Upgraded brakes

[smg1404]

Todays effort now mostly complete. I still need to rework the lines a little.

[Ed]

Let us know if there is a big differance in braking performance. I wouldn't mind doing the upgrade myself if indeed it would be an upgrade.

I thought the stock calipers did a pretty good job.

[smg1404]

I still have some air in the system,, or something else going on. But I can tell already that the increase in stopping power is fantastic.. Before I had brakes... Nothing to brag about, but they stopped the car (sort of)... Now even though I have a bit to much pedal travel, I feel like I have the ability to chock the brakes easily any time I want... I have only driven a few miles so far on this new setup, but I thinl it was a good thing to do... I feel safer.

I probably spent too much, I bought a set of used calipers for $80.00, and after looking them over, decided that I wanted to trade them in for rebuilds... So I have about $240.00 in the upgrade, but I have all new or rebuilt hardware.. I used the old set for cores. With brakes better safe than sorry..

The calipers I used are from an '88 4Runner 6 cylinder... They had bigger pistons than the 4 cylinder set..

I had to space the calipers inward 1/8th of an inch. I bought hardened washers for this. I also used 1/8th inch wheel spacers to give a little more clearance between the caliper and my wheels..The 1/8th inch spacing inward put the caliper dead center with the disk. I was concerned at first, because the space between the rotor and the pads seemed like too much. But when I checked out how deep the pistons went into the caliper , I saw that there was plenty travel to handle this gap... After I pumped them in the brakes seem to work very well..

[laffeaux]

Did you upgrade the rear to disk too? I thought about upgrading the fronts, but thought that I'd have to upgrade the rear at the same time and didn't have the cash.

[smg1404]

No... I would like to, but I probably need to put money into other parts of the car. I will probably add a brake proportioning valve.

The brakes are working much better now, I have plenty of power to put to the fronts.. They lock first now, so I want to add a valve to try and balance the brakes.