Rear discs worth it?

[bkelly]

I've got the complete rear end dropped out of my car getting ready to be blasted/painted. Before I but it back together, are rear discs worth it? I'm going to have ~$250 into redoing the rear drums, and only $200 or so more for discs. That said, the master cylinders still work fine, drums/shoes are new...it really only needs springs. The car might see some track time once a year. I feel more comfortable working on discs, I've only worked on drum brakes once in my life. Of course, I can always convert it later.....

[Oiluj]

I'm planning to do the rear disc upgrade. Discs are not perfect, but I like them better than drums. In my experience w/ various cars, I've found disc brakes to be more reliable and easier to work on. But that's just me...

[zguitar71]

For street driving you would not gain from disc over properly set up drums. They do look better though. I would not do it unless you go to a set up like the AZC Willwood's.

[Six_Shooter]

For street driving you would not gain from disc over properly set up drums. They do look better though. I would not do it unless you go to a set up like the AZC Willwood's.

I disagree, though my rear disc conversion experiance is not on an S30, but on daily or almost daily drivers. My current DD, a 1998 Malibu, was originally equipped with drum rear brakes, and converted to rear disc, partly because I could, mostly because I wanted to, and afterwards wondered why more cars didn't come with rear disc. Braking was much more controlled, stopping distance seemed to become shorter becase of that and brake fade was less, I had more consistant brakes which I have much more confidance in. I then later upgraded my front brakes from 11" to 12" and experianced more of the same increase in braking ability.

For an extra $200, I think I would put the rear disc on, as long as the e-brake can still be used. I've seen too many (again not specific to the S30) rear disc upgrades where the e-brake is disabled.

[bkelly]

Well, my e-brake cable is officially destroyed. The brackets up by the "Y" were rusted so bad they welded themselves to the clip. The cables were stuck on the car. I wound up cutting them out. If I wasn't such an anal arse I would have left them in, but everything is being removed and zinc plated. It would drive me nuts to know that I left something rusty on the car after spending what's going to amount to over 1000 hours restoring it.

If I do decide to go disc, is there an ebrake mod?

BTW, anybody have an ebrake cable? Figures what is wrecked they don't make anymore.......

[bj2348]

Howdy,

There is a really good link over on Hybridz that lists most of the popular brake upgrades.

http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=104735

I'm using 200sx rear calipers + maxima brackets + 300zx rear disks on my 240z. This setup let's me keep an ebrake

.

http://forums.hybridz.org/showpost.php?p=578333&postcount=25

Just my $0.02

Jay