... I will try to get the difference measurments as suggested and add them to the existing dimensions. I can see how that would make things easier on your end.
Jon
Thanks I'm waiting for the right time to sneak some $$ out of savings without "you know who" noticing it
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10:15 PM
Aug 20th, 2008
kennn Member
Posts: 272 From: Green Valley, AZ USA Registered: Apr 2006
I just looked on the web site and it listed prices for the adapter kit but what would it cost for the whole set for an 88 calipers,roters,adapters,lines, and the spots a complete ready to go kit. Held seams to be a little high and I want to compare apples to apples. I will be doing this to mine but a little price shoping is always good.
Everything is priced online. Find the kit you need, select the options you want from the dropdown boxes (calipers, rotors, etc.), add to cart. Each dropdown box shows the additional cost of the option (some options are no cost), and when you add it to your shopping cart it will total it all up for you.
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04:36 PM
Aug 21st, 2008
Austrian Import Member
Posts: 3919 From: Monterey, CA Registered: Feb 2007
I just looked on the web site and it listed prices for the adapter kit but what would it cost for the whole set for an 88 calipers,roters,adapters,lines, and the spots a complete ready to go kit. Held seams to be a little high and I want to compare apples to apples. I will be doing this to mine but a little price shoping is always good.
You can price out the total. IIRC it's around $1300 incl everything and premium cross drilled rotors and DOT approved lines (whatever that means). The total is much, much cheaper than Held. It's easy to just price it out online and add all to cart. (Then you'll know about the total incl. shipping. )
I can break any kit down into whatever parts you need. Please contact me through the website or email rockcrawl at FieroAddiction.com if you would like to order a front-only kit or any other non-standard kit. I will quote a price and give payment instructions via email.
Jon
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06:27 PM
Nov 14th, 2008
Austrian Import Member
Posts: 3919 From: Monterey, CA Registered: Feb 2007
I'm looking at getting one, just comtemplating if my wheels will actually fit or not. (17 x7.5") I'm thinking they will, but still unsure.
Email Fieroaddiction, or even PM him (in this thread). He's very helpful and will work with you. He even has a template to print out to see if it will work with your wheels.
I'm hoping more people will post pictures that bought Fieroaddiction's kit. Maybe Fieroaddiction could post some "customer shots" if his customers sent him some. (I understand a lot of kit car owners use his kits, which might not post on PFF)
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10:07 PM
Jun 24th, 2009
Austrian Import Member
Posts: 3919 From: Monterey, CA Registered: Feb 2007
just a question but do you really need this much brake? the fiero is a relatively light car 2800-3200#smax, a properly balanced 11.25 inch lebaron disc with the s10 front and seville rear calipers with a good set of high perf pads would be more than enough stopping power with no fade over hard use for any fiero, no matter what power mods it had. once you can lock all 4 wheels with no fade over use there is no benefit to bigger brakes.
i know the giant rotors look cool, but they also add unspung weight and rotating mass, neither of which is good for handling, accelleration, or braking. just my 2 cents, knock yourself out if this is the route you want to go
just a question but do you really need this much brake? the fiero is a relatively light car 2800-3200#smax, a properly balanced 11.25 inch lebaron disc with the s10 front and seville rear calipers with a good set of high perf pads would be more than enough stopping power with no fade over hard use for any fiero, no matter what power mods it had. once you can lock all 4 wheels with no fade over use there is no benefit to bigger brakes.
i know the giant rotors look cool, but they also add unspung weight and rotating mass, neither of which is good for handling, accelleration, or braking. just my 2 cents, knock yourself out if this is the route you want to go
Brakes have a little do do with weight, that's correct. All brakes do is convert friction to heat. Tires actually stop the car. The benefit of larger brakes like that with 4-calipers is evenly grabbing brake pads, and the ability to convert more friction to heat, and dissipate the heat better. Grassroots Motorsports actually had a GREAT article about that. Unfortunately I cannot find it at the moment.
[...] While almost every current passenger car is capable of a single stop from maximum speed at or near the limit of tire adhesion, the braking systems of most passenger vehicles and light trucks and some sports cars are not adequate for hard or sport driving or for towing. Most stock brake systems lack sufficient thermal capacity; the system's ability to absorb and transfer heat by conduction, convection and radiation into the air or surrounding structure during severe driving. In addition, many stock calipers and their mountings are structurally not stiff enough at higher line pressures and the resultant higher clamping loads.
That's why even though there's enough front brake torque to lock the front wheels at highway legal speeds, caliper flex at the increased system pressure required to stop the car from high speed may prevent wheel lock-up. Needless to say, most OEM brake pads are also not designed for severe use, since cold stopping performance and quiet operation typically are considered more important to new car buyers.
