Brakes (Upgrade ) - Seat Leon Cupra 290 2019

Kooper

Active Member
Oct 25, 2016
38
8
Hi everyone,

I brought a 2019 Seat Leon Cupra 290 Lux a few months ago, I’ve noticed a bit of a squeak coming from my front offside.

I thought I’d look at upgrading both the brake pads and discs, I’m after an advice / tips for a brake upgrade.

Thanks All
 

SuperV8

Active Member
May 30, 2019
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918
340mm standard Cupra caliper for full cast iron disc (same as Golf R brake)
1750837775680.png


370mm performance pack caliper and composite disc (alloy bell pinned to iron rotor)
1750838427444.png
 
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SuperV8

Active Member
May 30, 2019
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what are the current brakes? original or aftermarket? what brand? If you have some cheap aftermarket pads - then fitting a decent set of pads will be beneficial.

What are you expecting to 'upgrade' in regards to your braking performance?
Deceleration/wear/fade resistance/noise/dust etc..

If you are looking at reduce your stopping distance (increasing your decel) - The standard (correctly functioning) brakes will be able activate your ABS so you should first fit decent tyres as the brakes aren't the limiting factor.

The main reason to fit bigger brakes (like the 370mm performance pack Brembo's) would be for improved fade resistance - for repeated high & speed heavy braking, like on track. They would also give you a better/firmer pedal feel.

I would be honest with your usage vs the cost of any change.
 
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Kooper

Active Member
Oct 25, 2016
38
8
what are the current brakes? original or aftermarket? what brand? If you have some cheap aftermarket pads - then fitting a decent set of pads will be beneficial.

What are you expecting to 'upgrade' in regards to your braking performance?
Deceleration/wear/fade resistance/noise/dust etc..

If you are looking at reduce your stopping distance (increasing your decel) - The standard (correctly functioning) brakes will be able activate your ABS so you should first fit decent tyres as the brakes aren't the limiting factor.

The main reason to fit bigger brakes (like the 370mm performance pack Brembo's) would be for improved fade resistance - for repeated high & speed heavy braking, like on track. They would also give you a better/firmer pedal feel.

I would be honest with your usage vs the cost of any change.

[mention]SuperV8 [/mention] I’ve got the current brakes, I’m not sure on the pads I brought the car second hand from a dealer.

I noticed a slight squeak when I brake, so thought I would look at upgrading my setup at the main time.

Looking for good fade resistance and also better stopping capability.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

nd-photo.nl

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Mar 6, 2012
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SuperV8

Active Member
May 30, 2019
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[mention]SuperV8 [/mention] I’ve got the current brakes, I’m not sure on the pads I brought the car second hand from a dealer.

I noticed a slight squeak when I brake, so thought I would look at upgrading my setup at the main time.

Looking for good fade resistance and also better stopping capability.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Cheapest will be just fit new pads and discs - selecting decent pads with good high temp performance. Avoid pads made by brake system manufactures - look for pads made my friction manufactures.

Middle option would be 340mm composite disc from the Golf GTI PP - though this is similar price to the 370 Leon PP disc! Some have also fitted Macan caliper.

Ultimate brake upgrade would be the Leon/TT RS 370mm.

As I said - standard Cupra brakes should easily be able to activate ABS - if yours can't I would suggest something is wrong.
 

SuperV8

Active Member
May 30, 2019
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Jeps, all stock brakes are sufficient. There are laws for this. Once you look at brakes as heatsinks, it starts to make sense.

Driving 4 Answers has some good videos about it

Yes and no.
Talking generally here - The genuine stock brakes are sufficient upto a point, but the legal type approval requirement for braking is really quite easy to pass with a max speed of 160km/h - so the 'law' is a very low bar.
AMS and Vmax brake testing is much more demanding on the braking system, which most OEM's also perform - not due to legal requirement - but due to pressure from road testing magazines.

Looking at discs as heat sink's is really only applicable for multiple stops - for one off 'emergency' stop its all about your pad friction material maintaining a certain friction coefficient. From a high speed stop you can easily get scenarios where the friction coefficient drops enough due to heat where it doesn't have enough brake torque to enable ABS modulation. A bigger disc will absolutely help in this scenario as the larger radius provides the same brake torque (and deceleration) for less clamping force which results in less chance the pad friction coefficient drops below the ABS threshold point.

I have conducted brake testing and some of the brands of aftermarket pads we were testing failed to be able to activate ABS as the friction coefficient drops so much in stop due to the heat - the feeling as a driver is really unnerving. This was high speed and GVW so quite severe testing but still..

As I mentioned though, the OP should be honest with their expected usage as on a road car you likely won't see enough speed/repeated braking to cause a problem which needs fixing. Any track use then all bets are off.
 
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nd-photo.nl

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Mar 6, 2012
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@SuperV8 Thanks for the extra info! I had my brakes fail on me once on my Mercedes CLS55 with the Sensotronic Brakes (SBC, brake by wire) and it was scary to say the least :sleepy:

The SBC system is prone to failure and that happended whilst I was doing 120km/hr 🙈
 

tracktoy

Active Member
Jun 11, 2023
799
636
Interesting comments.

Now I use the car on the track more than on the road so my requirements are all about being able to carry on working on the track after multiple high speed braking, and Revo sold the kit with the DS2500 Pads. Now these pads are ok but do not last very long so I have replaced these with race orientated pads and they work much better, still working out if they last longer.

But I checked the Revo big brake kit web site and they still advertise that they do stop quicker.
Now I did not buy them for this reason more about stopping brake fade and performance whilst on the track (which I am very happy with)

Screenshot 2025-06-26 at 22.41.23.png
 
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