Front brake spacers...

[Lil Beast]

[Petros]

I think Puff lived by the Pacific Ocean...

Puff lives in lake Union, Seattle. We built her in 2010 for a boat race;


First launch July 4th, 2010. That is me in front.


Under construction, you can see the detail


With "wings" deployed. I called the sail configuration "twin, cat rigged, self deploying, modified junk rig".

Puff now resides on my property in Arlington.

[SynthDesign]

Petros found these at NAPA. They don't fit the need of the front spacers, but if you wanted to put the rear wheels out a bit.
And they are relatively cheap, starting at $17 a pair.

brake spacers Napa.jpg

[SynthDesign]

t4wd brake spacers.jpg

$30.00 USD a Pair (Set of 2 Spacer for 91-94 Vented Tercel Rotors and Calipers conversion)
Shipping
$6.00 USPS Small Box Priority 2/3 day, $14.00 Can/Mexico Small Box Priority International
Can also ship standard post for less but delivery times are bit longer.

Cash, Check, Paypal and Credit Card
And a shameless plug, Don't forget your T4WD merchandise to save on shipping of both.
https://tercel4wd.com/forums/viewtopic.php? ... 2&start=75

[SynthDesign]

Under some careful packing, I figured out I can stuff an XL shirt in The small USPS FlatRate Priority 2/3day box.

So here's a Summer Special.
1 Set of Brake Rotor Spacers and a T-Shirt(Small - XL) for $50 Shipped

[SynthDesign]

rotor spacers.jpg

Fit and install are spot on.

On a side note be careful of the Chinese made 92 to 94 vented Tercel rotors. These were sold under The Oreilly's Name brand. Absolute Shite! I've got less than 3k on them and they're toast. Pads are fine sans a bit of glazing.

crispy rotor.jpg

I'm gonna order up a set of Centric Premium Power Slotted rotors this week as well as a nice set of Hawk HPX pads and do a write up including shaving the top of the pads.
http://www.powerslot.com/

[Gottolovem]

I would like to buy a set of spacers and sticks

[SynthDesign]

I would like to buy a set of spacers and sticks

PM me with your order and we can figure out shipping and payment.

[SynthDesign]

Just got a PM for spacers and realized I am OUT. I'm going to tighten up the tolerances a bit but hoping to get another run going by the end of October 2014

24 sets sold so far! I'm guessing there's at least 30 T4WDs running around with vented rotors!

[The Professor]

I am interested in a set, but I have a few questions before plunking down my hard earned cash.

Are they still made from aluminum and if so, are they heat treated? Any plans to try using stainless steel?

Are your spacers designed to be lug-centric, or hub-centric?

Can you confirm the mileage on the highest-milage set of spacers? Just curious to see how they are holding up and what sort of conditions and use they have been exposed to.

This seems to be an elegant and simple solution to the undersized front brakes!

[Petros]

I have at least 50k+ miles on my home made alumium spacers, I recently took them out to replace pads. they looked fine, no issues at all, and I have been really HARD on them. I live in very hilly country and often have my Tercel loaded up, I have never felt compelled to go easy on the brakes this set-up works so well.

I would advise against stainless, it will not transfer the heat as good as aluminum, and it will add weight to the hub area. these brakes get hot and need to dissipate heat. when I replace the rotors one day I will be looking for slotted ones and perhaps drilled ones to disipate heat even better. The alum plate helps transfers the heat away from the rotor, and resists warping by over heating.

I am not sure your concern, I worked for a fully sponsored professional racing team and we used rotors that had full aluminum hubs, it was the part that connected the actual rotor to the wheel studs and the hub of the wheel, those brakes were very large and got very hot at speeds over well over 170 mph on a race track.

[The Professor]

I have at least 50k+ miles on my home made alumium spacers.

That is a great testament to the accuracy of the conversion and the longevity of the chosen materials.

I would advise against stainless, it will not transfer the heat as good as aluminum, and it will add weight to the hub area. these brakes get hot and need to dissipate heat. when I replace the rotors one day I will be looking for slotted ones and perhaps drilled ones to disipate heat even better. The alum plate helps transfers the heat away from the rotor, and resists warping by over heating.