There are a few basic facts that must always be kept in mind when discussing brake systems: 1) The brakes don't stop the vehicle, the tires do. The brakes slow the rotation of the wheels and tires. This means that braking distance measured on a single stop from a highway legal speed or higher is almost totally dependent upon the stopping ability of the tires in use, which, in the case of aftermarket advertising, may or may not be the ones originally fitted to the car by the OE manufacturer.
2) The brakes function by converting the kinetic energy of the car into thermal energy during deceleration, producing heat, lots of heat, which must then be transferred into the surroundings and into the air stream. [...]
I agree, the 11.25 Le Baron rotors is probably all that's needed. This setup is most likely overkill (on the street it definitely is). It will come in handy on track days, and track day driving schools. (where I practice things such as threshold braking for nearly 1 hour straight (with only brief pauses in between) ) It'll also be nice on windy mountain roads where I use the brakes near constantly on longer downhill parts.
unsprung weight isn't the only weight you gain with larger calipers and rotors. you will also gain rotational mass from the rotors which is even more difficult to overcome. unsprung weight is bad, rotating unsprung weight is doubly bad. if you ad enough weight to the unsprung side of your suspension you may overpower the springs and shocks ability to control the motions in the suspension effectively, resulting in a loss of control.
i agree multi piston calipers are better and will provide a much higher quality [even] clamping force to the brake rotor. that being said a multi piston caliper on a smaller rotor [less rotational mass] will work better than on a larger rotor [more rotational mass] as long as you have enough thermal capacity to dissipate the heat created.
the fiero is a relatively light, well balanced [weight distribution wise] car. there are many 88 fiero road racers in the scca who are running stock brakes just adding high performance pads with excellent results without any fade issues. the 88 brakes are far superior to the earlier setup having vented rotors and better calipers so i won't give them much credit, but autocrossers often just upgrade the pads on these earlier cars to keep down the rotational mass with excellent resullts and minimal fade [granted there is much less heat load over time in an autocross setup].
you are right it's all about absorbing and dissipating heat. as long as your brakes can do this you will have no fade and certainly with big 13 inch vented rotors and multipiston calipers you will definitely have no fade, you will be increasing the loads on your suspension however, which will hurt handling, accelleration, and even braking distance.
the big brakes look killer, i certainly won't deny that. if looks are a big part of what you're after there is definitely no beating the monster rotor/caliper setups. and these brakes won't be junk either as long as the system is properly balanced. they just won't be the best.
all i'm saying is on a fiero if you're solely after a max performance brake setup, those killer monster rotors will lose to a properly balanced smaller rotor setup like the lebaron setup because even this setup has more than enough thermal capacity for sustained high performance threshold braking. heck i even think the lebaron rotor may be too big.
for an all out track car i would want some big multi piston calipers on a not so monsterous rotor. as long as the thermal capacity is there, it will simply work better.
i don't know why i'm argueing with you, i can't deny the appeal of the big brakes. build what you want, i like the big rotor look too. but for me it's more about the performance than just the look. the wheels on my car are 17s and the lebaron rotors fill them in nicely, if your wheels are larger they may not look as proportional.
good luck with your brake project. i hope it works fantastic for you thanks for your time, chris
------------------ 88blackchopv8
[This message has been edited by av8fiero (edited 06-26-2009).]
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12:12 AM
aaronkoch Member
Posts: 1643 From: Spokane, WA Registered: Aug 2003
I previously had the Held kit (well, actually I bought them when they were the Ryanne kit) on my 86se, and although the brakes were oh-my-goodness-i-crapped-my-pants good (12" kit), some of the other stuff left me scratching my head. My kit came with NO centering rings for the rotor hats, they came with custom front spindles that allowed the wheels to turn too far resulting in tire rubbing control arm, and they powder coated the inside of the taper bore in the spindles which led the ball-joints to get loose after all the powder coat worked out.
As far as the unsprung weight, I actually dropped quite a bit of weight on each corner. Those calipers are LIGHT, and the wilwood rotor hats are aluminum (very light). The rotors themselves were about an inch thick if i remember correctly, and they didn't weigh all that much.
It looks like fieroaddiction addresses all the shortcomings of the Ryanne kit, but if you guys are considering going with bigger brakes, please consider purchasing the wilwood hats and rotors. They are in a different league when it comes to weight. Fieroking has my old setup now, I'll see if I can get him to weigh one of my old hat/rotor combos to show the difference..
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01:08 AM
Kemp3 Member
Posts: 282 From: Carmel Valley CA, USA Registered: Sep 2007
to chime in on the big brakes, one thing overlooked is the leverage you get with the larger rotors. The further away it gets from center then greater the leverage the caliper has over the rotor. So yes while a larger rotor does weigh more , it also allows for the caliper to create greater stopping power. Which way is more efficient I don't know as I have never read any comparisons on this subject or done any testing.
just my 2 cents
-Jared
[This message has been edited by Kemp3 (edited 06-26-2009).]
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01:09 AM
Dan_Seattle Member
Posts: 235 From: Seattle, WA,USA Registered: Jan 2007