I would love to do some LS1 swap kit or C5 vette swap, but the fact is i have 15 inch wheels, my 89 goes like no other but as you all know it will not slow down fast enough, what would be the cheapest upgrade to get my beast to shut down???

 

About 10 posts below yours....

A simple visual "Search", like look at the page, without even using the "search" button, is all you need sometimes, to help avoid posting annoying redundant questions.

 

Well, i said CHEAP and olmost everything in that thread was trying to get some crap to fit a 8.5 rear, and still does not help me to find anything for mine, unless there is better clearance with the LT1s, i have not looked into this much and need any help i can get, that thread helped meNONE, thanks.

 

The operative concept is 15" wheels.

The part about what model of rear is irrelevant. All of the same thought process applies to any model of rear, or to any kind of front. It's about numbers and sizes.

If you can't get some relevant information out of that thread, then you haven't bothered to even think about what you're asking for, yet.

Read my list of the dimensions you're working with. It shouldn't be too hard to figure out that on the inside of a xx" wheel, you have xx" minus a little, of clearance; you want to put a bigger rotor in there; you have xx", minus that thickness and taper, minus yy" rotor diameter, to fit a caliper. Shouldn't be too hard to figure out that you aren't getting anything with any bigger than about a 11" rotor in those dinky old wheels; and even that, if it's got aluminum calipers, you're going to be hacking on the rotors with a grinder to get them to fit.

But the fact is, you want bigger brakes, you gotta have more room to fit them. Old stock wheels from the 20th century don't cut it if you want modern brakes in there.

 

we got the c5's from big brake upgrade and ground the fins off and they fit stock 16's just fine if you willing to upgrade wheels. but contact ebmiller on here first.

http://www.metzcon.com/bigbrake/index.htm

http://www.engineeredvelocity.com/

 

Well, i am rocking 15 inch Convo Pros, i want to keep theese, i was wondering how much larger the 1LE brakes were if they even were at all. Can you fit the LT1 brakes on one with some grinding for a 15???

 

No. Neither the 1LE nor the LT1 brakes will fit.

The rotors are too big.

The rotors themselves are almost 12". They barely fit inside 15" wheels; and there's not enough room left to squeeze a caliper in. Calipers have thickness too.

Can you add? Can you even look at pictures; maybe look at SoCal's pics there, and observe how your existing brakes (the ones on the right) fit your current wheels; and use a little imagination to figure out how far you can go toward the pic on the left? which is, not very far.....

You got 2 choices: either own up to the fact that you made a mistake when you bought those dinky wheels in that obsolete size, and lose the poorly selected wheels (easy enough and cheap enough to do, since there always seems to be a "greater fool" out there willing to snap up aftermarket wheels that supposedly "look good" regardless of whether they fit or not); or learn to live with the stock brakes.

 

Alright, drag racing is the name of the game, street racing and quite a bit of it, these wheels work great for that purpose, in the required since for my application they are mot "dinky" or "obsolete". So, is there anything i can do to improve the stock setup??? Is there a 2 piston caliper that will bolt on? Are there a good rotor that is slotted or cross drilled or maybe both that doesn't "crack" as everyone said so many of them do??? Thanks for the help.

 

yes, 15" covo pro runner up front fit my buddys ls 4th gen thats 15x4 max with the right back spacing, i wouldn't suggest the 1le to expensive and hard to come by. ls with some grinding and the above mentioned rims or better stock replacements rotors/pads.
what size are your front rims 15x?

 

I believe mine are 15x6 or 7.

 

i sure thats to wide to upgrade brake size but if drag racing is the game sell them and buy some 15x3.5/4. I live in the houston area if you would like to try your's on our setup maybe we can work something out. Ever think of running spacers in the front like 1"-2" and push the out to there stock position

http://stores.ebay.com/EZ-Accessory_...QQftidZ2QQtZkm

http://stores.ebay.com/O-E-Wheels_W0...QQftidZ2QQtZkm
this is where i bought my spacer's

 

Well, i would love to do a runner, but i need to have the extra tire width to shut down and not lock up on the street, shtuuf happens and i know i neew the added stopping power, can i upgrader to a 2 postin caliper with slotted rotors?

 

You're such a scholar and a gentleman. Go kick your dog or something cause you are always ragging someone here.

 

Wow, i didnt wanna say it.

 

15" wheels obsolete? For drag racing they're the norm as far as i've seen.

16" wheels don't have any decently wide tire selection.
17"-18" just have rubber band tires with no sidewall, nothing good for drag racing. Above that size is all the bling bling wheels. Some wide tires, but only in the 40 series and below aspect ratio - great for cornering, but not great for drag racing.

 

We started out with everybody's favorite word in the whole hot-rodding world:which is a REAL BAD way to start off a brake post to begin with. Aftermarket brakes are ANYTHING BUTStock (relatively inexpensive) brake packages are based around rotor diameter. That is, you want Lxx brakes, they have rotors of some particular size. Modern stock vehicles long since abandoned those dinky 15" wheels that are still commonplace for drag racing, in large part SPECIFICALLY IN ORDER TO accomodate larger brakes. Even the rear discs that were stock in 89, won't fit in 15" wheels. So it's been near 20 years now since ANY of the "high-perf" brake systems for these cars or their successors would fit under such small wheels. In most people's opinion, something that's been a discontinued practice for 20 years, would easily qualify as "obsolete".

