The Sleeper

I was looking for a brake upgrade for my 93 SE w/ 4wheel disc, no ABS, and it seems all i can find are slotted rotors or $2000 kits that include calipers and rotors. Since Mustang wheels are 5 on 114.5mm (correct me if i'm wrong), wouldn't it be easy enough to mount mustang brakes on a maxima? granted, there would be some fabrication of mounting hardware, but i've been eying my friends '94 5.0 GT because i know how well it stops even though it's got quite a few pounds on my 3rd gen. any suggestions about this idea or upgrading that will be cheaper than a skyline or brembo/wilwood package?

MaximaBalla

Just get normal brakes that you'd get any other time when replacing brakes? If your going to go out and waste $2000 just on a name brand brake company, I seriously think that you've got a lot of money lying around just getting ready to be spent? If you want, I accept all forms of money, just send it my way!!

Matt93SE

iTrader: (44)

Have you ever driven a Maxima on a track? Have you ever tried to stop from 100+ on factory brakes? If you can't answer yes to either one of these, then STFU because you have NO CLUE what you're talking about.



Now to answer the question, NO. Mustang brakes won't work. there's too much offset on the rotors, and they will hit the control arm and other suspension components when you turn.
go to www.fastbrakes.com and check out their stuff. Their kits are around $1000-1200 if I remember right and work extremely well.
Only problem is you'll need some pretty big wheels to get anything much bigger than factory under there.

MaximaBalla

Ok, first of all, did he say he'd be driving it on a track or stopping from 100+ mph? NO!!! So, WTF do you come in here all up in my business? You need to F***ing settle down and let other people tell there opinion. Your not just all of the sudden " The Only One That Knows About Brakes ". And BTW, YES I DO HAVE A CLUE AS TO WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT!!

lophix

iTrader: (3)

umm ok lord high and mighty one who knows what he's talking about.

Back to the question: I second matt on that. Or you could make your own brakes using different components that can be got locally like bigger rotors and so on. I've been in Matt's car and it CAN stop a train quickly if those brakes were slapped on it.

The Sleeper

well to answer your posts, i usually end up going from 120mph-30mph it's not a daily thing, but when the 4 lane interstate is empty as hell, why not? i used to go at high speed more often, but i had such bad brake fade one day that i've been afraid to do it since.

lophix

iTrader: (3)

same here, and what I planned to do was upgrade my wheels to 17s, skyline rotors if they arent ridiculously expensive, ss lines and axxis pads. or else I'll go with some brembo blanks and rebuilt calipers.

Matt93SE

iTrader: (44)

I'm simply correcting wrong information. YOU don't know his circumstances either, and if someone is asking for bigger brakes, they're probably doing it for a reason...
and FYI, I know what I'm talking about. One of the few around here that do. here's a hint...

lophix

iTrader: (3)

hell yeah. that's the sh!te i'm talking bout!

DA-MAX

iTrader: (10)

I'm gonna make this short and sweet........

you have officially been

AscendantMax

iTrader: (7)

yep...and now my brakes are better. asked a brake question awhile back..followed matt's and a few other's advice and now my brake are much better than OE.

CandiMan

iTrader: (1)

I also did think Matt's commment was a little over the top. Some feel that paying high dollars for mandrel bend piping is a waste of money when a nice pipe bending exhaust job can do the same think for a lot less. It's all ones opinion. Sounds like you've already looked into the basic like upgrading to ss brake lines, and good quality pads and rotors, etc. correct? Have you thought about the 300Z calipers and rotors, this is a common upgrade in the Max community and at the end will cost a lot less than the big brake kits. Each with it's own pros and cons.

MaximaBalla

I shouldn't of even posted on this damn thread!!

The Sleeper

Yeah, i've looked into metal master/axxis pads and slotted rotors, but i have a feeling that the only thing that will give me more stopping power, time after time with no fade is going to be something with a larger diamater. only reason i asked about mustang brakes is because domestic parts are alot cheaper than import. my reason for not wanting a brembo or wilwood big brake kit is the $2000 involved. that's alot of money to put into one thing on a 10 yr old car, so i was looking for a solution for less than $500 that would yield results: no fade, shorter stopping distance. anybody know if you can avoid milling 3mm off the radius of the 300zx rotor by fabricating a spacer to mount the caliper 3mm farther from the center of the hub?

