John ButlerIf you’re here, you may be wondering if Wilwood brakes are better than OE brakes. The answer is it depends on your vehicle’s purpose.
If your car is a daily driver, then OE brakes would work just fine. If your car is a performance car, then you absolutely need performance brakes. In that case, Wilwood brakes are a great option. Read on to find out why.
What Are OE Brakes?
OE brakes are stock brakes. It means OE brake parts are exactly the same as the brake parts that rolled off the assembly line when your vehicle was new. Genuine OE parts are made by the automaker or a manufacturer hired by the automaker.
OE parts by major automakers are good parts made with high quality materials. Yet, automakers design their OE brakes for day-to-day driving. OE brakes can don’t hold up to performance driving. They’re not made for hard and aggressive braking. If you engage in performance driving with OE brakes, your brakes will fail sooner rather than later.
That’s why you need performance brakes if you have a performance car. There are many good performance brake brands out there, including Hawk and Wilwood. In this post, we’ll focus on the Wilwood brand and how Wilwood brakes perform better than OE brakes.
About Wilwood
Wilwood is an established brand in the aftermarket performance braking industry. They have been around since 1977. Wilwood is an USA-based company that manufactures its parts within the USA.
Wilwood specializes in cost-effective high performance brake systems. It manufactures the following brake components:
- Brake rotors
- Brake calipers
- Brake pads
- Big brake kits with:
- Large diameter rotors
- Large calipers
- More
Read on to find out how Wilwood brake parts compare to OE brake parts.
Wilwood 2-Piece ProMatrix Rotor Upgrade Kits
Wilwood offers high quality rotor upgrade kits. A kit includes one-piece or two-piece rotors. You can use these rotors with factory calipers. Yet, to maximize these rotors’ ability to slow your car, you need to use high friction brake pads.
You work your rotors pretty hard while performance driving. This results in the rotors getting much hotter than normal. That’s why OEM rotors rarely last long in performance cars.
Wilwood designed its rotors to withstand prolonged high temperatures. The rotors in this kit offer:
- Weight savings over factory rotors with a lightweight aluminum hat
- Corrosion resistance with a black e-coat
- High temperature durability
- Even heat distribution with cross-drilled and slotted designs
With a set of these bad boys on your performance car, you won’t have to worry about premature rotor wear or failure.
Wilwood Replacement Caliper Kits
When you’re performance driving, you hit the brakes pretty often, and quite hard. OE calipers may not live up to your vehicle’s performance standards. OE calipers that are overworked can start sticking, or fail in another way.
If you want your brakes to remain reliable in even the most strenuous racing conditions, use performance calipers. You can’t go wrong with a Wilwood brake caliper kit. In one of these kits, you’d find:
- Two high quality Wilwood calipers
- Four high friction performance brake pads
- All the necessary hardware for your make and model
A Wilwood brake caliper kit is ideal for performance driving because the calipers:
- Come with a high tech design that:
- Resists fade
- Performs well even with high temperatures
- Provide a huge weight savings over factory calipers with low maintenance efficiency
- Are easy to install
- They’re bolt-on replacement calipers that can be mounted to factory locations
Wilwood Big Brake Kits
If you have larger wheels, using an OE braking system is leaving some stopping power on the table. Larger wheels allow you to install a big brake kit, which will add a dramatic increase in braking power. You can’t go wrong with a Wilwood big brake kit.
A Wilwood big brake kit comes with:
- Larger rotors (14” or bigger)
- Wilwood’s Aero6 forged six piston calipers
- Caliper brackets
A Wilwood big brake kit will offer the stopping power OE brakes can’t. It’s also:
- More resistant to heat
- More resistant to fade
Can You Use OE Brake Pads With Wilwood Rotors And Calipers?
The answer is no. In fact, it’s not a good idea to use OE brake pads in any aftermarket brake system that’s designed for performance driving. It’s because OE brake pads don’t come with the right friction material to handle the demands of heavy braking. If you’re using Wilwood brake parts, it’s best to use Wilwood brake pads too.
We sell Wilwood brake kits and Wilwood brake pads. Check out all the Wilwood brake kits we carry here!
