Hello all,
I haven't been in here before, even lurking, I mostly stick to engine related, since that has been most of my career.
I am not willing to tolerate stock brakes any longer, and I'm not willing to spend more than $500 to upgrade.
I'm sure the 1LE front rotors and LS1 F-car rear rotors aren't news. but I have unlimited access to a CNC mill and a manual old Bridgeport mill, and I intend to sell 1-piece steel brackets.
anyway, I'm gonna keep the stock calipers, just relocate them out 3/4" or so.
I'm nearly done with the prototypes, which will be my pattern for the first set of production pieces. If those fit and work as intended, then I'll make many more sets.
But for now, here are my first pics from last month.

 

Where are the pics??? Would like to see....

 

I forgot that I hadn't yet uploaded them from my PC to photobucket.

 

 

 

I'll post more pics soon.

 

I'm not entirely sure what your plans are, but perhaps the following link and its pictures would be helpful:

http://www.ws6transam.org/1LEbrake.html

JamesC

 

Thanks for the link.
However, not helpful.
I'm doing this for stock calipers, and I forgot to note that my car is an '84 Trans Am, with factory 4-wheel discs. However, as soon as this is done, I'll be using these rotors to make a kit for my 2WD '86 S-10, which has rear drum brakes.
Stock 2WD S-10 brakes totally, and completely, perfectly interchange with regular third gen F-car brakes, just the spindles are different, because the S-10 uses upper arms rather than struts. Same spindles and brakes as Monte Carlo, Regal, Grand Prix, and Cutlass Supreme, so I'll do kits for those as well.
Most people already have a functional pair of front calipers, and I feel that the rotors make the best difference.
I was towing my Mustang with my other S-10, when my rear brakes failed, including the e-brake. Why? The cheap Chinese brake shoes couldn't take the heat, they glazed over. This happened while descending out of Flaming Gorge towards Vernal. The high-mile 700R-4 offered NO engine braking. I kid you not. I was deeply scared, but those stock front 10.5" rotors and single piston calipers took FAR FAR more than I could've imagined. When I finally made a pull-out, the rotors were glowing. In full daylight. I had boiled my brake fluid, too. But bigger rotors would have made a helpful improvement. The rear wheels weren't even hot to the touch. Nor were the drums.
Lastly for now, my $500 includes 4 new rotors, and my caliper relocation brackets, nothing else. When done, I intend to subtract my cost on the rotors, then sell the kits at whatever the difference is.

 

Sounds to me like you were towing a weight over the towing rating for your truck, and maybe should verify that the trailer brakes are functioning. Would prob be cheaper and easier to maintain trailer brakes than to do a big brake upgrade.

Big brakes on third gens are always cool though, and I'm looking forward to seeing how your idea turns out.

 

Just how heavy do you think a U-Haul tow dolly is? And how about an '89 Mustang LX with NO engine, trans, interior, radiator, fuel, or driveshaft?
I can assure you, a 3500 pound truck can handle 2500 pounds behind it.
And those dollies don't have brakes.
I don't own any trailers, and the truck was fully checked out before the trip, that's how it got the Chinese shoes in the first place. The shoes did work at the beginning of the trip. I did a half-dozen e-brake-only stops (no trailer) to bed the new shoes. It's a method I've had success with, before and since.
Anyway, I just wanted to illustrate the reason I believe big rotors are the place to start, aside from looking better behind 18" wheels: bigger rotors can shed more heat, and shedding heat IS THE biggest problem that stock brakes have, as evidenced by my one bad experience.

 

What stock calipers are you going to use? Any plans to use the later style PBR rears? THey have 2 pistons I believe and should offer stronger clamping force than the others. I think they are the same as the LT1 style 4th gens.

 

The 89-97 PBRs are nearly identical; however, the calipers are single piston.

JamesC

 

Admittedly, I am going into this brake project without reading all I can, but there's some old truism about people being able to do new things when they haven't been told they can't do them.
That might seem to contradict everything I type related to engines, but when I say they can't do something, I make sure I know why, in case anyone asks.
Anyway, it seemed to me that my '84 Trans Am was built with 10.5" rotors on all 4 corners. I've read a lot of conflicting stuff about the rear calipers, but mine work fine.
I figured if I simply upsize all 4 rotors to 12", and keep my calipers, then I won't need to adjust the proportioning.

 

I found this link very useful:

http://www.lukeskaff.com/car/brakes/spindlemod.html

 

Looks pretty interesting

 

My apologies, I didn't know it was just a dolly. I thought those thing did have electric brakes... learned something new. I'm not arguing the benifits big brakes have, I was just commenting on the effectiveness of trailer brakes. I am interested in your setup here, will your brake setup fit behind stock rims?

 

No need to apologize. Instead, let it be a reminder that asking a question always beats making an assumption, and I'll do the same.
I do expect my efforts to fit inside stock 15" wheels, I can do a test fit tomorrow, but I already know stock 16" wheels will fit.

 

You need to make something for those of us with 17's and 18's

 

I'm hoping to get a set of 18x9.5" Coventry Hornet wheels, with +20mm offset.

 

I must apologize, I didn't get the test fit done, but I will get up early tomorrow and do it then.

 

Sounds interesting. I am looking to do some brake upgrades on my '86 ASAP.