Dark Lord Bunny

iTrader: (5)

Hey Matt, what are the specs on your brakes??? I'm looking into bigger and better brakes since I do a lot high speed aggressive driving. Also, how much did they cost you??? And What's the biggest size rotor I should even try to put in 17"s??? 18"s???

Matt93SE

iTrader: (44)

The spacer thing won't work on the Z brakes, as the calipers bolt directly onto the spindle. there's no room to fit the caliper AND a bracket on the spindle. Yeah, it CAN be done, but it's cheaper and easier to just mill a bit off the rotors. They'll last you several years on one set, then just pay the ~$30 again when the time comes for new rotors.

As for how big you want to go, that's all a matter of how much you've got in your wallet and how bad you want to stop. you COULD stick 15" rotors under a pair of 18s, but your brake bias would be way off. the rear brakes wouldn't do anything and you'd end up going through tires in a matter of months on the front. (I know because I've been there.)

do some searching on brakes in this forum and the general forum and you'll see a lot of rather inxepensive solutions, including mine.

Mine cost me around $550 for the fronts, and about $200 for the rears. That involved fabricating my own brackets and such, so if you bought it as a kit, you'd be out a bit more money.

Dark Lord Bunny

iTrader: (5)

Cool, will do, thanks for the help.

Maximamike

13" Mustang Cobra rotors + 300zx calipers + adapters + big wheels = good brakes.

or..

you could just listen to Matt..

The Sleeper

Matt, just wondering whre you got wilwood calipers, rotors and mounting hardware for $500. that much for a wilwood kit doesn't sound that bad. what diamater are your rotors? how do they work under repetitive 60-0 or faster stops? what kind are on the rear?

philpoe

iTrader: (4)

Fastbrakes (12.2") or Pescision Brakes (13") kit goes for $1K or so.
You may need new wheels.

Fastbrakes also used to list an OEM caliper 12.2" kit. I don't see it any more. It went for $550 or so.

Matt93SE

iTrader: (44)

I had a hookup on the rotors, but you can buy them at nissanparts.cc for a little more than I paid. They're OEM skyline R33 rotors. Around $110 each.
sice is 11.8 x 1.25" the walls are too thick though. I recommend getting a 2-piece version made by someone else with thinner sidewalls. these are just too thick and heavy to use for long term. I have severe stress cracks in them because the pads heat up the surface of the rotors very quickly and the heat doesn't dissipate into the entire thickness of the rotor. just stays on top. thinner-walled rotors would do much better.

wilwood Dynalite calipers. 1.25" variety. also about $110 each. you can get them at most race shops that sell parts for any type of road/dirt racing. (note I said rAce shops, not rIce shops. big difference. when you see shiny exhaust stuck to the walls, that's a rIce shop. when you see Holley carbs and Edelbrock manifolds stuck to the wall, that's a rAce shop)

Caliper brackets were made in-house out of a plate of 1/2" thick 6061 aluminum.

pads were $45-60/set. I go through them fairly frequently- about 1.5 sets per year. get the wilwood Q series pad. use C or D compound for track days or hard driving. the Q series is a ceramic pad, basically Raybestos Quiet Stop pads. They're what I use for street driving and will stand up to some pretty harsh driving, but they will only stand a couple of 100-20 stops before fading.

Rear brakes are Z31 rotors and OE everything else. they're about 1" bigger than stock.

Dark Lord Bunny

iTrader: (5)

Would getting Skyline calipers fix the heat dissipation issue???

Matt93SE

iTrader: (44)

possibly, but they're $350 each.

going to a larger caliper in general may solve the problem, but then you run into more wheel clearance problems. the calipers i'm using are only about 1.5" thick (past the front surface of the rotor), and the next size up caliper is 1/2" wider than that. just not enough room under most wheels to fit brakes that large with the rotor offset we need to clear the control arms- unless you run spacers.

