There's so much cross conversation and information in this thread that at 15 16 pages (woot! I own page 16!) it's almost impossible to glean specific information from it. I don't know if it's possible, but is there a chance one of you guys whose been elbow deep in this swap from the start could give us a brief rundown of the swap? Basically, if I understand correctly, we're talking Lebaron 11 1/4" rotors, (all rears?) using these custom brackets, which require different spacers for the front and rear, mounting standard late model GM metric calipers, such as the fronts off of a 90's S-10 Blazer. And the Lebaron rotors need to be redrilled for the 5x100 bolt pattern (or is it already that pattern?) and the center need to be enlarged to accommodate the Fiero hub. Is that close?
Oh, and I'll get in line for a set of the brackets....

[This message has been edited by Taijiguy (edited 10-19-2007).]

If anybody is still reading this thread, would one of you guys who has done this (or who knows) comment on the MC swap. Is it necessary? would it be even better if it was combined with the so-called "$100 brake upgrade" discussed elsewhere here? Would the booster from the 92 Blazer used in this 11.25" upgrade work with the 92 Blazer MC or should I use the 97 Blazer booster from the $100 upgrade?
Thanks.

Would the booster from a '92 Blazer work with a MC from a '92 Blazer? Probably...

I don't recall much discussion of MC's in this thread. Hydraulically, this is the same 11.25" upgrade that's been available for ever and ever. The only difference is mechanical fitment of the calipers. If it worked for the traditional 11.25" upgrade with Camaro calipers, it'll work with the S10 calipers.

quote Originally posted by Taijiguy: There's so much cross conversation and information in this thread that at 15 16 pages (woot! I own page 16!) it's almost impossible to glean specific information from it. I don't know if it's possible, but is there a chance one of you guys whose been elbow deep in this swap from the start could give us a brief rundown of the swap? Basically, if I understand correctly, we're talking Lebaron 11 1/4" rotors, (all rears?) using these custom brackets, which require different spacers for the front and rear, mounting standard late model GM metric calipers, such as the fronts off of a 90's S-10 Blazer. And the Lebaron rotors need to be redrilled for the 5x100 bolt pattern (or is it already that pattern?) and the center need to be enlarged to accommodate the Fiero hub. Is that close? Oh, and I'll get in line for a set of the brackets....

If you're using 4 REAR Lebaron rotors, the answer is no to both redrilling or enlarging center hole.

The LeBaron bolt pattern is already 5x100.
The REAR rotors have the same pilot diameter as the Fiero.
The FRONT rotors have a larger pilot than the Fiero hub and will require centering rings.

Hey Guys,

Thumbed through all 16 pages of this thread...............whew!
I couldn't seem to find a functioning link to the necessary .dwg drawings to build these?
Does anyone have the file that they could email me?

I am building a track car and will most definately be going with the Wilwood Metric calipers.
I never saw an actual confirmation that its a go with using these? Anyone got any info?

My other question is if anyone has considered cutting these brackets from lets say 7075 Aluminum?
I have a friend who is a machinist and can build these brackets pretty easily. SInce I am working
with a track car, I want to minimize the unsprung weight as much as possible.

Thoughts?

Regards
Bernie

quote Originally posted by Bernie: Hey Guys, Thumbed through all 16 pages of this thread...............whew! I couldn't seem to find a functioning link to the necessary .dwg drawings to build these? Does anyone have the file that they could email me? I am building a track car and will most definately be going with the Wilwood Metric calipers. I never saw an actual confirmation that its a go with using these? Anyone got any info? My other question is if anyone has considered cutting these brackets from lets say 7075 Aluminum? I have a friend who is a machinist and can build these brackets pretty easily. SInce I am working with a track car, I want to minimize the unsprung weight as much as possible. Thoughts? Regards Bernie

7075 should work just fine. Again, I may be able to help you here. Depends in part on how quickly you need these things.

