I recently swapped Q45 calipers and rotors (milled 3mm) on to the front of the Maxima and made a couple observations that I had not read anywhere else on the forum.

-Although the rotor will have around 8mm of clearance from the inside surface of the rotor to the control arm, this distance will be reduced to 0 at full lock and the rotor will rest on the lip of the control arm.

-The lip of the arm needs to be ground or pounded in about 5mm on each side to clear the rotor at full lock.

*As a sidenote I am on OEM Nissan arms and nowhere near slammed.

-The pads I got (the Axxis MM equiv.) needed to have a tab ground off the low side to clear the hub area of the rotor.

-While you can bend/pound the splash shields out of the way, just remove them, the clearence is in the sheet of paper range with them on in the inner portion of the rotor.

As far as driving impressions, I got exactly what I was hoping for: Excellent high speed stopping power and higher resistance to heat. The pedal feel is different from my I30 in that the travel is longer and there is more precise modulation. I happened to get these calipers at a low-low price while getting a part for the I30 at the yard so I rebuilt these and tossed the whole setup on the car as a small project. As is the car has more brakes than grip (at sub 65 speeds) so this should keep me happy until I do bump up to the dogbones and Cobra rotors.

Just wanted to note a couple things to help anyone in the future with this setup since all the reading I did greatly helped me in my swap.

 

one of the houston guys is doing this swap as well with j30 calipers and q45 rotors. i will direct him to this thread for a head's up and possible slight differences with j30 calipers.

 

What I have heard but not evaluated side by side is that the Q45 caliper has a tad more material than the Q45 and I had noticed that the same pads by the same brand did not share the same part number.

 

i'm the one doing the upgrade that BLACKonBLACK98 mentioned. there doesn't seem to be any contact anywhere except on the dust guard, which i have already remedied; ie: BFH (not really, a small hammer will do it but i've been wanting to use that acronym for a while )

 

Is this with the Q brackets, or the maxima? I'm working on getting everything together for the Q caliper/Cobra rotor, but my drivers side bracket I got from the junk yard has an enlarged hole due to the caliper bolt being sheared off ()

I've been trying to find a new bracket (see sig) or getting a clear answer on weather the Q calipers work with the maxima brackets (thought I read this somewhere, maybe I was dreaming?)

 

I don't think the Maxima torque member will hold the Q45 pads and/or is too narrow to fit the wider Q45 rotor. I put this together:

 

i can't promise anything about the Q calipers, but the only issues i saw with the J30 calipers on the maxima torque arms was there was some minor contact with the pad shims. the set-up would need to be maxima rotors and torque arms and Q45/J30 calipers

and for those that use the complete Q45/J30 set-up, i highly suggest getting 4 or 5 millimeters machined off the diameter. from what i can tell, you can safely take off as much as 6 but that's cutting it VERY close.

 

it's possible to use the Q rotors with the maxima torque arms but it's a VERY tight squeeze. you'd be touching with any vibrations or the slightest warp in the rotor.

and fwiw the torque arms determine which pads you use, not the calipers.

 

The Q45 caliper over the Maxima rotor is not a great idea because the piston would have to travel further just to make contact with the rotor and when the pads are worn down it would possibly become over-extended, and like you said you would be using Maxima pads with less area on a smaller rotor.

Yeah, I did 3mm and it is about as close as you can get.

I thought that's what I was saying, I know where the pads go mane.

 

wait. are you using your maxima torque arms?

 

haha, me too. that's why i said at least 4 would be a better idea.

yeah, i reread your post, my bad.

haha, noooo. like i said, they BARELY fit.