im sorry in advance guys, cause im sure theres an obvious reason why it hasn't been done, but my car isn't in front of me right now, so its not obvious to me. would it be possible to put the 4 piston calipers from the front on the back too? would it even be a worthwhile mod if so?
why aren't there many brake swap options for the fc(that I know of)? do we already have pretty good brakes?


thanks in advance,
carrington

 

Yes, we do already have pretty good brakes.
Putting a set of 4-piston calipers on the rear would delete the ebrake (which you may not care about) but more significantly, totally screw up the brake bias, forcing you to either also embiggen the front calipers to compensate or install an adjustable bias control to strangle down the rear brakes...or both.

What leads you even contemplate a "brake upgrade"?

 

There are kits out there to install larger FD rear rotors, I believe the 99 JDM ones, but that would only locate the calipers outward from the centerline of the hub to increase clamping advantage. You would also need to do something about the front to not mess up bias. I know that Ronin Speedworks makes a kit for the front to install 350Z front rotors as well that are a larger diameter.


Also, the brakes on the FC are plenty good for what we have. A worthwhile mod is to install a Subaru master and booster combo to take advantage of the larger bore and dual diaphragm booster. I got mine out of a 99 Outback, I believe. 1 1/16" bore and the pushrod threads are the same as ours. The booster studs are also just long enough.

 

Any more information on this? applicable subaru models etc?

 

you can get a rear caliper relocation bracket that uses run of the mill fd rotors as well as the unobtanium RZ spec rotors , 1" difference between them

 

Go to clokkers profile and find his thread titled "Holy Grail Part Deaux"

I can't tell you what other Subie models have that combo other than I got mine out of a 99ish Outback. The Master has 2 brake line ports and requires a tee fitting to make both front brakes work. I will post an update to my build thread tonight when I get home and show how I did it.

 

As promised, I made an update to my thread. Read clokkers thread first. I linked his thread in my post.

https://www.rx7club.com/build-thread.../#post12084520

 

plus the mounts are in different locations and bolt pattern doesn't match, the rears are solid and of much smaller thickness/dia and the rotor face is not the same distance as the fronts.

plus it's just dumb, for the reasons posted above, as it is just overkill for the rear brakes.

bigger is not always better.

 

well, I was just looking for more responsive braking really. and I didn't wanna be the guy just doing hp mods and showing no love to the brakes and suspension. plus one of my rear ones seized up a while back, so I figured it was time to either rebuild or upgrade.


do you guys run stock calipers?


that's pretty cool about the subie master/booster swap tho.


thanks guys!

 

There is a common misnomer that you need large calipers as part of a brake upgrade. This is simply not entirely true. High quality rotors and a quality brake pad will get you far further than trying to mix and match caliper parts. Look at Eage8's SSM fc build. He does tons of autocross and I believe he runs Hawk or EBC pads.

 

the bigger MC and better booster, and better pads and rotors. you'll be all set

skip fooling with calipers unless you need to for bigger rotors. some reuse the stock caliper pars but space them wider and further from the axle center to math much larger rotors.

 

I have 18" wheels

thats ronin kit in front, fd rotors in rear





stock pics for comparison

 

I have waffled on going with the Ronin kit for awhile. How do they perform for you?

 

the stock parts on an FC are pretty good. You'd likely find a lot of improvement with a good pad on brembo blanks or the like. The subaru booster is double diaphragm so that gets some more "oomph"behind the push.

that said, the FC 4 pot does have a pretty small piston set in it. But unless your doing a bunch of 120 to 50 stops, the stock brakes should be just fine. Might do best to learn braking technique.

 

We have raced stock base model (single piston front) brakes for years now. Never had an issue. The pads are only good for a weekend in the front but the rears last a whole season. The 4 piston calipers provide some benefit but the pads only lasted maybe 2 weekends when i ran those, a marginal improvement.

The FC brakes are very good. Simple, but quite good.

 

Best bet is to maximize what you have, then after some experience and track time, upgrade only if needed.

I know that there are some time attack and road course racers that simply upgrade the pads, rotors, lines, and fluid and run stock parts. At least with stock parts, they can be cheaper and easier to get your hands on.

This 450whp Integra runs stock brakes.

Attacking Time: James Houghton's Integra Type R


Edit: Sorry. 520whp

 

Oh i forgot to say.....if you put 4-pots on the rear and you hit the brakes hard, you will spin like a top so if that's your goal....

 

I had the Ronin kit along with 2-pcs 350Z rotors, the now obsolete CorkSport RS/RZ FD rear upgrade kit alone with a 1" m/c and booster from a 929. The parts sat in boxes on the shelf in the garage for a couple years. I ended up selling them off due to lack of enthusiasm. I have SS brake lines and the stock GXL brake setup. I run Hank HPS pads on the street and switch out the front pads to Hawk HP Plus or Hawk Blue for track duty - depending on the track. Is the pedal travel a bit too long and sort of on the weak side, yes. Would a larger bore m/c and dual diaphragm booster help to firm up the pedal as well as shorten the travel, yes. I just deemed that for better or worst, it wasn't worth the effort to upgrade the system, at least not without a huge injection of horsepower & torque (read engine swap).

 

Famous last words:

Hold my beer!

Hey, watch this!

When this baby hits 88 miles per hour, you're gonna see some serious ****.

 

havent "really" tried them yet

still stock brakes I was on a beach run messing with a mustang and had to slow from a about 120 and did not like the fade at all enough to make me nervous and figured it was a good fairly simple project, turns out its not THAT simple, i mean its simple enough but its not a 1-2-3 thing I wouldnt do it with the thinking of starting it saturday morning and driving the car to work Monday
and with the rear upgrades you will be into it over $2k but I think some guys who track their cars have run stock rears with better pads.

It was more of a natural selection of the next stage of my car and a project. Always try to do one good project a winter on it- that was that project that winter

 

Good to know. I'm not planning on doing heavy track duty, so the whole kit is probably overkill.

I looked into the SuperNow rear brackets and they were around $110. Not quite the $2k you mentioned, but I must be missing something. It does look like you are running some very nice rotors.

 

What is the difficult part?

 

I have the attain rear , same crap.
The rear is not $2k.
Front and rear add up.

You will want to rebuild or start with rebuilt calipers front and rear
Ronin kit for front
Pads front and rear
Pad Hardware and shim kit front and rear
Rotors front and rear
Stainless lines if you didnt already have them on the car
you will either need to buy 2 piece rotors for front ($$$) or have machinist open the center bore of the donor rotors
If you choose the RZ kit for rear as far as i know only 2 possible rotor choices from either mazda japan or 2 piece. Mazda japan are min $400 for the pair maybe more now? I chose stock Fd size for rear you obviously need to specify when ordering from a jspec vendor

The parts add up, i also suggest longer studs its surprisingly not mentioned in the incredibly detailed instructions included with the ronin kit
Rears you will want to try to get a hand on the old corksport instructions because the attain are in Japanese but the rears are fairly simple still require some machining and grinding not exactly a direct bolt em right on thing

I mean yeah if you have everything lined up ready to go and maching done ahead of time you could probably do it over a weekend but def not one night thing

 

Got it. I could see $2k for front and rear, but not for just the rear.

Still a bit too rich for me, unless it's really needed in my application.

 

Well thats just incorrect. You'd still bias the thing. Hell Millens 4wd FC ran the mazda 4 pots in the rear