Rear Brakes - To match the PP fronts?

[SJulian10mm]

Is there a kit out there to upgrade the rear brake calipers on a PP GT to match the rears more closely to the fronts? Like a bracket that could adapt S197 GT500 rear Brembos to the S550?

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[BmacIL]

Why?

 

[MaskedRacerX]

Why?

Aesthetics.

I mean, I get it, I've tracked my various cars for 20+ years, and have some understanding of brake dynamics, at least in terms of how to make +real+ improvements (pads, cooling, fluid - none of which affect the looks of the system), how the brakes are biased, etc.

But holy smokes, the looks of the Brembo fronts vs. the standard rears, bleah.

I really f***ing hate the idea of calipers covers, but I've been thinking about some flat black, no logos/pony/5.0, nothing, for the rear just to clean up how they look, especially now with my MRR M600s which really show off the brakes.

 

[Labradog]

Yeah there are kits from Brembo, etc..., but for what your going to pay you might as well do the whole GT350R upgrade kit. Why not just paint the rears with a G2? It will save you a lot of money.

 

[mikes2017gt]

Yeah there are kits from Brembo, etc..., but for what your going to pay you might as well do the whole GT350R upgrade kit. Why not just paint the rears with a G2? It will save you a lot of money.

x2. This is what I did just yesterday. I will be installing the 50th Anniversary Brembos with the white letters on my non-PP GT, so now the front and rear calipers will match and there will be no caliper covers used.

IMO unless you autocross the car regularly, you don't need to upgrade the rear calipers. Brembo fronts, aggressive pads, upgraded rotors and SS brake lines should be all anyone but the most die-hard track guy needs.

Before and after pics of my rear calipers.

 

[Desert Rat]

Like a bracket that could adapt S197 GT500 rear Brembos to the S550?

GT500s didn't have rear Brembos. The 07-12 had the same calibers and rotors as the GTs and the 13-14 just had bigger rotors.

I'm with you though. Someone should have made a matching rear Brembo kit for all of the Brembo GTs and GT500s. They would sell on aesthetics alone.

 

[MaskedRacerX]

x2. This is what I did just yesterday. I will be installing the 50th Anniversary Brembos with the white letters on my non-PP GT, so now the front and rear calipers will match and there will be no caliper covers used.

IMO unless you autocross the car regularly, you don't need to upgrade the rear calipers. Brembo fronts, aggressive pads, upgraded rotors and SS brake lines should be all anyone but the most die-hard track guy needs.

Before and after pics of my rear calipers.

Wow, terrific job. Did you do that with the caliper in place?

 

[mikes2017gt]

Thanks, MaskedRacerX. Yes, I left the caliper in place. I prepped them as well as I could; used the entire can of brake cleaner the G2 kit comes with just cleaning the 2 rear calipers. I took my time and got in all the nooks and crannies. The brush that comes with the G2 kit is your basic "chip brush" that Harbor Freight sells. It did a good enough job. I mixed the paint/hardener very well and stirred it as I worked. I put two coats on the calipers, waiting about 15 mins b/t coats.

I don't have a pic, but I did not do the rear of the calipers, where the piston recess bulges out towards the center of the car. I didn't see a point in it. Plus, I would've had to work around the parking brake cable/spring assembly.

I let it dry almost the full 24 hours (in my 90 degree garage) that G2 recommends before I put the wheels on and drove. We'll see how long it lasts...I'm hoping a decently long time. I really wanted to get them powder coated, but didn't want to deal with disassembly/rebuild. I've never rebuilt calipers before and don't know a shop I trust enough to do that work.

 

[BmacIL]

Even if you are autocrossing you don't need to upgrade the rear calipers for any performance reason. The brake bias is such that you just need pad upgrades for better performance.

 

[MaskedRacerX]

Thanks, MaskedRacerX.

Thanks for the details!

I just recently replaced my rotors, and I seriously thought about painting the rear calipers since they were unbolted (and the brackets were totally removed). I cleaned them up, but I kind of wanted to get my car back together.

Sounds like it's not a huge deal doing this bolted up.

I think I'd probably stick with black, just make them look clean, but not stand out too much.

 

[mikes2017gt]

Nope, not a huge deal at all. I used a shop towel to protect the rubber brake lines and parking brake cable when spraying the brake cleaner. Tip: Wear protective glasses or goggles b/c the brake cleaner will ricochet all over the place. Also be prepared to wipe it off the body/paint of the car, should any splatter. You can see in my pic that I wasn't too careful about getting paint on the brake pad backing plates. If you want to get all of the caliper/bracket, the only way to do that is to get paint on the backing plates too. I didn't bother cleaning it off b/c I'll be replacing those pads with Z26 pads when I do my Brembo caliper up front/Stop Tech rotors all around/Z26 pads swap hopefully next weekend.

