Well, from recent experience I must say Not Very. I had the nose almost burried in the ground the other day as freeway traffic came to a halt, and could not believe how long it took my 4wdb car to come to a stop. I was about ready to kiss her goodbye. My 86 with drums out back stopped in 2/3 the time. What gives, might it just need a good bleeding?

I purchased a set of front and rear slotted/drilled rotors from irotors.com and planned on installing them along with some braided lines and pads(what pads are the best?). My question is, what kind of improvement might I expect from a mod like this. Obviously its still using facroty parts and is nowhere near as powerul as say baer or wilwood, but I would think the car should be pretty responsive around town and what not with this combo. I have the stock front discs GM's used for years, non 1LE, and the PBR rears. Thanks fellas

Will

 

you say that your car with rear drums stopped in 2/3 the amount of time. Is it possible that you locked your brakes up, and that resulted in your longer stopping time? Because rear disc/drum really shouldn't make THAT big of a deal, especially when they're both stock setups because about 80% of your braking is done by your front brakes. You also need to think about what the conditions were during your different stopping conditions. External temperature, road temperature, caliper and rotor temperature at the beggining of your braking can all have major effects on how long it takes your car to come to a stop

 

More or less same driving conditions. Neither time did I lock them, Kept a steady pressure, just took forever to get the damn thing stopped. I suppose the brakes just need a good service. I did all the maintenance on my old car, I have only had the iroc for a few months. I will have to get to that soon.

Will

 

Here's what I used to have on My hillclimb car. BTW...it out stopped 1Le's very easily.

10.5" brakes up front. 11.8" with PBR's out back.

1: Bendix Titanium pads front and rear. Great pad. Awesome stopping power cold or hot. Will stop car from 100MPH+ with no fade. Pads have been discussed here

2: Chuck the GM proportioning valve as far as you can heave it!!! Get an adjustable valve and plumb it into the rear brakes. Should take you about fifteen minutes total with a flaring tool.

3: After bedding in the brakes, crank some rear Bias into that sucker. You want the fronts to lock just slightly before the rears. You'll be surprised at how much rear brake you can use....and how little GM utilised.

4: Flush the old fluid and install some new. Unless you use your car for competition, just about any decent DOT 3 or 4 fluid will do. Road Race use...Motul Full Synthetic is what I use.

BTW, I now have 12" x1.375" Coleman rotors with 4 Piston WilWood Superlites up front. Guess what? The old combo ( 10.5"\11.8" GM brakes ) stopped better!!

 

Thanks bro, so those are the stock rotors basically?

Will

 

Yep...J65 Option. 10.5" front...11.8" rear.

We actually ran the small brakes at a Road Race two years ago when I had to renew my Road Racing license. Six 1\2hour practises\races on brakes. Never faded once..... on a track that is very, very hard on brakes. Rotor temps reached over 1,000 deg f. Never boiled the fluid...never faded the brakes.

1: Hawk Blue Competition pads. PFC's would have worked as well.

2: Tons of air ducting...but that was not enough. Had to use water sprayers to cool brakes. Went through about a gallon of water per race.

3: Motul full synthetic brake fluid. Excellant product. Pedal remained rock hard at incredibly high caliper temps.

4: Amsoil synthetic grease in the wheel brg's. Lot of people underestimate how much brake temperature gets transferred to the wheel bearing. Synthetic grease absolutely necessary.

At the end of the weekend, the front rotors were toast, the calipers were toast ( dust seals had melted ). The front pads had gotten so hot that they expanded. seized in the caliper frames, and then the backing plates softened and BENT!!! The outer tie rod boots were melted from the heat......but the car stopped every lap, with a rock hard pedal and no fade, lap after lap after lap.

P.S. Forgot to add. Ran the Bendix Titanium pads in the rear. No problem at all with the rear brakes. The Bendix TI rears are an " FF " rated pad, the most severe duty specified for disc pads. Still could have used rotors after event. Had turned a little " Blue", but a simple " turning " on a brake lathe would have solved that. Pads were in great shape.

 

I would have to guess that your rotors could be glazed. Just changing them with good pads would be a huge difference. I'm using the Hawk HP+ since my car is mostly an autocorssing car, the HPS would be good for a daily driver. I don't think everything that chickenman listed is needed, but still nice to have.

 

i feel safer with my 91 brakes, than when i had my 88 iroc 5.7 with 4w db's. i have better brake lines to go on next time i do pads and rotors.

i just had to lock up my brakes today the light changed real quick (red light camera's) and it stopped pretty good from about 60 mph. not killer performance but get the job done.

 

This is a common problem on the Pre-PBR rear brakes. But it sounds like a similar situation. Check that your rear calipers are actually working and make sure they are adjusted. Also important is how good your front pads are. i was running (what a mistake!!) VGX pads from summit that were a disaster. It wasn't until i upgraded to raybestos brute stops that i realized how bad they were. i would follow chickenmans advice on bedix Ti pads or i would get a set or brute or prostop raybestos. What ever you do, you should definately check your rear brakes. put the rear axel on jack stands and see if your rear brakes actually stop the rear wheels!

 

They are working, but I don't think they are working as well as they should. I plan on swapping rearends soon anyway, and I was going to replace my rotors at that time, Probably rebuild the rears and get new front bendix calipers for replacements. Where can I find a rebuild kit for the rear PBR brakes?

Will

 

I'm not sure but i think i saw them at napaonline.com

If they aren't adjusted or your propvalve is bad you won't be able to develope full stopping power. i have an adj prop valve waiting on top of my tool box for my lazy *** to install. As chickenman said it is probably the best way to go.

 

if it makes u feel better heres a horror story of braking.

Before i rebuilt my rear calipers (non-functioning 82-88's), i was on the highway and traffic suddenly stopped. There was a caddy in front of me and i slammed my brakes from about 60mph. By about 20mph my fronts had completely locked up and the rears were no where to be found. By time i came to a stop about 2 inches from the caddy's bumper, all i could smell was rubber and there was a big cloud of tire smoke all from the lock up and lack of rears. I was getting ready to pay for a caddy bumper ($$$).

Anyway how many people can say theyve smoked te front tires on their thirdgen .

 

"raises hand" I have It was really all 4 wheels though in a panic stop. Some lady pulled out in front of me from her driveway. Dunno wtf she was thinking or if she even saw me. I was already off the gas pedal just incase, then sure enough she pulls out. Locked all 4, missed her car by inches. I sat there in the middle of the road for a couple min to calm down lol and she just took off.

 

My old 91 RS 3.1L stopped like nothing else ive driven. My new 91RS though I don't like the brakes, it feels like somthing is wrong, but if I get them to the point where they were in my old camaro I would be very happy. Oh, and I locked up the fronts in that car 2x, once on an empty highway from about 60 just to see if I could. 2nd time from 100 all the way into the telephone poll

 

If you buy the Baer Track system for your car, you won't worry about hitting anyone in the rear - more like worry about people rearending you.

 

Money doesn't grow on trees.

Will

 

Well there is paper in money, paper comes from trees, therefore money grows on trees

 

Good one, so which forest should I trade in for a set of Baer brakes?

 

Well go to the forest, find a heavy hard branch, walk into a place that sells the brakes and proceded to knock everyone there unconsious with the branch and take the brakes. Congradulations, you turned a piece of wood into brakes