"Home Made" Big Brake Kit

[atc250r]

I just finished installing the "kit" that ron makes. He sells adapter brackets and centering rings to fit 2000'ish Cobra 13" front rotors and 1998'ish Camaro front calipers on our cars. If you want to keep 4 lug you can by drilling 3 new holes in the rotor hats which was suprisingly easy. Unfortunately the calipers didn't fit under my old wheels so I went to 5 lug with 2004 Acura TL wheels. It was a pretty straight foward install and the only difficult part was figuring out what to do about the brake lines. I ended up getting a 9 inch long #3AN hose from BCS and a pair of adapters from Earl's. The line from the strut to the caliper is replaced by the one I just made. I got the calipers from a junkyard for like $60 shipped for the pair, cleaned them, rebuilt them, and painted them. BTW they are 2 piston aluminum calipers. Pedal feel is outstanding (just as it was before) but now I KNOW the car can back up its power with some serious braking too. Just a little peace of mind I guess. Here's a couple of pics:











I was suprised how well the wheels fit given they are 17x8 and have a -45mm offset. The fronts fit better than Evo8 wheels since the don't stick out at all and even "tuck" under a little bit. The rears are VERY close to the lower control arm that goes up towards the front but they haven't rubbed at all. Anyway, just another possibility for wheels, tires, and brakes. I saw a set of these wheels go for around $300 shipped on ebay the other day. The only drawback is that they are about 23lbs each.

John

 

WOW I really like thoes wheels. They look clean on the VR4. The brakes look great as well.

 

[PJGross]

What are you going to do for the rears?
How does the balance go front to rear?
I know, I'll do a search on this kit/recipe for details.

I've been tinkering with my brakes and I just frown every time I look at the non-vented tiny rotors in the rear. Our cars could use front AND rear upgrading!

Looks sweet, though!

-PJ

 

[SleepinGVR4]

That looks great John. Guess i'll have to invest in a set of these now... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/devil.gif

 

[JB]

Bling Bling. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ooo.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/worthy.gif

 

[atc250r]

Thanks! PJ, I don't know what the bias is but I don't notice anything weird going on when braking and it has to be an improvement over the stock fronts. In the rear I just bought a set of cheap, parts store DSM rotors and a set of Raybestos pads. I'd like to upgrade the rear but there isn't a lot of choices for it. AEM used to make a big brake kit for the rear of DSM's but they stopped. I'm going to need new rear calipers soon but I want to explore my options before I buy stock replacements. I'm going to start keeping an eye on ebay for an AEM rear set up. If anyone has suggestions for a rear upgrade I'd love to hear them.

John

 

[steve]

Quote:
Bling Bling. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ooo.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/worthy.gif



+1 Looks awesome. Are you planning on keeping the TL wheels plain or painting them?

 

[atc250r]

I'm gonna leave them alone for now. They are heavy so I don't want to invest any money into them by powdercoating them and I don't want to spray paint them since they are pretty expensive wheels. I am considering having them polished, you guys can hate on the bling all you want but I think it'd look good with them polished by a real pro who knows how to make them really bling.

John

 

[JB]

Brush off the haters John.

 

[Polish]

Baby on Board. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/rofl.gif

What is the weight difference in total, for just the brake setup? Or did I miss it?

 

[atc250r]

I meant to bring the Cobra rotors to FedEx and weigh them when I checked the weight of a wheel but I forgot. I'd bet its pretty close to breaking even since the aluminum calipers weigh nothing compared to the cast iron GVR4 ones but the Cobra rotors are considerably heavier. Oh, and I was trying to get the "Baby on Board" in the same frame with the two "Class Winner" stickers from Englishtown but it didn't work. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/dunno.gif

John



John

 

[boostx]

nice john ,,
whats the big deal with the weight difference , i would add weight to be able to stop much better , its the same as the Baer Brakes Claw Systems but much cheaper
when i put the Baer Brakes Claw Systems on the GN all i can say is dammmmmm


t wonder what rotor they user for The Baer Claw® TRACK-PLUS
the vette Two-piston aluminum calipers comes in 3 diffrent size

 

[atc250r]

The weight of the brakes parts doesn't bother me much, its the wheels being so damn heavy that kills me but they were free so I can deal with it.

John

 

Quote:
AEM used to make a big brake kit for the rear of DSM's but they stopped. I'm going to need new rear calipers soon but I want to explore my options before I buy stock replacements. I'm going to start keeping an eye on ebay for an AEM rear set up. If anyone has suggestions for a rear upgrade I'd love to hear them.

John



John, on the other brake thread going on I mentioned that the old brake kits offered by AEM was sold off to Power Slot. The BBK kits that AEM offered were for the front only,the rear kits were for appearance only and did not have bigger calipers,only rotors. The kits for the front were also offered in a BBK with bigger calipers and also with adapters for the stock calipers too. You can still buy the rotors for use with stock calipers for both front & rear,the link posted below has the information.

Daryl

http://www.powerslot.com/pages/power_slot_plus.html

 

[atc250r]

Thanks Daryl. I don't see any oversize rear rotor kits on that site though. Am I just missing something?

John

 

John I made a mistake on the rears but I think because the kits were only offered for the 2G cars by AEM. However the front kits can be made to work (of no use to you). I know someone that works at Power Slot,I'll call them and find out what the deal is on the rears to be sure. If I remember Baer has a bigger rotor rear kit for the 1G cars too.

Daryl

 

[atc250r]

I'll have to find out what ron has in the back of his car then. I'm pretty sure he told me it was a kit that AEM used to make that used bigger rotors with a bracket and a stock caliper. I'd be happy with just moving the stock rear caliper out a little with a bracket to accomodate a larger rotor. It looks so empty in the rear wheels with those little rotors back there. If I still worked at Mitsu I could grab a rear 2G rotor and compare it to a 1G rear rotor. If the stock ones are close enough then I would think I could make the 2G rear rotor kit work.

John

 

[iceman69510]

2g and up brakes use the drum-type parking brake, so they are a lot deeper in design under the hat. I also don't recall them being larger diameter substantially.

 

[atc250r]

Yeah, I was hoping to figure out if I can use the 2G rear big rotor kit. Even if just the rotor would work I could definitely get brackets fabbed up.

John

 

[V8EATER]

If anyone is interested, I've got a set of camaro calipers, and a set of C5 vette calipers as well.

I also have a huge selection of wheels, mostly late model.

PM me for details