GREAT WORK!

another thing to note is the brembos are aluminum and the mazdas are cast iron (i think, or steel)... but the weight difference is pretty amazing! ive picked up my brembos and they are featherweight compared to the mazdas

 

We are talking about the front brakes, right?
If so, you're totally wrong.


-Ted

 

The stock valve works to keep the pressures at a certain ratio, with an adjustable bias valve before the stock proportionning valve I don't think it'll make a difference really, as the valve will probably just not reduce the pressure so much, leaving the same line pressure. Like I said, it'll only reduce pressure, reducing braking, so if you do it before or after it won't matter, it'll still give less, unless you bias the fronts down, but that'd require some re-plumbing to make both feed off the same line to avoid problems with unequal bias side to side.

Now if you eliminate the stock valve and replace it with an aftermarket one beware that it might not give you proper balance in all conditions, as the stock valve changes ratios at a given pressure, giving less rear braking, so in slippery conditions with less weight transfer you'll have a setup biased too far forward.

 

sorry bud, but as reted said, WRONG. funny thing about our cars is that, even you know this, mazda used a **** load of aluminum for lots of defferent parts.
the engine, front brake calipers, suspension, and other misc parts.
good ****

peace

 

stock 5-lug calipers = beefy aluminum!

 

Hmmmm - suggestions then?

 

Stainless Steel hose from an aftermarket porportioning valve with AN fittings (Tongue firmly in cheek)

 

Well black91 is making good points about adjusting the bias under different pressures and I think that for a street car that is something that we would like to keep. I would anyway. So is there anything out there that is like a set & forget prop valve that we could integrate into this?

Speaking with meh best man over @ brembo yesterday he had some of the very same concerns. He was worried about pedal modulation, travel, pressure and balance of the system.. My suggestion was - ok - I can build lines why not go rape everything (front & rear cali's, rotors, MC & booster & proportioning valve) from a wrecked evo an make it all fit? Take the entire system and the design

A: Becuase when Brembo designed that system they designed it for a nose heavy pig. Not a balanced nimble car like the FC.

 

on the evo IX the brake and clutch and ABS module use the same res and run together in the same system so make sure the master will work on a 7 before u go do that

 

If you're willing to have imperfect bias in low grip situations, which isn't the worst thing in the world since it'll be front biased and therefore more stable, then you could eliminate the stock valve by connecting the two front lines together and then install a **** style adjustable valve on the rear line where the stock valve was. Set it and forget it.

I don't know if it'll work or not, but I know that Miatas had a few different valves with everything from 82% down to 60%. You could probably just bolt one right in with a more appropriate bias (more rear bias, higher %).

Details of the Miata valves here: http://www.flyinmiata.com/tech/stock_bpv.php

If you need more MC then I hear that the S5TII booster will work with the 1" 929 MC to give a stiffer pedal and more volume to fill the calipers. You'll likely need to make up some new lines though, but probably just short ones.

 

he's probably not comparing them to the 4 piston fronts, are the 4lug front calipers aluminum as well?

 

No, series 4 (86~88) four lug cars were single piston slider type calipers made of steel. The GXL, TII, and Sport had the 4 piston fixed calipers which were aluminum. Series 5 (89~91) cars were all 5 lug, GTU base models / Coupes came with the single piston slider calipers, steel, and the GXL, GTUs, and TII models came with the same 4 piston fixed aluminum calipers.

~Mike.................

 

ok, i can always admit defeat...., for anyone who has compared the two, the brembos are lighter!...see what happens when i get out of rx7s, i forget the most simple of things

 

this is a very common brake setup for 240sx guys as well.
but I am very surprised that they pracitcally bolted right up to the FC knuckles.
thats amazing.

the benefits are obvious, massive rotor = more leverage and more mass for heat dissipation and resistance to heat based brake fade.

wonderful man, just wonderful!

so I am confused why you shaved down the EVO rotor to fit inside the EVO caliper.
why not machine the caliper bracket or the knuckle or add a spacer or shim depending on how far you needed to move the caliper to be centered over the rotor....??? I sure wouldnt want to shave the rotor just for offset purposes, there are other ways around that dilemma.

awesome pics and info, props for finding this setup and tinkering with it and posting the info, sick sick sick!

