Do owners of other BBKs like neuspeed or stop tech have the same pedal problem?
Yes and no, by that I mean that some other BBK's have reported the same issue however, not with the ST40 calipers. The ST40 calipers piston displacement is almost 25% smaller than even the stock calipers, and that allows them to have a very firm high pedal. If you grease the piston seals with these Macan/Q5 calipers it will give you a very similar pedal height and feel to the stock calipers. But if you really want to go next level, you can drastically improve pedal height and firmness by greasing the seals AND adding inline RPV's to the front calipers.
Those same mods would probably work well with other calipers (including stock), but I cannot say for sure without testing.
IMO even the stock calipers are way over boosted and have a relatively low soft/squishy pedal. Apparently VW thinks that is what everyone wants? It certainly provides a lot of braking force with very little pedal effort, but for performance driving that is not exactly ideal. I discovered it has to do with to much servo booster assist, and that it can be drastically changed by adjusting the brake system take up. The ST40 inherently reduces pedal assist force due to caliper/MC piston ratio, but it also reduces system take up due to the much smaller caliper piston displacement, so it inherently has a two fold effect. I have no doubt based on the specs and feedback that they work great in this application, so if you can afford them and are willing to lay down around $3K...
Any BBK with near stock displacement or larger (not recommended) will have this lower soft pedal issue to some degree. The other factor is piston retraction, so to know if another BBK will have this issue or not we would need to know the piston displacement, and the piston retraction of that caliper, or I guess someone that has the kit installed who can provide honest objective feedback.
My sense (based on limited feedback & specs) is that the majority of BBK's for this car have this issue. Unfortunately most kits don't list the piston sizes or retraction, and without that information there is no way to determine how they will affect pedal response.
Again, I have discovered this issue can be corrected (with this caliper, and most likely others), by greasing the seals and adding RPV's. That is what I did with mine and the difference is profound.
J Peterman says that he has seen the Macan/Q5 drivers complaining about the same brake pedal issues, that checks out since we recently discovered that we have the same MC size.
I know you guys are sick of me preaching about this, but I am telling you, grease AND RPV's! I promise you will love it, for track use the pedal height, firmness, feel, modulation, trust me it is what you want. even for street use you will love it. You know how your pedal feels with the engine off? With these simple low cost modifications it feels like that all the time, no sinking squishy pedal on engine start up. The pedal effort is of course higher but not bad at all, just about perfect IMO.
If you are already greasing the seals, the RPV's cost around $100 all in and can be easily installed/removed, ya know just incase this is all some bizarre plot on my part to waste your time and money.
Okay, stepping off my soap box, again.