The front brakes are 30mm larger 298mm rotors that accept the 4 piston caliper. Rear brakes remain the un-vented 254mm. These brakes are actually not bad, especially if you get better, wider tires on the car. If, and only if, you experience brake fade it is easy to add intermediate compound brakes on the front to compensate for the heat you are carrying. The 298mm front brakes accept the Subaru four piston caliper and stock pads or intermediate pads for a better look and a bit more pedal feel, but the car does not stop any better.

We offer stock front and rear cryogenically treated and slotted rotors. These wear and heat cycle much better than an untreated rotor. They are advised for use with intermediate pads and full race compounds. Many Impreza RS owners have changed over when it was time to replace the front rotors with great results.

A note on drilled rotors. Brembo still come with cast in holes or can be had solid with slots. At one time it was thought that holes in the rotors aided in preventing fade producing pad gasses from getting trapped under the pad/rotor interface. Modern pads just do not produce gasses, making the use of drilled rotors unnecessary.  SPD Tuning Service recommends slotted and cryogenically treated rotors.  It is still fashionable to have drilled rotors on your car, unfortunately most are not properly stress relieved. The surface cracking of the 298mm rotors from hard racing use is reasonably safe, but drilled holes will cause these cracks to deepen and potentially cause mechanical failure. All track driven cars should be thoroughly inspected in all areas at regular intervals but just the same we do not recommend drilled 298mm rotors for this reason. Stay with the current technology, slots and cryo treating are proven in rally conditions.

With engine tuning the car becomes fast enough to warrant a brake up grade. With appropriate 17 or 18 inch wheels there are three 330mm brake kits availible. The Brembo is technically first class, but they are quite expensive. I can recommend them. The Prodrive Alcon are, well, Prodrive, but they use a solid rotor and are unbelievably heavy. Frankly, the very best price/performance ratio is achieved by a local Torrance California company called StopTech. Their massive caliper is a re-enforced design working on a very innovative rotor design for which they have patents. The cost of replacing rotors and pads is least expensive with StopTech, making them doubly attractive.  Brake balance goes a bit forward with these setups.

When driving hard and using intermediate pads on the stock 298mm front rotors or especially using the larger front brakes and driving hard it is now possible to over heat the rear pad and rotor. We usually run an intermediate pad in the rear with large front brake kits, but better is to go to the vented rear units. The standard 256mm brakes size has an optional vented rotor and caliper kit that will meet most needs. For many years now I have driven the 298mm four piston setup and these 256mm vented rear rotors. Excellent brake balance and fade resistance on intermediate pads. At high brake requirement tracks I have used full racing pads on the front with perfectly acceptable results. Just this year, a more expensive, larger 288mm vented rear rotor and caliper have become availible. They work really well with 330mm aftermarket brakes. 

The WRX has proven to be significantly harder on brakes than the RS, both do to its higher power and increased weight. If you run a high performance road car, the 298mm front rotors with possibly optional 256mm vented rear kit and intermediate pads work extremely well. But for repeated trips to the race track, where braking from higher speeds at much shorter intervals will occur it is best to run the 330mm and 288mm rear combination. We find that frequently track driven 298mm rotors suffer from thermal stress by developing surface heat cracks, where the larger, and better cooling 330mm rotors do not suffer the heat as badly.

For those committed to the STI equipment we offer limited numbers of STI gold Brembo brakes with specially modified rear rotors and back plates to fit the WRX. These brake kits require either our specially made 17x7.5 GT-1 racing wheels or the 18x8 Turinni.  A Prodrive, Volk or Advan forged wheel are availible on special order for these brakes.