Bigger brakes

Purple RS · Post by **Purple RS** » Sun Jul 13, 2008 5:16 pm

I've been working on this for the last 4 or so weekends and finally finished up to where the car is drivable again with the exception of needing a front end alignment. After gathering parts from friends, junkyards and parts stores, I have upgraded the front brakes on my 89 RS Camaro from 10.5" to 12.75" rotors, and single piston cast iron Delco calipers to 2 piston C5 Corvette calipers. To do this, I had to irreversibly modify a set of spindles so they could accept a set of brackets for the new calipers, then a set of stock rotors were turned down into hubs so I could use the slip on Corvette rotors (3rd gen rotors and hubs are one piece).

Start to finish, I went from this...

to this...

Now I need to find the funding to do similar to the rears..

William from NOLA · Post by **William from NOLA** » Sun Jul 13, 2008 6:55 pm

Awesome

Post by **GlassWolf** » Sun Aug 03, 2008 5:02 pm

if you really want an improvement, go to 4 piston calipers, and high quality pads.
clamping force and brake pad material make the biggest difference in stopping.

Purple RS · Post by **Purple RS** » Sun Aug 03, 2008 6:53 pm

Noted, but that will have to wait. It's not just number of pistons that matters, but total piston area that makes the difference in clamping force. I would love a four piston caliper, but this is what I had funding for. All of my parts were second hand or modified junkyard parts, including my hubs which are machined down 10.5" rotors. With the new 12.75" rotors and 2 piston calipers, there is a significant improvement in stopping power over the stock single piston and 10.5" rotor.

The friend I bought the calipers and rotors from upgraded his brakes from these to a Corvette C6 (six piston) caliper and a 14" rotor on his 91 Trans AM. He needs 18" wheels up front to clear them.

Here's his setup as he was installing it, the calipers he sold me are still attached to the brake lines and hanging by a bungee behind his new ones.

Mon Aug 04, 2008 3:04 pm

Those brakes look nice!

I want those wheels in chrome.

I really need to get my car done! So much fun stuff I want to do, but no fun when the car is sitting over at my parents house.

At least I'm making a little progress, I'm about ready to pull the 2.8 out. Once that's out, I can clean up the engine bay and then next I'll pull out the 305 out of the donor car I have, and start swapping it over..

Purple RS · Post by **Purple RS** » Mon Aug 04, 2008 7:23 pm

Thanks, I actually finished it all up yesterday. After replacing the master cylinder I found a couple of leaks, one on the right rear which was just a loose fitting (or not quite tight enough), and one on the M/C itself where the rear output flare fitting had flattened out. A few more miles on these brakes to set the pads, then a lock up test and adjust the proportioning valve.

Chris, when you get to the suspension and stuff on your project, I still have a set of V8 springs in the garage that came off from this car, yours if you want them. They're not the stiffest ones available, but they should set do better than the V6 springs.

Purple RS · Post by **Purple RS** » Mon May 04, 2009 7:19 pm

I finally got around to doing the rears and installed something to compliment the C5 brakes up front. The rear end I swapped into the car a while back had a 10.5" rotor and cast iron caliper. I installed a set of brakes from a 98-02 F-body (LS1) with a 12" rotor, aluminum caliper and integral drum parking brake. At the moment, what is left is hooking up the parking brake and fabricating some braided flex lines.

These are what were on the car for about a year, they did OK but the parking brake just sucked.

Here's the backing plate for the LS1 setup which shows the parking brake shoe.

And the completed assembly, minus the brake cable and flex hose.

cargodz · Post by **cargodz** » Tue May 05, 2009 2:16 am

Now down the road when you go to swap pads get the EBC Red or Yellow (Red: low dust w/ good street performance, Yellow: more dust but full on race stopping power).