on the rear brakes, I think they use a "drum/shoe in the rotor hat" setup for the parking brake on the EVO and STI so you will not be able to retain a parking brake if you use rear brembos on an FC. but I dont think you will have any problems with using the Brembos in front and adding a manual prop valve to the FC if its far off from desirable, the FC brake lines are so oldschool (single line running to the rear) that its super easy to add in a manual prop valve like a tilton or similar.

one more thing... with no more oem dustshield you may notice some heat induced premature failure of parts like the lower balljoint that may now be in direct proximity to the rotors without any metal to block some of the heat. heat reflective tape on these parts may help, seen that on some serious race / enduro cars to prevent premature failure of tierods and balljoints.

good work!!!!

 

I didn't machine them because of the centering of the caliper on the rotor, I figrued that was close enough for me to try. I had to machine them because once the caliper was bolted to the knuckle, the outside edge of the rotor just dragged by half a butt hair on the inside casting of the caliper housing. Like the caliper slipped over the rotor 1/16th more than the stock Evo mounting points. Did that clear it up? I'll take more pictures of what I machined.

I don't plan on using the Evo rears, looks like too much to convert and I want to keep my hand brake. I might try the Corksport upgrade kit with a P-Valve to adjust bias. Ohh, good call on the heat tape in place of the dust covers too!

Thanks again for all the comments guys, appears to be a pretty good find so far.

 

I think you're understanding it wrong, the rotor was too large in diameter to fit with where the caliper is bolted, so he had it reduced in diameter, I think.

Sure not the best thing to do maybe, but easier than making custom brackets.

 

So your maintenance item (brake rotors) now require machining before replacements can be installed? Might want to find an alternative solution for clearancing the rotors...

 

The inconvenience of having to machine your rotors every time you swap them would be too big of a hassle imo, especially for a track used car. Post those pictures up.

 

Evo IX rotor diameter is 320 mm, or 12.598 inches I believe.

Maybe looking into S2000 or GS300 brake rotors might be an option in the future without machining...11.8" and 11.7" diameters respectively.

 

You are correct, the Evo rotors are 320mm. I don't think the smaller diameter rotors would work with the mounting location I'm working with. The pads would be over air.

The machining doesn't bother me personally. Every time you service brakes you should machine your rotors, the faces at least! Not to mention, how often are you replacing rotors? I know that I've never had to at the track. But now that I know its basic size requirements, I can browse the Brembo catalog for something that might not need to be machined.

More pics tonight.

 

Your run-of-the-mill brake lathe is not configured to remove material from the periphery of the rotor, just from the faces the pads engage. One might be able to coax a brake lathe into performing this modification, but the people operating these things at brake shops are not machinists - the machine is configured for common rotor turning operations, it's practically automatic.

I dunno about you, but every time I've bought new rotors it would have been an unnecessary additional expense and hassle to require machining immediately out of the box before they could be installed... and it's not even equivalent to the machining your local brake shop is likely to be interested in doing, it should be done by an experienced machinist.

I don't see this as a prohibitive cost issue, but it is a nuisance... finding rotors that bolt-on without machining would make this mod alot more popular, and less of a headache for you in the long-run.

 

+1
qft

 

Well, you could use a regualr lathe by bolting the rotor to a front hub and turning it down that way, should not be too hard. The hassle would not be worth it for a normal person without accesss to a lathe or somone that knows how to use a lathe.

My concern is that if someone doesnt drill the hole good, or drills the hole too big for the caliper bolts to line up. The heat and vibration might cause the bolt to loosen or the caliper to shift. I could see it working, but the thought sort of scared me.

Hydraulic balnce is also a concern, but that can be solved with an adj PV. Lots of people dont kow what those are , nor add those after brake upgrades.

Anyways, I think he did a good job mounting the bigger brakes off the evo.

Here is another thought. Just reuse the stock calipers, but use a bigger rotor. The only problem is a caliper mounting adapter. Dammit, all these new cars with their huge brakes makes ours look small. Or am I just intimidated because I am Chinese?

 

You mean something like this? Not only is it a larger rotor, it's wider too.

http://www.robrobinette.com/bigbrake.htm

 

nice, yeah like that. The thicker rotors will require a thinner pad though.
oops, didnt see the spacers they installed. scratch that