Any Brake Upgrade To Fit Under My Standard 17 Bf Rims

[PhilMeUp]

What caught me out:

I drive a taxi six to seven nights a week. I've been driving the same car since May 2009 and have owned it since March this year. Behind Perth is like a series of mountain-like hills. I had done a drop-off there one night and had a booking about 15km away that was going to the international airport. This was a valuable booking as it meant that I would get back to the main metro area and actually get a paying fare at the same time.

I was coming down the hill from Darlington at a reasonable pace. Not particularly fast or anything illegal, but I was aware that the brakes would be copping a fairly good workout.

I had flushed the brake fluid three weeks earlier with PBR Super Dot 4, which can handle heat. I had fitted new pads and the discs were good. So, I was aware that at least my brakes were maintained.

Half way down the hill the brakes faded. Oh, they still worked, but nowhere as good as they should have. It was lucky that I have the skill and experience to have noticed it before coming into a corner. If you run wide on some of those turns then there is no room - you simply end up tumbling down the side of a very large hill, which would write the car off and possibly myself.

That night really got me thinking. I drive a BFII wagon, which weighs about 1,700kg. Add in LPG, engine oil, coolant, taxi equipment and me, and it's getting close to 2,000kg. And all that weight, coming down a hill and into some very tight turns, is being held back by a pair of twin piston calipers that are working on discs that are 298mm diameter and 28mm thick.

Stuff that. I started spending hours on various Ford forums learning about brakes. I quickly figured out that Brembo was the ultimate, but it was bloody expensive and not particularly practical for a taxi in terms of initial outlay cost and maintenance costs.

Then a set of brand new six piston front/four piston rear calipers came up on eBay one night with a Buy-It-Now price of $2,500. I thought about it for half an hour and decided stuff it, just go and buy the damn things. I later had to figure out which wheels to get (that was a nightmare), which pads, brake lines, discs, etc, and eventually got it all figured out.

I now have all the stuff on my car and my confidence in the vehicle has improved by huge amounts. Sure, it's kind of nice around town, but it's when the brakes really have to do some work that I feel more confident. I know that when someone runs a stop sign or red traffic light in front of me that the brakes will perform and do all that is possible to avoid a collision. I know that when driving down a 500 metre long downhill that the car will stop just fine at the bottom. I don't have to think about how hard I am pushing the brakes, or what their limitations are.

It's cost me a bunch of money; somewhere around five grand all up. Plus, I had all the upper and lower control arm bushes and ball joints replaced at the same time, but that was all pretty much due anyway (ie 400,000km on the car).

With my girlfriend's taxi, I went looking for a set of BA Premium Brake Option front calipers. They use a 325mm disc rotor. The time that I spent researching brakes on Ford forums made it clear that these calipers have the best reputation of anything less than a Brembo setup. Sure, there is the caliper that uses the 322mm discs on the BF turbo and XR8 cars, but the BA Premium calipers are apparently a better caliper. They were also used on the late 1990s Corvettes in America. After a couple of months of searching, I found a set on eBay for $300 and bought them. Postage was a killer - $100 just for that. The BA Premium calipers also use a disc that is 32mm thick instead of the usual 28mm, giving them less chance of warping.

I also hit the jackpot when someone was giving away a set of DBA4000 disc rotors and I grabbed them. They were supposedly warped, but it turns out that they're not (I had them checked). Sure enough, they are working perfectly on Deb's car. There is a noticeable difference in braking performance when braking hard. She has really, really, really had enough of me rambling on endlessly and obsessively about brakes over the recent months, but after I put the Premium calipers and DBA4000 discs on her taxi on Monday night, she confessed that she had experienced brake fade several times recently.

I also flush the brake fluid on both of our taxis regularly. There is a thread on this forum here about this; it is worth reading and looking through. Mine pretty much got flushed again a month ago when the Brembo stuff was put on. When I put the calipers on Deb's taxi on Monday I was stunned to see how much crap there was in the fluid reservoir so flushed it again last night. With the speed bleeders, it took about 50 minutes to flush and bleed the lot, including cleaning the four wheels while they were off. It was an easy front yard job. Time flies - the fluid in Deb's taxi was four and a half months old and it was stuffed. On my Wurth brake fluid tester, all the lights lit up, indicating a dangerously high moisture content.

I still ponder regularly what other things I could have done with the money that I have spent on my brakes. Five grand could have bought me all sorts of fun toys (car, motorbike, computers) or I could have invested it in shares and made more money. But, it's also an investment in my life. Some day, when I'm doing the same run down the hill from Darlington, I'll be able to come into the corners, press the brake pedal and know that I'll have the full braking performance.

I'll probably keep my Brembo stuff forever - I'll just transfer it from car to car when I change cars. Now that Ford have stopped making wagons then there is the possibility that I'll go Late model camira wagon in four to six years time and if that happens then it will be a matter of sorting out some different mounting brackets and disc rotors. My current car has four years left as as taxi, and I'll probably go looking for one of the last of the BFIII wagons to replace it. If I end up with an FG sedan then it's simply a matter of changing the caliper mounting brackets. So, I'm expecting to get many, many years use out of this stuff.

For buying the stuff, sets of Brembo calipers and discs show up regularly on forums and eBay. Start searching Gumtree in your area regularly. People regularly put this stuff on their car and then remove and sell it separately when they sell the car later on. For yourself, if you find the right deal then buy it. If you sell the car later on, you'll be able to remove the brake setup and get back a large proportion of what you spent on it.

I've also been to many, many auctions over the years of written off cars. Now that I think about it, I don't remember seeing many cars there with performance brakes. Have a look through auction listings and you'll see plenty of XR6 Turbos, XR8s and the usual Late model camira V8 stuff. And pretty much all of those cars have got the standard brakes. You have to wonder how many of those crashes resulted from some spirited driving and the driver didn't have enough braking power when he made a judgement error and got himself into a tricky situation.

I've also got good suspension on my car - Koni red shock absorbers all round, King Springs on the front and reset leaf springs on the rear. Engine performance is one thing, but it's pretty useless if the car doesn't have the steering, handing and braking capability to match. With my car being a taxi, I can't really do anything about engine performance, but I can make sure that it's got much more predictable handing and braking.

So, there you go. This little essay was basically meant to get you thinking a bit. I got caught out back in February with some brake fade and I've taken action to make sure that doesn't happen again.

Edited 19/10/11 08:32 AM by PhilMeUp

[Nomis]

Hey just to bring this up again does any one actually know if 6 piston brembos fit under ba xr8 18's or has anyone gone with different calipers such as wilwood/ap racing? Any other suggestions as brembos seem to be too expensive for good calipers with sh*t pads and rotors for over $2000 so after replacing the sh*t bits will be way over $3000! I have been trying to research wilwood but dunno if they sell them here I was thinking wilwood calipers with custom brackets! Any one else thought outside the square and if so info would help

[Shyfrd]

I was looking right into brake kits month or two ago for future. A nice set of horn brakes just do it for me lol, respect to a nice set on a decent car!

Harrop engineering sell some nice brakes.

http://www.harrop.com.au/auto.php

Ultimate you need min 19in so no good for you. Also top of the range so price is probably pretty high.

Monster and performance however min 17in rims and 343mm rotors all round would look the goods. Monster is 2piece rotors so replacement discs down the track would be cheaper than having to buy the whole 1 piece performance rotors. Up to you on that one.

But in saying this, still unsure of pricing. Will have to ring or maybe search eBay?

Good luck mate and let us know which set you go with