I'm finally at a point where I can really show everyone what I did with my brakes. I've been pretty public about my front C5 setup but didn't really explain what I was doing with the rear. If you don't know, the C5 Corvettes didn't use a caliper based e-brake. The e-brake was inside of the rotor like a mini drum brake. So, you can't really use C5 rear calipers unless you don't need an e-brake or want to go through the trouble of putting all the crap from the C5 on the Fiero. So, I went with the very common 88-96 Corvette rear brakes that use a caliper based e-brake. BUT! It would look really weird to have the nice smooth C5 calipers in front and the ribbed C4 calipers in the rear. I went to work and built some custom aluminum covers to go over the calipers and make them look just like a single piston variation of the front C5 calipers. I'll shut up and let the pics do the talking.
Finished front brakes
Finished rear brakes
The rear brake components
The whole thing, but blurry...
What do you think?
-Tim
[This message has been edited by TD37 (edited 04-14-2010).]
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02:32 AM
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madcurl Member
Posts: 21401 From: In a Van down by the Kern River Registered: Jul 2003
Thanks to everyone. I highly recommend rotorpros.com. I got my set for $250 shipped and that was redrilled 5x100 and the centers coated black. I'm sure with smaller rotors that don't need to be drilled they would be much cheaper. And skip the "coating" I think its just thick epoxy paint.
-Tim
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03:01 AM
daniel87fierogt Member
Posts: 1793 From: Northern California Registered: Oct 2003
TD37- What you have done is exactly what i wanted to do. I currently have the same calipers and rotors as you do out back and in the front i have the corvette J55 heavy duty 13 inch rotors with the 2 piston calipers. But i want to upgrade the fronts to the newer C5 setup with the larger front calipers. Did you just make a simple bracket to adapt the corvette caliper bracket to the fiero knuckle? I have heard that you also have to move the bottom mount for the shock in further for caliper clearance. Is this true? Also what pads are you using? Thanks Daniel
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03:14 AM
Erik Member
Posts: 5625 From: Des Moines, Iowa Registered: Jul 2002
daniel87fierogt - I had also heard that the shock would need to be remounted. I got around that with some extra machining. You are probably very familiar with the front spindles and how the brakes mount to them. You're bracket mounts to the back of the spindle right? As the front or outside of the spindle is just cast. I machined the front of the spindle flat and used that to mount off of. That gained me a bunch of room not having the bracket hanging behind the knuckle. I also took about 1/8" off the back of the caliper itself. I'm not sure it was 100% necessary to do it but I wanted plenty of room. I should have plenty of room even at full lock. I may be really tight at full lock, but how many times are we really steering at full lock and applying the brakes hard? I went with EBC Yellowstuff pads. They are the track/street pads since I take the car on Road America from time to time. I've heard very good things but have had no experience with EBC before. A word of warning about EBC pads, whatever color they are (REDstuff, GREENstuff, YELLOWstuff), the pads come in that color. I had to re-paint my front pads black so I wouldn't have nasty looking yellow pads on my nice red calipers. The rears came black, why? I don't know...
-Tim
Here is the pick of my bracket template. I then made this out of aluminum.
[This message has been edited by TD37 (edited 04-14-2010).]
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08:54 AM
doublec4 Member
Posts: 8289 From: Oakville, Ontario, Canada Registered: Jun 2003
madcurl - The corvette on the rear is just silver vinyl. My local vinyl guy made them up for me, nothing special.
Do you have a set of rear C5 calipers yet? I had to buy a full set to get the ones I used for the fronts so I've got a pair of rears laying here that I need to get rid of if you need some. I'm assuming you want to do the covers on the C5 calipers right? I'm looking at one of the rears and there is no place to put "corvette" on it the way it is.
See -
-Tim
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04:03 PM
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madcurl Member
Posts: 21401 From: In a Van down by the Kern River Registered: Jul 2003
madcurl - The corvette on the rear is just silver vinyl. My local vinyl guy made them up for me, nothing special.
Do you have a set of rear C5 calipers yet? I had to buy a full set to get the ones I used for the fronts so I've got a pair of rears laying here that I need to get rid of if you need some. I'm assuming you want to do the covers on the C5 calipers right? I'm looking at one of the rears and there is no place to put "corvette" on it the way it is.
See -
-Tim
Yes, but thank you for the offer. Here's mine.
quote
Originally posted by madcurl:
14" Baer rear Corvette rotors/brackets/caliper @ 26.0 pounds compared to 24.0 pound using the front OEM Corvette front caliper and 13" rotor. In my case, using the Baer rear application vs. OEM (but in the rear) I'm gaining 2-pounds.
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04:24 PM
Alex4mula Member
Posts: 7403 From: Canton, MI US Registered: Dec 1999
FierociousGT - Actually, C5 are only 2 piston as well. C6 Z06 are the massive 6 piston, but every other C6 is also just a 2 piston design. I would bet that you could never tell the difference betwee the C4 HD 13" brakes and the C5 13". So someone who wanted to upgrade that way would seem trivial to me, but to each their own.
Ok, I didn't really expect this much interest in caliper covers. I am throwing around the idea of making these but I'm really not sure how to go about it. I might start a new thread asking some more experienced entrepeneurs on here how they go about their fiero side business.
-Tim
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09:59 PM
procarnut Member
Posts: 622 From: Blum, Texas USA Registered: Mar 2006
I think that is how it should be done. As you already know I did the C5 front and rears... Too much work for the back. So your combination is probably the best.