Depending on the application you might want to keep heat out of the hub/wheel bearing area, especially if you have undersized heatsinks (rotors).

I am not sure your concern.

My concern is mostly about hub-concentricity and alignment of the rotor and caliper.

[Petros]

I am not sure your concern.

My concern is mostly about hub-concentricity and alignment of the rotor and caliper.

this is not affected: the rotor still indexes off the center hub since the depth of the hub stub is much deeper than the spacer. the rotor is centered on the hub stub in the center, as well as the wheel studs.

You can also go with the larger/later calibers and rotor from the later first gen MR2 brakes. Another forum member found a VW rotor that is the correct larger dia. and has the correct offset so you do not need a spacer. You likely would be required to go to 14" wheels to get the clearance (which is advisable anyway). My only concern here is that larger rotors in the front would change the front to rear braking ratio. Not likely that is a problem, but using the earlier MR2 front caliper and '92 Tercel rotor plus spacer keeps the same front to rear braking ratio. At worst you would add an adjustable brake proportioning valve. But larger vented front brakes are definitely desirable. It is possible to get larger rear drum brakes fit by using the corolla rwd rear brakes and drums: same dia but about 35 percent wider shoe and drum, appears to also be a bolt on up grade. but I have not done it, but neither have I had a problem with the rear drum brakes (so it if ain't broke, do not try and "fix" it).

Going to 4 wheel disk brakes might be desirable, but I have not seen how that can be done without making your own parts. There is a website that sells kits to installed corrolla rear axles on Suzuki side kicks (the same axle as on our Tercels), and they offer a rear disk brake kit for the toyota axle (I saw it on a sidekick and asked the owner where he got the disk brakes). Kit is pretty costly however, but if some builds the "ultimate monster" Tercel 4x4 it might be worth doing. Otherwise I will live with the stock rear brakes for now.

[The Professor]

The rotor still indexes off the center hub since the depth of the hub stub is much deeper than the spacer. the rotor is centered on the hub stub in the center, as well as the wheel studs.

Good to know. I was actually quite worried about this. I just got the car and haven't had a chance to dig into it and get familiar.

You can also go with the larger/later calibers and rotor from the later first gen MR2 brakes. Another forum member found a VW rotor that is the correct larger dia. and has the correct offset so you do not need a spacer. You likely would be required to go to 14" wheels to get the clearance (which is advisable anyway). My only concern here is that larger rotors in the front would change the front to rear braking ratio.

I've been reading up on the various brake options, since my Tercel will need brakes soon, and I thought there were also questions about hub-centricity with those rotors, since the VW rotors have a different hub bore vs. the Tercel.

I'm not so concerned with the brake balance. Front-biased is a very safe condition. More rear bias makes the vehicle more prone to swapping ends. The balance can also be adjusted by using different brake pads/shoes front to rear.

Those corolla rear drum parts do sound interesting and simple to apply, but don't the corollas have a different lug pattern than the Tercel?

Four wheel discs would be ideal, but there doesn't appear to be a bolt on solution.

What is the website that offers the rear disc kit?

[Petros]

I can't find the supplier now, but there are lots of zuki forums that show how to swap in a toyota rear axle and convert to rear disks.

here is a forum thread that has a DIY rear disk convertion for an older 4Runner, should work on our cars as well. http://www.yotatech.com/f116/1st-gen-4r ... ll-191482/

BTW, the first gen MR2 rear brakes would be a good conversion for the Tecel4wd, it uses the same 11mm rotor on the back of the MR2 as the Tercel uses on the front, and the caliper has a parking brake built into it. you just need to find a way to mount the caliper, perhaps by cutting up the backing plate as shown in the thread above. I thought about doing that on mine, but I do not have a lot of time to mess around with it, and right now my rear brakes are working fine...so I thought I would wait until I needed new rear brakes.

These are for Toy 4x4 truck rear brake conversion, not likely to fit on the corolla rear axle in our T4wd, but the bracket looks simple enough. and cheap.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Toyota-Rear-Dis ... 4897.l4275

you might look and see if summit racing has any RWD corolla rear disk conversion kits here: http://www.summitracing.com/search/part ... toview=SKU