Jeff92se

iTrader: (82)

Skyline calipers will certianly help in the clamping force dept. But it's still the rotors that take the brunt of the heat. Thus to help in the head dissipation dept, I would think you would need better/bigger/thicker rotors.

But the calipers might help slightly because of the more even force applied by multiple pistons and maybe bigger pads might help w/ the thermal load also.

Dark Lord Bunny

iTrader: (5)

Hmmm... slightly thinner rotors it is then I guess...

Matt93SE

iTrader: (44)

the problem is that the rotors are TOO thick.
thick rotors + small pad area = small areas of high heat = cracked rotors due to uneven heat dispersion through the wall of the rotor.
that's why i'm going with some thinner walled rotors next time. they'll be lighter and should last longer.

Jeff92se

iTrader: (82)

I don't see that. How can a small pad really concentrate heat in a really small area when the rotor is constantly turning when you brake?

Matt93SE

iTrader: (44)

more pressure on the smaller area = more heat transferred to that area per time.. the whole rotor still absorbs the same amount of heat, but it's doing it through pads that are quite a bit smaller than the other aftermarket calipers.. thus the heat per unit area per time is much higher.

the pads also run a lot hotter, and they hold the heat on smaller sections of rotor, further pushing the cause along.


funny thing is that if I use organic pads (like the D compound), they have much higher friction levels.. the rotors run much hotter, but the braking is better, fade is less, and the heat cracks go away. it's weird. problem is those pads only last about 3 weeks per set.

The Sleeper

thanks for your help, guys. matt, a question for you: the bracket for the wilwood calipers, was it hard to make, and how much more stopping power do you estimate the wilwood calipers give over stock?

Matt93SE

iTrader: (44)

Brackets took me a couple of hours to make the first set. after that, I could make them in "not too long" but I'm not interested in making a kit. it's simple enough that anybody with a jigsaw and drill can make them.

stopping power?
well, let's just say this.. Add 1" to the rotor diameter (1/2" to the radius)
then increase the hydraulic piston area (which equates to clamping force) from a single 2" piston to FOUR 1.75" pistons.
that's roughly 6 times the braking torque on the front rotors.

Thus the reason I had to beef up the rear brakes too.

The Sleeper

what kind of material did you use to make the bracket?

Z

philpoe

iTrader: (4)

Matt,
If going to 11.75, 4piston = 6x, what on earth are 12.2" and 13" rotors doing?!
At what point do you need to get the rears up to snuff, and do you just need to keep within 80%F 20%R, or is there some other metric?

wrt to pad wear, I see that on Wilwood's site that NDL pads offer about 30% more material. If you were to do it again, would you use the different calipers?

btw, would your setup fit under 15" wheels, like maybe 4th gen sawblades? for that matter, what about 97-99 or 00-01 16" 5 spokes as well?

«§»Craig B«§»

iTrader: (5)

no, no, no

philpoe

iTrader: (4)

300ZX?

The Sleeper

yep, my mistake. i missed that when i was reading.

thanks for the information, matt!

Matt93SE

iTrader: (44)

Overkill.. all overkill on a Maxima.
given the correct calipers, pads and some GOOD rotors, even the factory sized rotors are large enough to bring our boats to a halt time and time again.

going to rotors any larger than what we've got now will REALLY screw with the brake bias. part of the problem is the friction materials available for aftermarket brakes are far superior to anything we can get in OE caliper fittments. sooooo, when I run my wilwood track pads (D compound) on my calipers, I used to have about 95/5 brake bias.
when I run ceramics on my front brakes, (wilwood Q compound), I used to have about 90/10 bias.

sooo, I beefed up the rear end by adding about 1" to the rotors in the back and left everything else the same. made a HUGE difference in braking ability. when I slam on the brakes now, it doesn't feel like the car is standing on it's head, and I've fixed the wear problem on the front with pads only lasting a few weeks (let alone tires). I've gone through FOUR pairs of tires on the front axles in the last 1.5 years, with only one pair of tires on the rear axle!). screw rotating tires. I chew through them too fast for that!