Just FYI...Remove the stock Proportioning valve from the stock Combi valve set up. It's the one under the nut in the rear of the combi-valve. Just take out the piston (red part) and Seal the vent opening in the nut. Then get yourself a Wilwood adjustable proportioning valve and put it in line between the Master cylinder and the combi-valve in the front line. Then you can adjust your brake bias. I did and it made a world of difference!.
Anyway great job and let us how it goes.
Bob
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10:14 PM
madcurl Member
Posts: 21401 From: In a Van down by the Kern River Registered: Jul 2003
I'm not sure what happened with the pics, I haven't changed anything on my cardomain site. As for an update, I've put about 400 miles on the car and went through the bed in procedure for the Yellow stuff pads that EBC wants you to do. They still are pretty squeeky from time to time and I probably should have went with the Red stuff since these brakes are going to be amazing with just about any pad; I really didn't need the semi-track pad. I've got the biased pretty well dialed in but I want to put a little more in the rear and see how that feels. I had a big test the other day coming home. I popped over a steep hill doing about 65 or so and there were 2 deer in the middle of the road. I jumped on them very hard and they stopped amazing! They didn't stop as straight as I would like them, they actually pulled a little to the left. Nothing that a little counter steer couldn't fix but not ideal. I'm hoping the bias change will cure some of that. So, I've got no complaints with any of my stuff. The rotorpros rotors still look nice and don't make much if any noise like I've heard from other slotted and drilled rotors. They will start to rust VERY fast though. Some rain came under my garage door during the deluge of the midwest a few weeks ago and overnight the rotors had an orange coloring on the pad contact surface. I'm planning on taking it on Road America in about mid July for some hot laps as long as everything stays sorted out. Before then I will pull the wheels off and inspect and double check everything. I'll update the forum after the track day hopefully with some badass pics from the track photographer. I didn't get much exposure with the blacked out stock wheels but I've got a feeling they will pay more attention with the monster brakes and new wheels.
As far as producing these, I have a feeling that it will never happen. All of my access to machines and material is pretty much gone since my dad has gone into semi-retirement from his job of 35+ years which got me all the shop time.
-Tim
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07:29 PM
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madcurl Member
Posts: 21401 From: In a Van down by the Kern River Registered: Jul 2003
As far as producing these, I have a feeling that it will never happen. All of my access to machines and material is pretty much gone since my dad has gone into semi-retirement from his job of 35+ years which got me all the shop time.
-Tim
Thanks Tim. I'm glad I got mine before your dad retired.
Originally posted by TD37: As far as producing these, I have a feeling that it will never happen. All of my access to machines and material is pretty much gone since my dad has gone into semi-retirement from his job of 35+ years which got me all the shop time. -Tim
NP, at least the proven idea has been done thanks to you.
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08:14 PM
TD37 Member
Posts: 746 From: Howards Grove, Wisconsin Registered: Jan 2004
Hey Madcurl, I'm glad you finally opened the box haha! I hope you are happy with them. Personally, I'm not very happy that the slot isn't centered on the caliper even if you can't see it.
-Tim
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08:45 PM
Jun 26th, 2008
madcurl Member
Posts: 21401 From: In a Van down by the Kern River Registered: Jul 2003
Hey Madcurl, I'm glad you finally opened the box haha! I hope you are happy with them. Personally, I'm not very happy that the slot isn't centered on the caliper even if you can't see it.
-Tim
Yeah, it’s a bit off centered, but so what. The part is definitely better looking now than before. Once it's painted and mounted nobody will tell the difference.
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03:27 PM
Feb 10th, 2009
exoticse Member
Posts: 8654 From: Orlando, Fl Registered: Jun 2003
WOW this thread came back from the dead! Basically everything Fiero stopped for me shortly after this thread because my 100k+ mile 4 speed finally gave into the big torque from the V8 and it sat from late June on. I had the e-brake working for a while basically routed like stock but with different ends. This required the cable to have a severe 90* angle off of the lower control arm. It seemed to work just fine for a few weeks even though it took a lot of pull on the handle to fully engage. But then one of the swage sleeves pulled apart and I was going to re-engineer it later because it was way too much stress on the cable and other connections. I believe the way to do it is to re-route the e-brake cables further forward in the cradle and drill new holes in the frame. I think that is what West coast Fiero suggests. Hopefully something will come to me while I've got the cradle out. Sorry, I really am no help there. I'll try to answer everyones PM's and emails about the Vette brakes but keep in mind this was a pretty simple task because I had full access to a machine shop and materials at no cost. The bracket(s) are the easy parts, modifying the front spindles is the tough part.
-Tim
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08:21 PM
Apr 24th, 2009
madcurl Member
Posts: 21401 From: In a Van down by the Kern River Registered: Jul 2003
Very nice..... I am not sure why you have the "Corvette" on the calipers still.... I would think you would want to leave that off, as it would look more custom. Just a thought.
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02:22 PM
Jan 15th, 2011
Francis T Member
Posts: 6620 From: spotsylvania va. usa Registered: Oct 2003
Very nice..... I am not sure why you have the "Corvette" on the calipers still.... I would think you would want to leave that off, as it would look more custom. Just a thought.
True, but I can see his point; whereas it don't say Chevet or MADE IN CHINA , its says CORVETTE
Extremely Nice work!!!!!!! 
