blunierdr

I decided my brakes needed a face lift after the front rotors started to crack very badly after around 7,000 miles including some "spirited" driving and a little autocross.



This picture shows the extent of the cracks. Needless to say, I did not want this to happen again, so I started looking into some of my options. After some research I found that the C5 setup was about as big as you can get inside a 17" wheel, but I also found that the TTII's would hit the caliper without a small spacer. Fortunately for me, I am running 17x8's up front so I had plenty of fender width to cover me. I ordered the hubs and brackets from bigbrakeupgrade.com, bought brand new Z06 calipers from the GM dealership where I work (employee discount saved my butt on these), got Russels stainless lines front and back from Hawks, and black zinc coated drilled and slotted rotors from Brake Performance. Here are some comparison pics.











I used a 5/16" spacer so that my calipers would clear the spokes of my wheels and here is how much room I have. Honestly a 1/4" spacer would be plenty, I have some room to spare with the 5/16". But I don't mind the extra track width up front so I'll leave them





And that's that! Post any questions or comments!

bm87ta

iTrader: (5)

looks good, more pics of your car are needed!

85FBTranam

iTrader: (3)

Looks great! Good job.

87350IROC

iTrader: (2)

I am wondering why you went with drilled rotors again, after having problems with them on your last setup?

blunierdr

The biggest problem with the cracked rotors was their size. The corvette rotors are not only lager in diameter, but they have a significantly wider cross section as well. Another downside of the old rotors was that they were a cheap summit rotor which probably didn't help matters. I will be very surprised if I have overheating or cracking issues with this setup.

87350IROC

iTrader: (2)

Plenty of Corvette guys have problems too and our cars are heavier. If the car is only being driven to church on a Sunday I'm sure you won't have any issues.

blunierdr

That is a good point actually, I guess I just figured that the increased size of the brakes would decrease the chances of failure dramatically. I will admit that the aesthetics of the drilled/slotted rotors did weigh into my decision as well, I mean let's be honest, who doesn't want their big brake kits to look pretty.

I guess that if I do decide to take my car to a few track days or start to autocross a lot more than I currently do that these rotors may crack as well, in which case I would not be replacing them with drilled rotors again. At any rate I am pleased with the brakes as a whole, they offer much better pedal feel and a noticeable increase in stopping power.

novaderrik

i keep meaning to spray my LS1 calipers with some semi gloss black to make them visually disappear behind my black GTA wheels...

Jetmeck

iTrader: (3)

Looks great.......drilled rotors eventually crack if your working them hard. Look nice though...............

RaverRacerX

dont use drilled rotors.. slotted rotors will crack but not nearly as soon.

89mulletbird

iTrader: (4)

I've heard that drilled rotors aren't even functional these days. In the old days, racing brake pads would outgas and the holes allowed the gas to escape. I think they are cosmetic only now days...

paul_huryk

That depends on the pads one may use. Many race pad compounds have been around for many years and work, so something more modern may not show up on the typical raced GM previous generation cars. I'm using OEM pads on my Baer system and they out gas quite a bit...

dakota9576ia

iTrader: (1)

They look great ! I would love to know the wheel and tire sizes you have on front and rear as I really like the stance and rear dish look. Whats the backspacing and such if you are willing to share?


Thanks
Brian

blunierdr

Thanks Brian, I am running 17x8's up front (245/45-17) with 4.75" backspacing, and 17x9.5's in the back (285/40-17) with 5" backspacing. I am very happy with the way everything turned out!

Lmancha96

Looks great!

Did you only do the front?

blunierdr

I didn't upgrade the rear brakes, I just put new pads and rotors on while I did the c5 swap

Lmancha96

So if I wanted to do front and back would I just get two sets of the hubs and brackets from bigbrakeupgrade.com or are those front specific? Sorry for hi jacking your thread with questions. Kind of confused though.

Thanks

blunierdr

The rear brakes are a completely different setup, they do not use hubs since our cars have a live rear axle. Flynbye has brackets and conversion kits that allow you to use C5 rear calipers and rotors if you are wanting to upgrade the rear brakes, keep in mind that the front and rear calipers are completely different.

chevyredneck8

iTrader: (4)

The caliber does look cool if I get a remain set from advance or AutoZone should they still be painted like the factory vette?

How much clearance do u have toward the rim I was reading were someone posted they thought you could fit 16 " rims if u trimmed done the cooling fins but I have yet to find a picture of this?

chevyredneck8

iTrader: (4)

Just Found were Jeffrey Fontaine verified in would


https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/brak...fitment-2.html


"Just an FYI they WILL FIT, but REQUIRE MODIFICATION to the caliper that some may be unwilling to do. I am wrapping up my install under 92 Z/28 rims using all C5 parts. The caliper strengthening/cooling fins on the top need to be ground flat w/ the rest of the caliper body to give the required 0.100 min clearance (per Baer's 13" "Track" kit). Another member, SoCal, has also done this swap."

Reid Fleming

iTrader: (2)

There's a lot of back and forth debate over cross drilled rotors these days. I'll admit, in the past, the cross drilled look had an air of high performance. It was something that only came on exotic cars. But today? I see them all the time on regular cars. Preludes, Civics, base Camaros, all sorts of luxury type cars (Mercedes) etc. As such, they don't seem all that catchy to the eye like they used to be. At least not for me.

In terms of looks vs form, I tend to shy more towards form. But looks are a worthy option for many. Let's take the extreme example of the rear wing on the 1980's Lamborghini Countaches.




The rear wing had zero function. The cars without the wing never suffered from the rear end lifting at high speeds. In fact the front of the car was more likely to lift at speeds. The rear wing was expensive at $7500 (an 85 IROC-Z had a base price of $11K back then for comparison). And the rear wing lowered top speed by 10-12 mph. Having said that, the majority of the cars came out of the showroom with the wing. And I'd have ordered one with the wing back then too.

