil 1 ran Endless brakes, and yes it also so happens that my gold S2000 runs Endless brakes (although re-badged as J’s Racing).

So why do these cars run Endless brakes? Why do so many top cars at the shows and in the magazines run Endless brakes? Why do so many Japanese tuning shops make brakes that are re-branded Endless brakes to promote their brand? Is it because Endless is trendy and cool? Because it is JDM Tite YO!?

NO.

Here is your answer (one example of many):

2009 Nuburgring 24 hour race results:

Top 12 overall: 7 out of the top 8 cars, including #1, 2 and 3 ran Endless full brakes and/or pads!

For this same reason Endless has become the top brake pad choice by Porsche racing teams…IN GERMANY (not just Japan). I have the list of the teams and their pads for proof.

The sad reality is that too many people choose their tuning parts based on what car looked cool at HIN or what car is on the cover of the import magazine they like.

Let me state it like this…trends are trends. Quality is quality. Trends go in and out of style. Quality lasts forever. More than anything else, when I plan a car build I make sure that every part I use is absolute quality. This is detrimental to ensuring that a quality car build is still quality many years later. Case in point – Name a played out, old or unimpressive Top Secret demo car. You can go back 15 years and never find one that isnt impressive. Then pick up a import magazine from four years ago and I guarantee you half of the cover cars they ran are embarrassing by today’s standards.

That is the difference between trends and quality. Quality doesn’t go out of style, it doesn’t embarrass you years later like a bad 80s hair cut. It is the foundation of any quality car build.

So to those that buy Endless brakes because they are trendy, and also to those who talk trash about Endless brakes being overpriced and trendy. You two are the two opposing ends of general thought that is partially plaguing the tuning scene. I urge you to check yourself. Learn to isolate quality vs trends. Try to understand the root reason why people do what they do, don’t just take it at face value. It’ll make you a better car builder and will help you better understand the BS that often goes on with so called “good” cars in the magazines that might just happen to have the trendy look of the time but lack the substance to make them truly complete and well conceptualized cars.

If all of this just went unappreciated…don’t worry, I have some 18 piston big brakes with 500mm, cross drilled and slotted rotors produced in china in bright green with pink polka dots to sell you. Its the hot ish yo!

Anyway, I had to get this off my chest. After seeing yet more proof of Endless being superior for braking, it really is an insult that most people think of them as a trendy brand. I just really don’t understand the concept of building a car based on trends, for all of the money we all spend on our cars dont you want to look at it 10 years later (even if it’s a picture) and still be damn proud of it? That just is not possible when you modify cars based on fact less trends. Yet so many people do it this way. Its the main reason why I hate going to SEMA and looking at Japanese cars there on display. Trends and “pay to play” are the two things plaguing the development of quality tuner cars in the US. Go to any show, look at any magazine and you’ll just be fed a blend of the latest trends people are trying to emulate, paired with the brands that gave away the most free crap (which cost the cheapest to make by the way). No matter where you look, movies, magazines, SEMA booths, 90+% of the cars and companies you see will sell their integrity for a cheap price. Even well funded companies like AEM for example ran knockoff Ings+1 bodykits on their demo 350Z at SEMA and drift events for years before finally C-West talked some sense into them. I mean, they put hundreds of thousands of dollars into building that car, and then they didn’t want to spend a couple of grand to get an authentic quality aero kit to finish the project. AEM is one of the most respectable companies producing in the US and they did that, imagine how many other companies do it as well…