oversized piston calipers, are they worth it?

[G_Body_Enthusiast]

are these things worth the money? they sure do appear to charge a lot for them. even the iron ones.

i'm asking because i'm eyeballing corvette brakes in the future but since i want some kind of improved braking now while i'm waiting i was wondering if these things are worth the money, looks like 70 dollars and up for one caliper. that doesnt even include pads or hardware.

 

[kornball426]

70 bucks for aluminum C5 or C6 Corvette calipers? New? I haven't priced it out... But that sounds cheap to me. I've never driven a new Vette, but without driving one I can tell you the brakes are at minimum twenty times better than stock G-body brakes. :lol: I'd say it would be a worth while upgrade, gotta upgrade the rotors to obviously. Personally I'd upgrade to rear disc brakes first, we did it on my brothers Monte SS and it made a huge difference. It's a planned mod for my Firebird in the future.

I sold a caliper for a GMC 3500HD the other day that was like 135 dollars, a four piston huge chunk of cast iron that weighed at least 40 lbs. So price it out see what they go for, but it seems like if a truck caliper goes for that much then 70 bucks sounds cheap for Corvette brake parts.

 

[79loserbluebu]

Yeah they are much better than stock single piston G-body calipers. But unless you are running into problems with the brakes you have, I'd just make sure the rear brakes are adjusted and have plenty of life left in the shoes, and put a set of quality pads in the front. To use a C5 or C6 front caliper, you'll need:

Rotors
Calipers
Pad bracket
Conversion bracket for the spindle
Machined hubs to allow the rotor to slide on (Vette's have sealed hubs)
Brake lines to adapt G-body lines to Vette calipers


Really unless you are doubleing or tripleing the engine output, the stock ones will be plenty. For the record, they used the same caliper up until 2003 on S10s.

 

[FE3X CLONE]

I think he's talking about the stock calipers with larger pistons, not Corvette calipers.

I'd just save the money and not mess with the stock stuff until your ready to jump into the Corvette brakes. If your going to upgrade down the road anyway, why waste the money on something now that's maybe only marginally better than stock.

 

[G_Body_Enthusiast]

yes i was talking about the oversized piston calipers. the more i looked and thought about it the more i'd be better off just doing vette brakes in the front even though it would cost more, i would get way better braking for the money invested. 80 bucks times 2 for just a pair of oversized piston calipers just doesnt seem reasonable to me. and i'd still be stuck using the small rotor, so more clamping force on an already too small a rotor equals even more heat, outgassing/brake fade.

i hate stock brakes! they suck!

 

[85GPLef41]

I scored a set of early C6 calipers for 50 bucks and ZQ8 spindles for 80 with everything. I bought the spindles first and then read about the C5 caliper upgrade using a simple bracket. So it was a no brain er ! I know a junkyard around here where there is a set of bare zq8 spindles that would allow you to bolt in the C5 calipers and rotors.. They are just the spindles with no hubs dust shields calipers etc etc... for the dust shields i think you could get some off a 4wd blazer. you could purchase the rest of th required parts. I am going with this setup for my C5 caliper upgrade. I also plan on doing the stock ZQ8 brakes for my 81 for which i have all the parts already. I have been thinking of going with the AFX spindles for my 85 GP......

 

[79loserbluebu]

Ok yeah I did see those in Summit's catalog. I thought about that as well, but really if you are going to use bigger piston calipers, technically some change is needed in the pressure to give more clamping force.

 

[jrm81bu]

Ok yeah I did see those in Summit's catalog. I thought about that as well, but really if you are going to use bigger piston calipers, technically some change is needed in the pressure to give more clamping force.

Not really, maybe slightly more pressure at your foot, that you most likely wouldn't notice. And a tad farther pedal travel that again you wouldn't notice.

 

[79loserbluebu]

Well I'm saying to feel a noticeable change, you can't just bolt these calipers on and expect to stop better. There needs to be supporting changes.

 

[jrm81bu]

Well I'm saying to feel a noticeable change, you can't just bolt these calipers on and expect to stop better. There needs to be supporting changes.

I'll still disagree with that. The pressure behind the caliper will remain constant(same force applied with your foot), but with a larger surface area if the piston the force in font of the piston will increase. So the caliper will definetly produce higher clamping pressure anytime the surface area of the piston is increased. Same deal with the manual wheel cylinder upgrade for the rears. Now how much of an improvement it will get you still remains to be seen.

And to the op about the increase in clamping force resulting in more heat, not necessarily. The amount of time the brakes need to be applied is reduced with the increase in pressure so there may be no extra brake fade.