2 Piston front and single rear I believe...

 

This is upsetting in my opinion :sad1: for a car that can do over 200mph I think the fronts should be atleast 4 piston. I mean, even Evo's, STi's and many other performance cars with a much lower price tag come with these great brakes straight from the factory. Even the 135i's come with 6 piston front brembos!

 

more pistons doesnt automatically entail better braking. I think the M5 does well in braking for what it has. 60-0 is ~110ft which is quite impressive for a 4k pound sedan

 

that fact is great stopping distance, however, how many times will it perform to that level? how about from 130+mph down to a reasonable safe speed to take a turn on a track? maybe I am totally wrong, but I just figured any car that is capable of going 200mph would have more than 2 pistons in the front! As always, just trying to learn, so someone please correct me if you disagree and have facts to back it up! thanks

 

lol well then you'd be really upset with the E39 M5s cause I believe those cars top out at ~185mph and only have a single piston all around...

 

BMW suck when it comes to brakes...for real! Giving us a car like the M5 E60, a supersedan with a supercar engine with these kind of brakes is actually a joke.

 

You guys can complain all you want about the stock M5's brake lacking on piston count, but performance wise they are quite impressive...

Unless you do some serious track duties, they hold up more than fine.

Also, the reason the M5 calipers have so few pistons is that they are sliding calipers. This is what I feel is most disappointing, as I feel that if M division had Brembo come up with a monoblock, opposed piston caliper to clamp the stock discs (which are massive), the braking would have been phenomenal.

But to simply point out, more pistons does not mean better braking. I have a full Brembo setup in my G35 (4 piston front, 2 piston rear - and they are the monoblock opposed piston style) and despite my G35 weighing a full 500lbs lighter with after market slotted rotors and high performance (borderline race) pads, our M5 has (in my opinion) better brakes.

Also, I believe that Rotora brakes for the M5 with their massive 12 pistons do not perform as well as a Brembo GT setup with "only" 6 pistons.

 

You guys can complain all you want about the stock M5's brake lacking on piston count, but performance wise they are quite impressive...

Unless you do some serious track duties, they hold up more than fine.

Also, the reason the M5 calipers have so few pistons is that they are sliding calipers. This is what I feel is most disappointing, as I feel that if M division had Brembo come up with a monoblock, opposed piston caliper to clamp the stock discs (which are massive), the braking would have been phenomenal.

But to simply point out, more pistons does not mean better braking. I have a full Brembo setup in my G35 (4 piston front, 2 piston rear - and they are the monoblock opposed piston style) and despite my G35 weighing a full 500lbs lighter with after market slotted rotors and high performance (borderline race) pads, our M5 has (in my opinion) better brakes.

Also, I believe that Rotora brakes for the M5 with their massive 12 pistons do not perform as well as a Brembo GT setup with "only" 6 pistons.

They DO suck when it comes to performance! Take your M5, do a run up to just about 120-125 mph, brake to a standstill. Now do that 2-3 times and you will pray for the car to brake in time to save your life! :nono: You don´t need a track to notice this! I am going what Ahmed said...aftermarket brakes next time, can´t justify the cost of stock ones.

 

BMWPwer06 is correct: 2 piston front and 1 piston rear.

As others have said: more pistons do not equate to better braking. There are lots of other variables such as brake pad composition and pad-rotor swept area that will affect braking performance. I think for most street purposes the stock brakes are fine and are massive compared to other cars.

That being said, I am disappointed that BMW went to a floating piston design vs. a fixed piston. The fixed piston design provides firmer, and thus better, brake pedal feel over the floating caliper design. While there really is not much of a performance difference between the two, I always favor the better control a fixed piston caliper provides.

 

I'm sorry but the price tag of the stock brakes and rotors do not justify them! I can't for the sake of me understand why I would ever replace them with stocks again!

 

you did the wise choice :applause: good luck .

 

The price tag on 95% BMW psrts can't be justified.

 

what aftermarket brakes are available that will fit under the stock wheels?

 

Its not the brakes, the brakes are fine! Its the pads...You just need a better pad and better fluid.

Dont go spending all the money on big brakes unless you track the car all the time and even then, no one really tracks their M5 cause they are big fat heavy pigs.

Go get a set of Portfield R4S pads and some Castrol SRF fluid, change your lines to stainless. Its all less then $500 and will feel very close to a Brembo set up.

I'm editing this to update with pictures. I changed just my pads, fluid, not even the lines and used the M5 as a Ring Taxi at Willowsprings fully loaded with 4 people for multiple laps, out lapping and out braking 80% of the cars there.

 

Cosmo, those are some great pics. The cars just looks awesome at the track.

 

I know a few that tracks their M5´s...even though they are heavy, they still can kick some serious *** Your M looks like a monster in those pics.

 

Does anyone know the correct Brembo caliper that will fit on the stock disks? I believe ACS sells an 8 piston conversion for use with stock front rotors that employs Brembo calipers. Of course we would need an adapter bracket to mount them as well.