Corolla brake upgrade

[teranfirbt]

Alright, so here's what I've been working on (well, a lot of planning..) since the 5A swap. Big brakes! (well, safe brakes really).
I'm using AE92 (FWD) Corolla GTS rotors all around, '95 Corolla sedan front calipers, and '02 Golf GTI rear calipers

The front was relatively straight forward. Needed to trim the backing plate and space the rotor away from the hub by 8mm:

AE92 front rotor left, Tercel right:


A pair of 8mm aluminum hub spacers from Ebay. Bolt pattern is 4x100, centerbore is 54.1mm (so just a hair loose on the Tercel hub). The outside diameter is way too big to fit into the rotor, so the hub pattern was drawn onto the spacer:


Aaaaand then a bandsaw/belt sander happened:


which puts the face of the rotor at the end of the hub center:


Since I'm running Honda rims that have a bigger centerbore I'm not worried. The wheel studs are longer for the added spacer, I wouldn't trust stock length studs to have enough engagement. Changing wheel studs is made easy with a press!


After that, the Corolla caliper and bracket bolt up to the stock struts:


I haven't connected them yet because I want to get the engine running again (it's always good to fix things before modding a car)

The rears are of course more of an adventure. First thing I did was make the hub match the rotor ID. I actually did this completely by hand by marking out the circle and then grindering away.




Next up we need a caliper bracket. I started with some 1/4" cold rolled steel and made a plate to match the axle and a plate to match the caliper bracket. A little fitting up and I found out I needed a 1/8" spacer between them, so I made one and tacked it up:


That ends up with the caliper bracket dead center on the rotor:


Looks pretty badass!


Next step is to make a spacer to replace the drum brake backing plate since it sets the spacing on the bearing retainer, and then a fit up double check since I'll be able to torque the bolts holding everything together. I'll have to get longer bolts, but that's not a big deal

After is getting the left side fit up, then a bunch of grinding and welding. Since brakes are awful critical to safety, I'll be making sure the welds get a good bite on all of the metal .

Line routing shouldn't be too hard. I've got a Wilwood adjustable proportioning valve that is made for 4 wheel disk brakes to replace the factory valve. I also spent a little money and bought a decent tube bender, and I have a double flaring tool from the 5A swap, so lines will be pretty straight forward.

Parking brake cables will be done using the GTI cables and some weldering. I'm not expecting that to be too bad.

[timothygodden]

Rear discs! That is quite amazing. I know I am interested in how this ends up working out for you.

[teranfirbt]

Finally got the front brakes hooked up and bedded in! Even with the bigger rims, I had to space the wheels out an additional 1/4"... Kinda wish I had bought 15" rims when I upgraded. They're very confidence inspiring compared to stock, I did 60-20 at the limit of braking ~10 times and it still had more left. Stock brakes would have been completely smoked from that...


Next step is getting the rear disks set up. I fit up the right side bracket and it ended up a little off, so I'm going to make a shim out of 22 gauge sheet to get it spaced right. I haven't had a chance to get to the left side yet.

[Petros]

Nice work, sort out the rear disk conversion and you can like sell a few rear disk "kits" to the rest of us.

[teranfirbt]

We'll see how this goes. I'll be measuring everything when it's done, may end up making a new set of brackets to get rid of any shims and such. I also realized last night that putting the calipers on top increases pad knockback issues, but I don't plan on racing the car and the VW caliper sliders are very smooth, so that'll be something to find out about.

[dlb]

I also realized last night that putting the calipers on top increases pad knockback issues

i had to look up knock back:

http://www.stoptech.com/technical-suppo ... -knockback

why does a top-mounted rotor increase knock back though?

[Petros]

when the rim, hub, axles, etc flex in a hard turn it pushed against the pads (knocking them back), this effect is worse on the top and bottom of the rotor, than at the front or rear.

This would only be an issue where you can generate high lateral loads, such as on a race track, with a performance suspenion and tires. That is not likely to be an issue on any Tercel, on or off road.

One good point perhaps to a top mounted caliper, it seems it would be less likely to get damaged when in rough off-road conditions. Seems a reasonable thing to do on a tercel that is better on rough roads than on the street.

[lannvouivre]

Your fabrication is, as usual, so awesome I'm disgusted with envy.

Are you going to see Roadkill on the 21st? I am planning to.
http://www.roadkill.com/roadkill-takes- ... -schedule/

[teranfirbt]

Hmmmm, that does look interesting.

On the brakes front, I made a shim to fix my caliper spacing issue, and ran into a bigger problem:




Which for now puts a pause on the project since I still have 90% of the tread left on those tires... I think I'm going to step back and make some better brackets, then when the time comes and I need new tires, I'll get some 15" rims.

[teranfirbt]

Nothing special, generic 12mm x 50mm studs from eBay with the right spline

[Petros]

most well equipped tire stores also sell extend length studs so they can sell you alloy wheels. Not all will sell you just the studs, but many will.

I was getting a battery at the Costco auto center, and even they had extended length wheel studs. I noticed them on a bin rack behind the cashier in the auto center.

[donnyre]

I've heard that ARP studs for a Lancer Evo VIII are direct bolt on.

[Defend_Dingo]

One of my calipers is going out so I’m going to do the front caliper conversion on mine. I’ll let you all know how it goes but does anyone want my drilled, slotted, plated rotors and ceramic pads off this current setup?

Will sell for cost of shipping + $10 since they have maybe 1000 miles on them

[Defend_Dingo]

Speaking of which, I have 14” steel wheels currently, Will this all clear? I was going to buy 15” alloys eventually when I got new tires

[teranfirbt]

The stock wheels on the Corolla I took the calipers from are 14" steelies so they should fit. The CRX rims I'm running on mine have a lot of material on the inside, where Toyota alloys and steel wheels are more open.
tl:dr: should be good.