 

I tried a 15, and it does clear the caliper. I didn't have any stock aluminum 15x7 wheels on hand, but my '86 S-10 parts chaser does wear stock GM stamped steel 15x7 wheels, so that's what I tried.

 

Hurray I wonder what an upgrade like that would cost...

 

That's awesome... so few big brake upgrades that still fit in the stock 15" rims. looking forward to seeing how these turn out.

 

My prototypes are mostly finalized, but it'll be September 4 before I can pick up my batch of steel for the production kits. So no pics of those until then. Next week I'll post pics of how I progressed on the rear brakes, just to keep this thread going.

 

Awesome, sounds good. I wish I had disc rear brakes...

 

All it takes is changing the proportioning valve, then using the S-10 kit for your rear axle, and the third-gen kit up front.

 

really? I can use them on my stock drum rear? Is there a write up somewhere? I'm kinda dense when it comes to brakes and suspension.

 

i have a question on this. first off power to yah. its alot of work to do. i did the ls1 brackets myself. ... now to the question? i was gonna do the same you said with a bigger rotor and the stock caliper, but after the "ears" are cut off how would the pads be secured? i ended up messing with 97 grand prix calipers only because they have the abutment brackets. same single piston design. seem to fit a 15" pretty well too. keep up the great work and thank you for providing valuable insight on alot of stuff im sure alot of us are wondering in the back of our minds.

 

I want to follow this because it looks promising to me.

Only other 12" rotor kit I know of that'll fit inside a stock 15" wheel is the C4 kit (And those are over $750 for the fronts alone)

Sorry if I missed this earlier in the thread, but what rotors are you using?

 

I got 4th gen LS1 brakes fitting under all my stock z28 wheels. I think the rears fit fine as normal, but I did grind on the fins on the front calipers. I don't think I could make this setup since I don't have a cnc or anything neet, but I do like this idea though.

 

You can when I get my brackets into production. There won't be any write-up until I put the first production kits on my own vehicles. Unless kingtorquer beats me to hi. He's already committed to buying a kit for his third-gen, but he wants upgraded rotors, with cross-drilling or dimpling or slotting. That kit will cost more, but should still come in under $700, including the 4 rotors and the 4 brackets.

 

I'm not removing the "ears" ( I was calling them flying butresses ) but I did trim and drill them. I have more pics to post. I know everyone wants pics, and they are coming.

 

The front rotors are 1LE rotors, also used on the '89 TTA. You can get them from NAPA for $100 each. The day I discovered that is the day I decided to do it.
You saw my T/A when you picked up your heads from jamiesweet. "My" CNC mill is clear across the valley.

 

Ah, I see. Do you have a rough guestimate where your kit might land?

 

I might be misinformed, but I was under the impression that it took spindle modifications to run 1LE rotors? Maybe I'm just remembering that wrong, been quite a while since I've looked at them. I know they use different wheel bearings, maybe that's where that thought came from.

I like the 1LE rotors a lot better than C4 rotors though, they're considerably thicker. Pretty cool

 

Great work! defintly something i'll be intrested in when its time for new brakes. So how long do you think it would take the adverage person to remove whats needed and to reinstall everything including your pieces?

will the braket/rotors drop right into place or will modification still need to be done somewhat to an 4wheel disk car?

And my final question, how do you think your setup will compare to ls1 brakes? Thanks.

 

The 1LE's do require the following bearings:

A6 Inner bearing set
A3 Outer bearing set (This is the one which is different from the standard bearing as it has a larger OD).

JamesC

 

Depends on how hard you throw it, and in which direction, from which starting point
If you mean pricing, I've already explained that, and I hate repeating myself.

 

In other words, I temporarily re-used the inner bearings I already had in my stock front rotors, but had to get the Chevy caprice outer bearing. It was $4 from O'Reilley's, for the cheapest Chinese version. Good enough for test-fitting.

 

How long? I'll be happy and able to answer that after the first production pieces go on my car.
Modification? You'll need to hacksaw the spindles as pictured above, plus some drilling, and probably unbolting the struts from the spindles.
Compare? No clue. I'll leave that to other people.

 

If you study the pics I already posted, you'll see I did have to make that cut to get the rotor on.
Thicker means heavier.

 

And as a consequence, better heat dissipation?

JamesC

 

I don't know. But more unsprung weight supposedly hurts ride quality and handling, plus heavier rotors supposedly hurt acceleration.

 

It's true, brakes are both unsprung weight & rotating mass. By that same reasoning, increasing the rotor diameter hurts acceleration too, and not only because of the weight (rotational inertia, blah blah)

But in this case, I definitely think thicker rotors are better, for a street driven vehicle anyway (Strip only cars don't count, they make kits for those with rotors as thin as .3" Wouldn't dare to drive that on the street...)

The C4 rotors are only .81" thick, while the 1LE's are 1.1"

.8" is a little thin for these cars, in my opinion at least. Don't last as long, and as JamesC pointed out, a thicker rotor can absorb, and handle more heat

 

My '84 Fiero, and all stock '84-'87 Fieros, came stock with all 4 wheels having 0.400"-or-so solid rotors behind them. Not bad in a 2800# car.

 

Today an unforsseable development drastically changed ALL my plans for at least the next 4 weeks. Sorry.

 

Hmm, I hope its nothing too serious.

 

I have $300 in my 2001 LS1 brake set up. Looks like you have a plan...

 

One more week from tomorrow, I'll be back home. Then I can get back on this.