I have a curse. It is the same curse that inflicts many of you. This curse makes people crazy and makes them do things for no apparent reason. I am speaking of the inability to leave well enough alone. My car is fine. It drives great, runs hard, brakes well. But I can't leave it alone.
I have never been 100% satisfied with the rear brakes. It is an older Baer Track system that uses a small C4 Corvette caliper (40mm piston bore) and a 12" rotor. When I was doing the last round of updates a few years ago, I noticed that the caliper bracket was slightly bent. I never really tracked down the reason why this might happen, but it was a little unsettling. So after doing some reading on the forum, I decided to install the 4th gen Camaro LS brake system. The LS brakes have amazingly sturdy cast iron caliper brackets, bigger calipers (45mm piston bore), and I will eventually incorporate the drum style e-brake.
Here are a few teaser shots of the components.
I sourced the brackets from a very good seller on LS1tech, who was parting out a 1999 Firebird. After a trip to the sandblaster and a couple of coats or Rustoleum Silver grill paint, they are good to go:
Being on a limited budget, I was basically forced to use re-manufactured calipers. I got on Rockauto and found that Powerstop sells a set of calipers that are powder coated red for under $150 for the pair. They look very well put together and will add a touch of matching color to the rear:
To round out the brake upgrade, I got a set of Raybestos professional grade rotors and semi-metalic pads. Raybestos is currently running a rebate of $5 per rotor and $15 for a set of pads. The rotor is coated (maybe e-coat) and should stay looking nice for a little longer than plain rotors.
The other main reason for the timing of this upgrade is that I will be having the ring and pinion gear swapped by a shop. I don't have the space or tool to do any of the work myself, and I figure that since the rear end will be completely disassembled, adding new brake components should add minimal to the cost of the swap. The main reason for swapping gears is to eliminate excessive gear whine under light load. This is very annoying when going down the highway, and after talking to several trusted people, the consensus was that a new R&P set would be needed. I am also going down to a 3.42 gear (from 3.73) to reduce highway cruising RPM.
Stay tuned for further updates.
Andrew