Step-by-step guide to fitting RS Brembos to the Mk3 Focus.

The Mk3 Focus RS comes with some pretty impressive Brembo calipers as standard, and they can make for an awesome and affordable upgrade for ST owners too. Here’s how…

Focus ST250 stoppers are fine for a standard car, driven normally. With decent pads they’re remarkably effective.

But after a session of hard driving their weaknesses begin to show. They’ll start to fade on track, and even a fast-road Focus won’t take long to end up juddering through the pedal.

Which probably explains why Ford chose to fit its flagship Focus RS with Brembo four-pot calipers and 350mm discs, bestowing the four-wheel-drive 345bhp mega-hatch with the great appearance, stopping power and prestige offered by top-quality anchors. All, of course, assets that are equally relevant for a tuned ST250 too.

Thankfully, the ST can benefit from its big brother’s brakes, which bolt onto the car with so few alterations that the upgrade is an official Ford Performance modification. The Brembo four-pots are considerably lighter than standard calipers (the beefy RS setup is reckoned to be 15kg rather than the smaller ST’s 16kg), they’re relatively cheap to buy, and they look great too: stock RS calipers come in plain silver or Nitrous Blue, but they’re easily paintable to match your car. We used Foliatec Brake Caliper Two-Part Spray and it worked superbly; see the November issue for a guide on how to use it.

Best of all, rather than opting for regular Ford discs and pads, why not step it up by several notches?

Instead of stock parts, we chose a range of fast-road/track products from leading high-performance brake manufacturer EBC, including stainless steel braided brake hoses, slotted USR 350mm discs and Bluestuff NDX pads – for very little additional cost over standard Ford kit.

It’s also imperative to improve the rear brakes to match; with less weight at the back of an ST than an RS it seems unnecessary to increase disc diameter, so EBC USR 271mm ST discs and Yellowstuff pads are reckoned to provide a perfect balance.

Did we really say perfect? Absolutely. The RS upgrade is a budget-priced bigbrake conversion that, when mated to EBC’s upgraded discs and pads, offers the ultimate combination of maximum stopping power and road-going usability.

It’s not just immeasurably better than standard ST stoppers, it’s capable of rivalling almost any aftermarket setup for your street or track-day ST. And it’s not even difficult to do…