This adventure starts out after finishing my road trip across the east coast. Before the trip, I inspected all the normal wear and tear parts to make sure that they are up to speed. I ended up doing an oil change and swapping out the front driver side axle, however, everything else seemed to be able to handle the trip. The rear brakes were getting close to needing to be replaced, but I decided to wait till after the trip to address them when I had more time and I am glad I did.
To paint the picture of where I now sit, my car is a 2002 s6 avant with a few upgraded goodies from the two previous owners. Some of their upgrades had me scratching my head, but one I really agreed with was the brake upgrade they performed where they swapped out the fronts with Brembo Porsche Cayenne 350mm brakes and 328mm brakes for the rear. This is where my dilemma starts. If you have done research on upgrading the braking system on our cars you will see that there isn't a truly off the shelf Porsche kit...or there wasn't one at least when this upgrade was performed. Even with that in mind, I thought I was still good since the previous owners kept all documentation and receipts for the vehicle....or so I thought.
Everything seemed to have been custom made for the braking system except for the calipers and pads themselves. The original owner of the car was an engineer and luckily I have all of his engineering notes to go along with all the mounting pieces and custom two piece rotors that he had made. What I don't have is any specific paperwork on the calipers or brake pads that were used other than Porsche Cayenne brakes
. This is where my research began 6 days ago. I thought to myself...this shouldn't be that hard. I had documentation that discussed when the install was performed and that it specified using all new parts in 2009 and I actually enjoy researching car info. Boy was I wrong. After three days, I have identified the rear brakes are not Cayenne, but 997 which opens up a whole new can of worms
. I thought now I am getting somewhere. I then dove head first into the 997 world of Porsche which led me to feel sorry for all 911 owners out there who have a want to work on their own cars, but dont have any specific information about the parts they need 
. The three days following were nothing but Porsche part numbers and discussions with Porsche dealerships trying to narrow down what the calipers came off of just to find the right fitting pads. It turns out that Porsche used 10 different types of calipers for their 997 series of cars...each with different build demisions. For the most part, Porsche color codes their calipers either grey, red, or yellow to denote the type of pads that they use. However, I found documentation that the previous owner had the calipers repainted red with no indication if the calipers were origially red or not
. This led me to start measuring every aspect of the calipers and worn pads in the hopes of finding my unicorn of replacement parts. I even dove into documentation from the brake manufacturer Textar and came back with nothing. It didn't help that the pad shape did not match any picture I could find with the brakes they offered. Google was failing me at this point. Porsche parts catalogue only added more questions. The part number on the pads was a dead end. Even the Brembo part number that is stamped on the caliper was coming back with nothing. I started plotting the demise of the previous owner as a way to boost my mood 
. I was doomed...until I found one small post on a Porsche forum discussing possible upgrades for 991 brakes. Eureka! I finally had a part number to my rear calipers. Smooth sailing here we come, but alas, is was not meant to be. Down the rabbit hole of 911 GT3 cup cars I went till I hit rock bottom. I was able to now narrow down the model to a Porsche 911 Turbo from DIY videos on Youtube and that is now where I sit. I have ordered pads for a 2009 997 911 Turbo with a resignation that I will have to proceed on a trial and error basis till I find the right ones that fit, but I have a good feeling I am in the right area for parts 
. Now on to the custom made rotors. At least I have the build sheets for those.What I have learned through this process:
I learned I have a knack for understanding/reading german.
I learned that I cuss repeatedly when I do research.
I learned that Porsche likes to use specific parts for specific models so you practically need the vin number breakout to figure out anything.
I learned that when I move on to the front brakes....it will be more of this.
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Originally Posted by bpark1210
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