The inside of the wheel is a cylinder, of diameter equal to the "nominal" wheel size, minus some material and features. Take your wheel diameter, subtract the thickness of the material, subtract the dimensions of the "features" (if any), that's the space you have available to work within.

That space has to accomodate the rotor diameter, plus TWICE the caliper thickness (since the caliper sits outside the rotor....). Calipers are about ¾" thick MINIMUM where they go over the rotor, counting the clearance between the outside of the rotor and the inside of the wheel. That means the largest possible rotors are about 1½" smaller than the inner diameter of the wheel, after the wheel's thickness and "features" are accounted for. Call that number xx.

If you have 15" wheels, you have xx inches to fit your rotors. PERIOD.

If you want 15" wheels, you have to have rotors that are no bigger than xx inches. PERIOD.

If you want rotors larger than xx inches, you gotta have bigger wheels. PERIOD.

Cars for drag racing EXCLUSIVELY (not "street race", which is .... not legal to say the least, and I won't get involved with helping equip somebody to break the law in a way taht can get totally uninvolved bystanders KILLED) use brakes that are PURPOSE BUILT for drag racing. It's real easy to calculate how much energy a car of some known weight has when going at some known speed; and you only have to slow it down ONCE. That's VERY VERY VERY different from the design parameters on any stock brakes. Purpose-built drag racing brakes are not cheep, and are not available in the junkyard.

Cars that run on the street need brakes that will work MORE THAN ONCE per complete temperature cycle. Put drag racing brakes on a street car, and you get BAD fade. BAD BAD BAD. Dangerous, kill the people in the cars and on the sidewalks around you, fade. Don't do it.

It's possible to use spacers, and move the wheels entirely outboard of the volume that the brakes need; either with a different offset wheel, or spacers, or whatever. Needless to say, the wheels will no longer be located with the center of their tread contact patch in the correct location for street use, and will further add to the danger TO THE WORLD AT LARGE (including people who didn't sign a waiver in order to be in the lane next to you, on the street) of operating such a vehicle on the street.

It's all numbers.

I fail to see how pointing this out to people who ask this same question without thinking beforehand about the constraints, is "ragging on".

 

totally have to agree with sofa, drag racing brakes are no good for any car that will see street use, and you will not find a CHEAP 2 piston upgrade, unless CHEAP is around 600$. I think you should really contact ebmiller and see what his input is. If, like shown above, the c5's with milled calipers will fit in a 16" wheel, i would think that there may be a possibility that ls1's with milled calipers may fit in a 15" wheel.

I dont think sofa is "ragging" on anyone here, from all that ive seen of his posts elsewhere on this board, he knows what he is talking about, though he is sometimes a bit blunt.

 

i dont think 15" wheels are dinky. sofa has little respect from me for having such a poor choice of words on that matter. as a solution, run a setup like some of the faster drag cars do, say... 17" in the front, and the 15 rear. sure it looks funny, but its even more "hardcore drag race" look than 15 fronts and 15 rears. take a look at some real funny cars and pro mods and stuff of the sort, they do have the big front wheels and 15" rears.... ive contemplated doing it many times now. and im probably gonna break down and actually do it.

 

Alright, now knowing that the diameter of the rotor is limited to x" due to 15" brakes, is there any other way to increase the braking performance short of increasing rotor diameter? That's probably the (perhaps naive) hope of the original poster (as well as myself).

Instead of increasing rotor diameter, can we get more stopping force another way? Dual piston, better pads....Anything? Not sure what makes up a purpose built drag racing brake system, but since that is to be avoided, is there any other way?
I guess if a GOOD (custom?) 15"-fitting brake system is more expensive than a cheap 16" brake system, might as well spring for new wheels... (but new wheels and tires are quite expensive so..)

 

The standard Corvette C4 brakes fit the stock Camaro 15" wheels. These are 12" x .9" rotors and 2 piston PBR calipers. The dimensions for the brackets are posted here on TGO. I think the thread got moved to the FAQ board. Get the front calipers and buckets, then REAR rotors (the offset is different).

RBob.

 

Awsome Rob, that is the answer i was looking for, the least i will try to do is upgrade the rotor with a better pad, so thanks for giving me the answer i was looking for.

 

If you have any questions on the C4 or any of the other upgrades let me know, glad to help.

Ed

 

Hey Ed, I also posted in a thread started by Stephen87_Iroc.
I'm considering upgrading brakes on my '82 car, it has 4 wheel discs now, all stock brakes.
15x8 snowflake 2nd gen wheels.
Looks like the C4 (non HD) is the way to go for me.

I'm wondering what parts i'll need, and what I can buy locally (border duty fees kill me), and what I could either tweak or customize, or what i'd need to purchase custom made / machined (from you?)

Thanks

 

i have a friend with the same setup, ill see what he has to say, he may be running 15's, its an autocross car

he said it's a 1le/b4c car and has the 1le brakes or at least its a 2 piston caliper and uses a c4 vett pad but he has the stock 16x8's on it