------------------
FierOmar

Not a huge rush,

I will probably start collecting parts over the next few weeks.
BTW - I emailed you from the email address in your profile, did you get it?
Just checking cause I never heard back from you?
You can email me at b2nomad/at/sbcglobal.net


Cheers
Bernie

quote Originally posted by Bernie: Not a huge rush, I will probably start collecting parts over the next few weeks. BTW - I emailed you from the email address in your profile, did you get it? Just checking cause I never heard back from you? You can email me at b2nomad/at/sbcglobal.net Cheers Bernie

Bernie, I got it and will respond by tomorrow. I'm heading to Buttonwillow today. Come on up if you have a chance. I'm in the red SRT4 Neon ACR (street car).

FierOmar

Crap!!

I "AM" coming to Buttonwillow today but not until tonight!
I have a motorcycle trackday tomorrow (Monday) with the Track Club.

Good luck with the SRT!

Cheers
Bernie

I did discover another difference between the Camaro calipers and the S truck calipers.

According to http://www.speedbleeder.com...ile_applications.htm
The Camaro calipers take a different bleeder screw P/N for 82-87 (SB1015) than for 88-96 (SB1010).
The S truck is listed as taking the same bleeder for '82-'96 (SB1015).

However, I think there is at least one error in that catalog.

so I gather the 5 degree rears are the way to go for parking brake clearance. This looks like a great upgrade!

[This message has been edited by USFiero (edited 05-10-2008).]

My motive here is two-fold...

1st, I absolutely love this thread and wanted to be sure it surfaced again...

2nd, I am making five sets of brackets (Regular fronts and 5* rears). One set is for myself, and the other four will be offered at cost when they are complete. I'm working in the Netherlands for a few months and will be fabricating these brackets while there... so it may be several months before the brackets are in the States... They should be well worth the wait however. I have had them laser cut from 8mm 304 stainless steel, the spacers will be tig welded to the brackets, and the brackets will be electro-polished when complete. The best part is that the total cost should be around $70 per set of four...

I know that by now 50% of you are saying BS! That's fine... When I have a set complete, I will post some pics (six weeks or so)... If there is much of an interest then I will try to get more sets made while I am here and bring back to the States (I have free time). I will not expect any payment in advance and will try to keep everyone posted on my progress. I don't intend to make any money off of these either seeing as how the drawings came from this thread Please let me know how many additional sets I should try to run... 5 sets are basically the same cost as 1 set... 50 sets may be even better, but may not fit in my checked luggage and will have to be shipped to the States...

I decided to use the 11.2" LeBaron upgrade on the race car, ostensibly so that I could keep my already purchased race wheels and tires as well as run the GT 15" rims when I needed to run DOT legal tires. Not the case.

I'm quite sure the stock type, iron calipers WILL fit in the 15" wheels. I've compared them and have no doubt they will.

The Wilwood GM Metric Calipers, which is what I decided to use based on the 3# weight, will NOT fit in a 15" wheel. Neither my stock GT wheels would fit over them or the Diamond steel race wheels. They rub, very slightly, on the inner diameter of the wheel.

Again, with the Wilwood's, they are also very, very, VERY close to hitting the inside of the wheel itself and, in fact, hit the valve stem of the Diamond wheels (which is on the inner side of the face to keep from getting it torn off if wheel to wheel contact should occur). Just barely, but it would.

That said, I gave up and went with 17X8 wheels and 245 40 ZR 17 Kuhmo tires all around. (unlike street cars, our weight distribution is very close to 50/50 with two people in the cabin so we run the same size tires front and rear)

A few other notes about the Wilwoods.