 

[Labradog]

I spent a lot of time taping when I did mine. Ended up painting most of the other side even though it's not visible. IMO, paint the calipers and spend money on 2-piece or zinc plated rotors as an appearance upgrade

 

[SJulian10mm]

This got off subject! When I said match I meant performance. Anyway GT350 Brakes may be the way to go, but require a wheel/tire swap as well, taking the 4kish initial cost up to 7K+. Also the way I understand it, a wheel set for a GT is not going to work after the 350 brake install because the backspacing will be off? I do not want to use wheel spacers under any circumstance. Is a completely one off wheel set required or 350 back spaced wheels?

Why all the trouble you ask? I am not a track rat or auto crosser, but I do rip the canyons and mt roads on a regular basis. The front PP Brembos seem to do fine, but the rears are a different story. They fade and once they get hot (to what feels like zero), the car gets squirly under braking, back-end feels like its going to come around because the front is taking all the braking load. I have boiled the paint off the splash guards, blued the rotors, fried the pads...bottom line the rear brakes cant keep up with the fronts and I need new hardware anyway so why-not upgrade.

 

[BmacIL]

This got off subject! When I said match I meant performance. Anyway GT350 Brakes may be the way to go, but require a wheel/tire swap as well, taking the 4kish initial cost up to 7K+. Also the way I understand it, a wheel set for a GT is not going to work after the 350 brake install because the backspacing will be off? I do not want to use wheel spacers under any circumstance. Is a completely one off wheel set required or 350 back spaced wheels?

Why all the trouble you ask? I am not a track rat or auto crosser, but I do rip the canyons and mt roads on a regular basis. The front PP Brembos seem to do fine, but the rears are a different story. They fade and once they get hot (to what feels like zero), the car gets squirly under braking, back-end feels like its going to come around because the front is taking all the braking load. I have boiled the paint off the splash guards, blued the rotors, fried the pads...bottom line the rear brakes cant keep up with the fronts and I need new hardware anyway so why-not upgrade.

Not sure you're understanding the vehicle dynamics going on here. Increasing braking capability/torque at the rear will only make the feeling you're describing worse when you're really braking hard. You need a higher friction pad for the front and rear calipers so that the brake bias is maintained, but braking capability as a whole goes up. The reason the car gets squirrely? You're braking harder, which transfers more weight to the front and takes load off the back. Adding more braking power at the back could actually make it come around.

 

[wildcatgoal]

Not sure you're understanding the vehicle dynamics going on here. Increasing braking capability/torque at the rear will only make the feeling you're describing worse when you're really braking hard. You need a higher friction pad for the front and rear calipers so that the brake bias is maintained, but braking capability as a whole goes up. The reason the car gets squirrely? You're braking harder, which transfers more weight to the front and takes load off the back. Adding more braking power at the back could actually make it come around.

I was going to say the same thing. Something isn't jiving here. With the modifications I have to my IRS, at least some of those things improved the stability of the car under hard braking because I have not had a complaint about the rear end getting squirrely in a very long time, including braking hard enough to make the rotor glow. I use GLOC R12/front R10/rear, but those are not a street pad. They squeak like a dying pig. PowerStop Track Day pads were actually really great for me, weren't noisy on the street except the occasional squeek coming to a stop, just that the dust seems to superglue itself to the wheel and refuses to come off without a lot of effort.

There's a few guys in my Mustang club that do mountain runs regularly. One or two of them complain they burn through pads a lot. I get that, you're probably headed downhill often, have to manage traffic on top of tons of turns, can't see around bends, can't plan braking like a road course, and you're out there for an entire day whipping around, not necessarily some 20 min sessions and then an hour or so break in-between. That's going to heat up the braking system and keep it hot if you're relying on them too much. But it'd be the front rotor that's getting the worst of it. It's a pretty huge bias toward front breaking and the GT, especially, doesn't seem to have the weight balance to enable a ton of rear break, especially if you're on the stock suspension and the front end dives like a snow plow.

The guys that don't complain about brake issues also are the fastest, though. I followed one guy who didn't even have Brembos that could drag me through a mountain run with a shopping cart. I learned a f'load about how to anticipate turns and late brake just forcing myself to keep the same distance from his bumper - sphincter clenched. With enough repetition, learning the "course", I wasn't having any trouble. I also damn near ran out of gas that day 20 miles from a gas station, but luckily getting there was all downhill, haha.

I do agree, the rear caliper on these cars is fugly as all hell and has no place on the Performance Package car, but... gotta cut corners somehow and it works fine.

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