Best braking options

I prefer the lower cost of Z32 26mm calipers and their ease of fitment onto common hubs n rotors. With carbotech XP12 race pads, Z32 BMC and sticky tires it's stupid good and has amazing feel. Get the Z32 caliper's hard lines and you have plug and play lines as well. :-)

I cant imagine BBK outperforming this by much or noticeably any when you step up to race pads. That being said i still drool over G-E's BBK package.

P.s. for the street i would recomend XP8 carbotech pads, but I used XP12s with r compound dot slicks on the street and it was epic :-P

lol, no.
The z32 fronts are not that great. I have ran them for years and have never been pleased.
They bleed horribly.

The dual calipers on my shiro felt better and more reaponsive.

I noticed a night and day difference from z32 to the evo setup.

How can you say that you can't imagine any BBK outperforming the z32? Have you ran any other setup on your z31?

I have Z32 alum 30mm on my 87t (swapping to Shiro) and am pleased with them over the stock 2-pot calipers. For the cost and ease of replacements/swappable parts, it can't be beat. Unless you're running mega laps at a track all the time, I don't think you'll need anything more robust. My 2 cents.

I don't think any one brake setup is going to be best for every application. It all boils down to how the car is being used. A lot of guys in competitive motorsports seem to find the two-piston calipers sufficient when matched with racing pads and high temp fluid. Others doing high speed stops or back-to-back runs at the drag strip may disagree.

I could adapt CTS-V/Z06 or Porsche Big Reds onto my car and it wouldn't make a difference over stock single piston brakes if it sits in my garage all the time. It's purely aesthetics at that point.

Don't forget that the original question was asked for 300+ HP.
The z32 quads should be replaced at anything higher IMO.
But for a STOCK z31, go for it.

The answer still lies in how his car will be driven.
Horsepower won't matter if he's putting to/from work in rush hour traffic.

All this said, if the OP has the means, go with the lightest/biggest setup you can afford [wheel size-dependent or financially]. Most people on here tend to go with the best bang for the buck option anyway.

It could be 800HP and if its never driven more than legal street driving, a BBK would make only a psychological difference.

The assumption with higher hp is also that you have to break against the engine's push on decel, as well as the higher general speeds the car could maintain or reach.... a veyron can't reach top speed without something like 5km of track, but it will have a higher average speed than a 350z if the maximum distances are short bursts

A BBK isn't just about clamping, but dissipating heat buildup

So if you always drive like a pussy, it's all for show anyway

Saying I have well bled z32 calipers which it sounds you did not. Hard to compare but from my personal experience this with race pads would be cheaper and more effective in most street applications. I do respect your opinion and I as well had trouble with bleeding my calipers.

I can guarantee you that I have bled the calipers completely. By design, these calipers trap air very easily.

Racing brake pads do not make the caliper, but can only make a difference when you are RACING with them. Understand what makes racing pads different from OEM style. The differences are in the material are only show when you are RACING!

So back to the OP original question regarding a 300+HP car, if he was using it for racing scenarios, the differences between z32 with racing pads and EVO 8/9 brembo's with OEM style pads would be incomparable.
The EVO brake setup would so much better.

Or on the other side, there would be no difference in feel with the daily or street driving of z32 calipers with racing pads or OEM style.

While the EVO 8/9 with daily/street driving with have a much larger pad bite and more leverage (with the larger rotor). Again, not comparable.

You are right there is no difference in feel between pad as far as the pedal is concerned. Maybe I'm lucky but maybe you never tried my setup. Nobody has confirmed 26mm calipers were bolt on for early hubs that i am aware.

My thinking is 26mm on z31 rotors with brake ducting until GE's kit is needed but to each our own.

P.s. it's fair to perceive I'm always racing so my results may not corroberate with others

Bigger and badder are not always the necessary answers to stopping

Unsprung weight, wheel size and tire selection play a big roll in responsiveness and stopping power. A good pad, better fluid, light weight wheel and softer compound tires will largely improve stopping power vs stock wheel, shitty tires and z32 calipers. Stopping power is a combination of items and not just a caliper.

I will also agree with Alex as I have never been impressed with z32 calipers. They always seem to battle with trapped air and I am constantly bleeding them a few times a year. There was one point on the shiro they were awesome for about a summer, but I was never able to get that back. The z31 front brake setup is very similar to s13s. Any brake upgrade for an s13 can be adapted with minimal effort.

The bubble problem is the internal bridges, they drill at an angle from the piston to the ends, this makes a nice upside down V to trap air in above the bleeder port

I suppose they could be blocked and modified with an external crossover, but why bother

Why don't you think the stock brakes are adequate? If you can lock up the wheels, they stop the car just fine. Good performance road pads (for slightly better heat capability and friction), fluid and replacing the old lines will be more than enough for even quick street use. If you want to decrease your stopping distance, you need more grip (better tires). However, if you need more capacity for repeated high speed brake events, that's when a brake upgrade is beneficial.

There are two types of brake fade. Pad fade and fluid fade. Pad fade is the pads exceeding their operating temperature and the Mu (friction coefficient) falling off considerably. The pedal gets hard and doesn't want to slow the car anymore. Fluid fade is the fluid boiling and the pedal becoming spongy (or going to the floor), usually caused by lack of thermal capacity/dissipation in the system (and/or you need to replace/get better fluid). Even the best racing fluids start to have issues around 600°F.

Going to a fixed, opposing-piston caliper will improve pedal feel since sliding-pin style calipers have inherently more flex/compliance. Flex is bad for pedal feel, you want to remove as much as possible. OE fixed calipers are better, but you have to understand that they, too, are a compromise (cost). Beside that, the main thing to consider on caliper selection is disc size and pads to be run. You'll want to consider pad size, volume and availability.

The disc should really be the focus of a brake upgrade, since it is the part doing all the work (absorbing and dissipating heat). When using an OE disc, you're limited to the OE design so generally adding mass is the only way to get extra thermal capacity. Other things to look for are air gap, # of vanes, direction of vanes and wall thickness. Most OE discs are pretty inefficient, so adding airflow to the hub area will help the disc dissipate more heat.

All that being said, I use the 26mm Z32 calipers front and 2-piston rear on OE vented 87+ turbo discs on our chumpcar. This fits within our ruleset and pad availability is much better. Most of the people that drive our car immediately comment on how good the brakes are, and we race continuously for 7-24hrs at a time on 255 RS-3s. I have never experienced fade on track, and I'm easily the hardest on the car. Granted, I'm only NA (for now) so we'll see how it holds up under stock turbo power. I may end up going to the 30mm calipers up front (more air gap and wall thickness) and I definitely will be incorporating some ducting.