Getting back to cross drilled. I agree that the larger C5 front brakes should have much less chance of cracking a cross drilled rotor than the stock 10.5" size. But the chance of cracking them is still there. I myself went for cross drilled on the rear only and solid rotor up front. (I have stock rotor sizes) I see little chance of cracking the rear rotors even being cross drilled.

One thing we can all agree upon though is that your GTA is one authoritative, mean looking car.

BlackJet

I got in on this late looking at brakes and such.
Dude, Thats a hell of a good looking car.
What hood is that? and I Like the tire and wheel set up.
That one looks spot on, good job!

blunierdr

Thank you for the example! I understand why others would opt for plain rotors versus the cross drilled ones like I have. There is no doubt that the cross drilled rotors are much more likely to crack, but I just really liked the way the red corvette calipers stand out, and the drilled/slotted rotors help the brakes look like they mean business. I am fully aware that red calipers and slots and holes do not make my brake system function any better than someone using plain rotors and simple gray calipers instead. It is just a personal preference, and I think it fits my car well. Other cars would look much more modest without the extra "bling" if you will, and still get the benefits of the bigger brakes. To each his own

Thank you for the kind words BlackJet, the hood is a 3" cowl from Harwood. I think it goes great with the aero wing cars like mine, the angles just seem to work very nicely together.

Here are a couple more pictures of my GTA, I have been meaning to post some more but I haven't been on the site in a while. Enjoy!

BlackJet

Sure thing, Nice matched lines, hood works well with the car, and the stance is right.
Love the wheel and tire size combination, and the brake addition is a big plus.
I'm going to borrow your ideas and apply them to mine.
If you compiled a parts list please share. I think I got most of it from the thread here, but if theres anything else, I'm interested.
Nicely Done!

FSTFBDY

iTrader: (33)

great looking car. Makes me miss my 85 TA Wish I had that car back now.

hectre13

iTrader: (4)

your car has the exact stance and wheels I plan on putting on mine! deff going to be repeating this brake upgrade.

ziggy89

whats the size/backspacing on those wheels.

any way you can post a pic from the top of the fender looking down. kinda want to see if the tires stick out.

Alice89

iTrader: (6)

I know this is an older thread. But I just wanted to say your car is really good looking. Your trans am is in my top 10 as far as best looking 3rd gen transams go.

aaron7

iTrader: (7)

Those brakes look awesome! What's needed to bolt them up? Parts bin stuff or did you have to fab brackets?

blunierdr

The size and backspacing of the wheels I listed in post #14 I think, let me look around a little and see if I can find good pictures of the fitment of the rear wheels and I'll post up any decent ones that I find. They are "flush" with the outside of the fender. In a perfect world I probably should have tucked them in a 1/4" or so. A 5.25" or 5.5" backspacing would probably look a little more modest on the rear but American Racing didn't have that exact backspacing for those wheels when I ordered them. Regardless I like the way they look since my car has been lowered quite a bit, just trying to be honest.

Wow I am very flattered! I have owned my car for close to 4 years now and I have always looked at the cars that members have on here and hoped to someday be able to show up at some of the shows and not be completely embarrassed. She is still my work in progress but I'm happy with the way she looks at this point.

The main fab work would be modifying your stock front spindles which went pretty smoothly for me. Other than that it just takes off the shelf parts that you can find pretty easily. Some people choose to "make" their own hubs by basically machining the rotor off of their stock hub and then putting longer studs in. bigbrakeupgrade.com sells premade hubs that are very nice so that's what I went with. Their site is pretty cool you should check it out if you haven't already!

ziggy89

i know you went 8" wide with a 245 tire up front what shize wheel and tire did you run in the back? do you have pics of the fit too?

InfernalVortex

iTrader: (4)

The holes in the rotors are what caused the cracks. If small rotors were more crack prone we'd all have cracked stock front rotors but that doesnt happen very often.

Most top level racing classes used slotted rotors. I very, very rarely see them ever using drilled rotors. Drilled rotors are very outdated.



Drilled rotors look good, and I think for some people that's worth it, but I think it's a bit disingenuous to say that drilled isnt a big deal, it's a size problem. It's definitely a drilled rotor problem. Increasing the size may help though.

Your car looks amazing. You've done a great job on it.

blunierdr

I have 17x9.5's in the back with a 285/40-17. I have fitment pictures I can post tomorrow if you are interested. In my personal opinion I am on the verge of having my wheels stick out too far but with my car being lowered it doesn't look as bad as it could I guess.

blunierdr

Vortex, you bring up some good points. It has been a while since I've done this swap now and at this point I can look back at some of my posts and realize how some of my statements are a bit off. Hopefully I didn't come across too arrogant.

On a different note I have put this brake setup through a couple hard uses between track days and some autocross use and have been very pleased with them. Brakes can sometimes be an afterthought for people but they really are one of the best upgrades I've done to my car yet!

Ron U.S.M.C.

Its all about living and learning.
I've done things to my car without enough investigation.

Just what I thought looked good and was right at the time.
Hindsight is 2020........

Absolutely beautiful car.

blunierdr

Since a few people asked about the fitment on the rear I'll post a few more pictures of my car here. If there are any further questions though, I should probably just create another post in the wheels/tires section.







As for the fit, they are definitely as wide as I possibly could feel comfortable with (offset wise, not cross section width). Any further out and they would look like the cars that run 4th gen axles with stock wheels. Not my cup of tea. Another point I will make is that it would look much worse if my car wasn't as low as it is. Cutting down on the fender gap made the offset look more at home.

Manic Z

iTrader: (1)

Looks fantastic! Do you know the backspace of the rears?

RamIt

Post 14