They use 1/8" NPT ports. You can put the bleeder in either port with the supplied fitting from them, so that's nice. You don't have to worry about a right or left caliper. What is not nice is if you use a straight 1/8" NPT to AN-3 or AN-4 adapter, you can't get the lower caliper bolt out without breaking the connection. IOW, a pad change would require a brake bleeding. We got around that by getting a set of 4 street 45° fittings and going in the port with them. We had to grind the edges off of them to get clearance for them to screw in, but not much. 90° will NOT go in, not enough room. Once you have the 45's in, you still have to carefully orient them to make sure you're not going to rub the lines on the wheels.

The back of the calipers WILL make contact with the lower shock mount. We modified the turn stops so they can't. It keeps us from turning quite so short, but on a race car that's not a big deal, not much call for parking it at the mall.

The adapters for the Fiero brake lines are 10mm by 1.0 pitch metric with a bubble flare, if you're interested. Our lines, fittings, and odds and ends cost about $90 from Speedway Motors in Lincoln, NE. We used 26" lines.

Remember, the Wilwoods are RACE calipers, they have no dust seals and would be very short lived on the street. Don't use them for what they're not intended, please.

We first got a set of the front rotors and I didn't like the way they fit. They would have needed concentric rings (not a big deal, I could have turned them out in about an hour) but they made the Wilwoods run even closer to the inside of the wheel, which I didn't like at all. The spacers also had to be about 3/8" longer, IIRC, and I didn't like that either. I weighed both the front and rear rotors from the LeBaron and the difference was only about #1. The rears weigh 150 oz., slotted and dimpled, the fronts weighed 136 oz.

I had GrandAm brakes on the car before and when I think about it, I'll weigh the iron GM Calipers and compare them to the Wilwoods. The GrandAm rotors feel just as heavy as the LeBaron's, but I didn't weigh them.

If I knew before I started what I know now, I would not have gone the LeBaron route, I'd have gone the 12" 'vette brake swap since I had to get new wheels anyway, but that's water under the bridge. I'm sure this will be a big improvement over the GrandAm setup in weight alone, and the GrandAm's had much better braking than the stock brakes.

John Stricker

Does anyone have or know a part number for speedbleeders that will fit the caddy calipers?

Well, I had some scaling issues in AutoCAD on my first set of drawings... But I'm feeling much better now...
I have a run scheduled for 5 sets of brackets. The rears are of the 5* design. Additionally, I have opted to make them from 10mm 304 instead of 8mm for added strength... The good news is that the move from 8mm to 10mm material will add almost nothing to the cost; should still be at or under $70 per set (less if the Euros-per-Dollar goes up more in the next few weeks).

I have these scheduled to run on the laser on the 1st of Oct. I'll try to get some pics up after they are cut...

Ok, ok... I've been a little busy over here, so excuse my tardiness...
It looks like all 4 extra sets of brackets are spoken for (Fiero STS, mike.call, Fiero4Seven, and toddvero) and here is a pic of the laser cut pieces. They still need to be finished... My schedule now is to be back in the States around the beginning of December, so I should be able to get these knocked out and hopefully shipped before Christmas. I'll let you know when they are complete so that you can get me addresses, I'll quote shipping, and you guys can pay using PayPal... Looks like $70 for a set of 4 is still a good number...

I'm glad to see someone got to take up where I had to leave off! It is soooooo much better if you do not need to rely someone else to cut these things out.....definitely will help keep the cost down. It was getting sooooo thin after my fifth or sixth run that I could not get enough people interested which caused alot of people to have to wait for me to hit my needed 10 sets (minimum commercial run). Good luck with this!

Does anyone have a set of brackets for an 88 12' Corvette rotor swap?

Or if they want I will trade my 84-87 12' brakets with rings for 88 12' brackets.

quote Originally posted by blcknd: Ok, ok... I've been a little busy over here, so excuse my tardiness... It looks like all 4 extra sets of brackets are spoken for (Fiero STS, mike.call, Fiero4Seven, and toddvero) and here is a pic of the laser cut pieces. They still need to be finished... My schedule now is to be back in the States around the beginning of December, so I should be able to get these knocked out and hopefully shipped before Christmas. I'll let you know when they are complete so that you can get me addresses, I'll quote shipping, and you guys can pay using PayPal... Looks like $70 for a set of 4 is still a good number...

blcknd - Any update on the progress of these brackets? I was hoping to do this as a spring project soon....Thanks.

