Modern rear brake upgrade for 87 Iroc ?
 

Hi

My 87 Iroc 16'' doesn't pass inspection because the parking brake is a bit too weak.
It does work, but not strong enough to prevent the car from moving when pressing the accelerator pedal.
(calipers were rebuilt, cable adjusted and new pads installed already)

After searching, I discovered the stock calipers have a known issue, and a recall kit was issued ( I couldn't find it online)

I believe the next thing to do would be to replace the calipers with something modern.
I don't really have the skills or the time to upgrade them myself.
Is there a brake-upgrade kit I can get online and have a regular garage could install easily ?

I don't need anything too fancy, just something strong enough to pass the inspection
I'm a bit overwhelmed by the selection at sites like summitracing.

Any suggestion as to what I should buy to pass the inspection ?

Thanks in advance !

Re: Modern rear brake upgrade for 87 Iroc ?
 

Only advice I can give is to be sure to use a floating caliper. A solidly mounted caliper will have pad knock-back,

RBob.

Re: Modern rear brake upgrade for 87 Iroc ?
 

I would look at grabbing a complete rear aluminum pbr disc setup from a 89-92 car, much better and is all stock parts.

Re: Modern rear brake upgrade for 87 Iroc ?
 

Contact Scott at BigBrakeUpgrade and he can hook you up with a great complete kit.

Re: Modern rear brake upgrade for 87 Iroc ?
 

Thanks for the suggestions.
Gonna have a look at that !

Re: Modern rear brake upgrade for 87 Iroc ?
 

I agree with this.

I am not sure how much throttle push or RPM they require, but after doing my brakes last winter and using the parking brake every time I park, mine seems to hold as well as any of my other cars. Granted, I haven't parked them all on an incline to really test that. I won't defend them much because overall, you can do better in the rear brakes.



Nothing to do with your problem, the following is just gripes about the Government:

How much of an accelerator push do they require? Mine holds my car in gear at warm idle. I don't know about when pushing the accelerator. That seems odd and baseless. I could see needing to hold it at a certain incline, but given that every engine has a different power level... have to love the Government. So, a Hellcat Redeye has to pass the same test as an 89 Toyota Tercel with 7X the power? Who wrote that law? I see the brake force needing to hold mass on an incline much more relevant and previous mentioned cars parking brakes built proportionally to mass seems much more reasonable. I guess it would be too much trouble to build an incline at each inspection station and they see this as an equivalency, but seems a bit off to me.

Re: Modern rear brake upgrade for 87 Iroc ?
 

I do agree about the the lack of flexibility of the law, but not much we can do about that if we want to be street legal.
In my case, their test was done on a flat surface, but if they were really picky, they could do it on a slope too :)

Re: Modern rear brake upgrade for 87 Iroc ?
 

How much throttle did they give it? I am really curious.

The slope should be used instead of the throttle is my point.

Re: Modern rear brake upgrade for 87 Iroc ?
 

Very light throttle, but it was enough to make the car advance at least a meter.
How are your cars behaving in that kind of scenario ? Do they stay still ?

Re: Modern rear brake upgrade for 87 Iroc ?
 

Honestly, I would have to give it a try. If I take her out this weekend, I will see how much RPM it takes before she moves.

Another thing to consider is gearing between the cars. V8 third gens vary from 2.73 to 3.42 as best I can remember. That is a 25% difference in force, not taking into account the later cars had stronger motors to boot.

So, how does this test work for a car with a manual?

Re: Modern rear brake upgrade for 87 Iroc ?
 

Thank you all for you suggestions, the car now passes the inspection :)
Bigbrakeupgrade told me I didn't need anything custom in my case, so he referred me to summitracing where I got a kit that was a straight replacement.
My local mechanics did the installation, and everything is fine now.

Re: Modern rear brake upgrade for 87 Iroc ?
 

What calipers did they recommend? Are they bolt on replacements for the iron calipers? I'm just curious, I already have PBR's and will probably be upgrading those soon.

I got my front brakes from BBU and have been very happy with them. I have nothing but good things to say about BBU.

Re: Modern rear brake upgrade for 87 Iroc ?
 

I got this one:
https://www.summitracing.com/parts/bae-4302390r

Re: Modern rear brake upgrade for 87 Iroc ?
 

So that is whole system, not just a bolt on caliper replacement.
It looks like a nice setup. The separate drum parking brake probably works well.

Re: Modern rear brake upgrade for 87 Iroc ?
 

Funny that Baer sells a bolt on rear disc setup, for the 9-bolt. Just seems like they'd market a kit to convert drum cars, but then I suppose the bulk of thirdgens with the lousy brakes were 9-bolt cars, you'd just think they'd offer something with the largest market possible. Interesting.