Brake upgrade question...

[86MCLS]

I have a Strange D60 axle with Wilwood 4 piston disc brakes that I have installed. I currently only have the stock front brakes on the car. Only mod I've made has been changing to a disc/disc proportioning valve.

I have yet to drive the car with this combo and am in the process of doing front suspension upgrades. Wanted to ask everyone here if there's anyone who has upgraded their rear brakes to 4 piston disc and left the front brakes the stock single piston, and how drivability has been. Same goes for 4 piston rear disc & 2WD Blazer dual piston front brake upgrade and drivability.

There's definitely a front brake upgrade in my future, just not sure if it'll be the 2WD Blazer dual piston upgrade, or the Vette upgrade, or some sort of aftermarket upgrade from Wilwood or something...

I'm currently sporting 15" wheels so anything beyond the 2WD upgrade will also require a wheel/tire upgrade as well. I'm trying to not get too deep financially on this right now but at the same time I don't want to have drivability issues by having 4x the braking power out back than I have up front. However, since I'll have the suspension apart doing ball joints/bushings/tie rods/springs/shocks/etc. I may as well make a brake upgrade now. But hesitant to go the 2WD Blazer dual piston route just to find out it's not good enough and have to go the Vette route. So, would like to either leave stock for now & do the brake upgrade later, or do the 2WD Blazer dual piston upgrade now and leave it at that.

Thanks in advance for any & all feedback!

 

[pontiacgp]

why not install an adjustable bias valve so you can lower the pressure to the back brakes if needed

 

[86MCLS]

why not install an adjustable bias valve so you can lower the pressure to the back brakes if needed

I've considered that too... I don't really want to uninstall a new prop valve that's already in there. But that might be the best "for now" alternative if the stock or 2WD S10 brakes won't work.

 

[pontiacgp]

This is a pretty good read on brake bias...

http://www.stoptech.com/technical-support/technical-white-papers/proportioning-valves

 

[Streetbu]

Here my .02 Install the Blazer spindles and brakes now. If you need or want to later, they are a simple brake job to upgrade all the way up to 15" rotors! Merely unbolt the Blazer stuff and bolt the new huge brakes in place along with the adapter bracket. Simple as that.

 

[86MCLS]

Here my .02 Install the Blazer spindles and brakes now. If you need or want to later, they are a simple brake job to upgrade all the way up to 15" rotors! Merely unbolt the Blazer stuff and bolt the new huge brakes in place along with the adapter bracket. Simple as that.

That's exactly what I've been kind of thinking. I have a set of spindles from eBay en route as we speak, as well as calipers/rotors/etc. I also went ahead & bought a Summit single line in/out adjustable proportioning valve I'll put on the rear line (probably aft of the new disc/disc prop valve) so that I can back off pressure if the 4 piston Wilwoods in the rear are too "grabby" with just 2 piston Blazer brakes up front.

 

[UNGN]

If you are keeping 15" wheels, the only cheap front upgrades are Blazer 11" and B-body/1LE 12". "Corvette" 13"/14" or LS1 12" WON'T work with 15" wheels.

A partial solution to "too grabby" rear brakes is larger diameter rear tires. The brakes have to work a lot harder trying to stop a 275/60R15 vs. a 215/65R15.

 

[86MCLS]

I have a set of spindles from eBay en route as we speak

Uh, make that I HAD a set of spindles coming... Got the tracking alert this afternoon that the package was delivered... Got home from work, no package!! I asked my next door neighbor who is a garbage man who gets home fairly early if he remembers seeing a package on my doorstep but he said there wasn't one when he got home. Next neighbor over has 2 cameras but they're not home so when I see them next I'll ask them to look at their camera footage.

They were sent USPS Priority Mail and the USPS doesn't give 2 rips about delivering anything correctly around here (I've hand delivered USPS packages incorrectly left on my doorstep to their rightful owners many times) so I'm holding out hope that this is the case with my package and I'll see it soon. However package thefts are super rampant lately so who knows. Which is why I really want to see the camera footage, to see if the mailman actually went to my door or not, and if so, who took the package!!

 

[64nailhead]

As others have asked, you need to determine what size tire you want to run prior to upgrading the brakes. We just went the route (literally finished two weekends ago) of the Blazer brake upgrade with C5 brakes. The easily fit inside 17" wheels and should also clear 16" as well. In terms of cost or doing this on a budget, I found that there was no way to find a set of C5 calipers on the cheap. If you don't have cores, then they are going to be expensive - well over $100 apiece.

But if money, time, 15" wheel desire, ambition, etc keep you from upgrading the fronts, then you'll NEED to do as PontiacGP mentioned. FWIW, I understand why you upgraded the rear rakes (because you were upgrading the axle), so the rear brakes turned into a 'might as well' while it's apart. But it's amazing how the 'might as wells' can spiral out of control. Now you're onto needing to upgrade the fronts because of the rears 🙂.

 

[UNGN]

As others have asked, you need to determine what size tire you want to run prior to upgrading the brakes. We just went the route (literally finished two weekends ago) of the Blazer brake upgrade with C5 brakes. The easily fit inside 17" wheels and should also clear 16" as well. In terms of cost or doing this on a budget, I found that there was no way to find a set of C5 calipers on the cheap. If you don't have cores, then they are going to be expensive - well over $100 apiece.

LS1 brakes (12" Rotors) barely fit most wide 16" wheels, the C5 brakes (13" rotors) probably don't fit any 16" wheels. Most 17" wheels are designed for Big brakes, but most 16" wheels come from the era before big brakes.