sheve@swbell.net

Has anyone installed these brakes? Any photos, installation comments, or
overall impressions would be helpful.

Thanks,

Rick

Travis R

Which caliper? Which piston bore? Onto which car? I plan to use the Billet Dynalite 4-pot caliper on my FC. It should be a good match for the stock rear caliper, but I'm ditching everything else (master cyl, booster, pedal assembly, & proportioning valve). It would probably work with the stock setup but I don't know how much it would jack with the stock brake bias.
Stock the 4pot calipers have a piston diameter of 1.42". The Wilwoods mentioned above have a bore of 1.38". That change alone would move the brake bias to the front. So depending on what the bias was stock, you might lock the fronts up sooner, effectively increasing your braking distance.
Good luck

Sparkey

I saw that willwood has a six piston caliper for the fd that bolts right up to the stock brake system so thats what im getting just gotta get better rotors first and it is only 1500 i believe good deal for six piston rotors that dont need any tuning.

maxcooper

That was a brake kit that includes brackets to mount the calipers to the car, calipers, custom hats, rotors, custom lines, brake pads, and hardware. Nothing but the brakes from Mazda just bolt-up as-is, but many kits are available to bolt standard calipers to the car via custom brackets.

-Max

Travis R

There is no way I would pay $1500 for the parts mentioned unless you could prove to me that the stock system was total crap.
I can think of a lot better things to do with $1500 than replace just the front brakes.
Sorry, that's my opinion.

DamonB

The stock system is not total crap. If the car lives it's life on the track and has wide tires the stock front brakes can certainly be improved. I agree with you though, I don't see how adding 6 puck calipers to stock rotors is a real performance increase.

maxcooper

Yeah, the stock brakes are good brakes and adequate for most usages, but they go away with sticky tires on a high power car on the track. For the street and even basic track work (with track pads), the stock brakes are fine.

When you need big brakes, you won't need any additional convincing -- brake fade or merely lousy pedal feel into a corner at the end of a long straight is pretty convincing on its own.

Brakes are freaking expensive. With the notable exception of the nice, big brakes from Mazda on the RS/RZ models (models not available in the U.S.), $1500 is about the least you should expect to pay for a big front kit. $2500 or even more is not uncommon.

The car is well balanced from the factory -- if you up the power significantly, you need to up the brakes significantly to keep things in balance.

-Max