280z Disc brake conversion

What is your planned usage of the car?  The Maxima swap is fine if it's just a street car, but it doesn't offer any additional performance over drums.  If you do need better performing brakes, there are better rear swaps.

Strictly for the street. I know what year span for the 240sx conversion. Not really sure on the maxima year span. Main thing is the E brake setup. Which year Maxima is a true bolt on conversion. Hoping someone can shed some light on it. Thanks

Jeff, you mentioned other options?

I am just about to install the Mustang GT rear disc brake swap on my race car. It uses brackets from Silvermine and S197 Mustang GT vented discs and calipers. The rotors need to be drilled for 4 lug, but otherwise it’s similar to the Maxima or 240SX swaps. The difference is that the performance is supposedly much better than either of those options. 
Another swap that several friends are running is the front S30 caliper on the rear with second gen RX7 rotors. I’m not sure about the bracket. 
Of course Wilwood makes a rear setup as well and that’s very popular. 

Thanks for the input. Does the Mustang application use the same E brake hardware?

I believe it does, but I will know more once I install it.  I haven't decided yet if I will keep the E brake or remove the lever and cables to save weight.  

2 hours ago, Jeff G 78 said:

I believe it does, but I will know more once I install it.  I haven't decided yet if I will keep the E brake or remove the lever and cables to save weight.  

An instructional thread would be cool, when this happens

That would be great. 

1 hour ago, Patcon said:

An instructional thread would be cool, when this happens

Will do.  I'll take lots of pics and post everything up.  I might try to fit the E brake either way and then ditch it if I go that way.  I do like having an E brake but for a race car, weight is always the enemy.  My car is a pig and it really needs to go on a massive diet.  I think I could lose close to 200 lbs. between the bumpers, mastic, old wiring, and other useless components.

I also plan to weigh each component in the front and back to finally put to rest the speculation on the weights of the vented setup.  I'm sure it will all be heavier, but I've never found a good table that spells it all out.

Edited December 25, 20195 yr by Jeff G 78

Any idea when you will try to do the conversion? 

I’m not sure yet. I’m waiting on a hoist to free up. Hopefully in the next few weeks. 

Any particular reason to use S197 Mustang 5-lug brakes?  The Fox body SVO Mustangs had rear discs with 4-lug.  It's a popular swap to use SVO or T-bird Turbo Coupe rear brakes to retrofit discs to other Fox body Mustangs.  These parts are still pretty common (probably available as a kit).  Might be worth checking to see if they'll fit.

There are several reasons to use the S197 rear brakes.  The rotors are larger diameter than the SVO rotors and they are vented.  The calipers have larger pistons to give them more power.  The big beef with the Maxima rears is that they don't offer as much stopping power as the stock drums.  The S197 rears allow the addition of an adjustable proportioning valve.  The Maxima rears cannot utilize an adjustable prop since the prop needs to be all the way open to get close to enough rear bias. 

The S197 rears are super common at every parts store and there are tons of pad choices.  Even the stock pads for the GT500 are really good.  Finally, there is a caliper bracket available for the S197 calipers but not the SVO calipers.

The only very small downside is that they are 5 lug, but that isn't a problem at all.  My plan is to make a simple drill jig so I can bolt the jig onto a new set of rotors and redrill them for 4 lug with a cordless drill.  The drilling process should take less than 10 minutes with the jig.

Decided to go with the 240sx conversion. Main reason is it’s strictly for the street and the parts were easy to source. What I didn’t realize was the 14” wheels won’t clear the caliper. Now looking for a set of 4 lug 15” rims and tires I can use during the build process. Can anyone recommend a temporary solution as far as make and model preferably a steel wheel that I can use until I’m ready to buy the wheel and tire combination at the end of the project? Thanks again for all the help out there...

On 12/29/2019 at 10:52 AM, Jeff G 78 said:

My plan is to make a simple drill jig so I can bolt the jig onto a new set of rotors and redrill them for 4 lug with a cordless drill.  The drilling process should take less than 10 minutes with the jig.

I'm still waiting on a hoist to free up before I can start bolting the new brake parts on my Z, but I did make the drill jig today.  I started with a 12mm thick Mustang wheel spacer with a pilot.  I then made a drawing to layout the holes needed.  I transfered the drawing onto the spacer and I drilled three new 1/8" holes through the jig (spacer) so I'd have the correct 4x114.3mm holes.  One hole is shared from the original 5 lug rotor.  I then bolted the jig onto the Mustang rotor and simply drilled the three new 1/8" diameter holes in the rotors using the jig as a drill guide.  With the jig unbolted from the rotors, I increased each rotor hole size in 3 more drill steps until I got them to 1/2" diameter.  One more pass with the chamfer bit and they are ready to install.  The Mustang uses larger holes, but there was no reason to make them that big for the M12 Z studs.  

I can now replace the rotors if needed without the need to do any further measuring.  I can simply bolt the jig on and drill the new rotors to 4 lug from 5 lug.