Me, too!

I'm interested in a set as well, have cash in hand and a need to get my Fiero on the road. Anyone have a set for sale, or am I going to have to get another batch of 10 going myself?

I've already got my machinist spun up on these brackets, and he's asking if there's any interest over here. If no one else is producing these, I can probably get a run of the 10*'s done in short order.

One way or another, let me know!

I'm interested in a set of brackets as well; not sure on the 5 deg. or 10 deg. difference (alignment of banjo fitting??)
Depending on the cutting method + cost + shipping up to Canada.

John
86 - GT - 5 speed

Awesome, thought I was just talking to the wind here.

My machinist says he will ship to Canada.

Any other interested parties?

Bump and update:
Machinist states we can get these brackets for $132 shipped (probably slightly more to Canada) but the cost comes down with more orders. We need a minimum order of 10 sets.

The parts will be machined on a CNC mill, will be tapped and ready to go. All you'd have to do is paint them if desired. His work is top-notch, and I've seen his work firsthand.

Come on folks, my Fiero needs the brakes done on it and I don't want to wait 2-3 months to get some brackets. I'll do this with or without you. Don't miss out on doing this upgrade!

EDIT: I'm also not making a single red cent on this, so please don't think I'm pricegouging you.

[This message has been edited by GS Jon (edited 04-25-2009).]

UPDATE: I'm getting the ball rolling on this, I want my Fiero on the road. I'm having 3 sets made at a pretty high initial cost so I can prove to anyone sitting on the fence that these brackets will work. One other set of brackets are already spoken for by a friend of mine. I should have them in hand probably 2 weeks from today, and will post pics of the finished product and the installation.

Machinist is putting the material on the machine and beginning to cut the brackets as I type this.

Don't know about you guys, but I'm excited! I'll get pics up when I can.

Front bracket being cut:

Aaaaaannd....

They're done!



$130 shipped to the continental US. Lemme know if you're interested. Two sets are sold, two sets are left. 10* rear bracket design. Don't miss out!

Could you make brackets like that for 13" (actually 12.89" IIRC) Corvette brakes? Are the 12" brackets still available?

http://www.aa-mfg.com/pdsho.../item.aspx?itemid=21

could this be made to work for the front brackets?
seems easy enough to drill two holes in it. It is only 1/4, is that enough? is 3/8 overkill?

Small GM Caliper Bracket Front
Item #:
AA-113B
Price/ea:
$9.53
$7.50 (20 - 9999)

1/4" Steel
5 1/2" Between hole centers
fits GM metric style caliper




scott

[This message has been edited by rudytj (edited 07-29-2009).]

I'm bringing this back from the dead! Okay so these are some OLD pics I found. I realized I never posted them. I daily drive my car with these brakes, and they get quite a work out. One thing I noticed is that the pads I was using were over hanging the rotor. I'm not sure if its the brand of pads or what. I don't think it affects anything but it prevented me from getting the caliper off. I had to break off the piece of brake pad to slide it off. Just took a few blows with a hammer/screwdriver but worth pointing out...







New stuffs...

[This message has been edited by Jncomutt (edited 01-21-2010).]

Does anyone have the CAD files anymore? I'm trying to find them online, all the links in this thread seem to be dead.

~bump~ Anybody?

Which CAD files:

- Original Zettner
- 5 degree rotated
- 10 degree rotated

Sorry about the late reply, I had given up. Any would be nice, is there a benefit to the rotations? I'd prefer the most refined design as it would probably be the best. I sent you a pm incase you had given up on my reply.

Thanks,

Bump

I sent you a PM with a link to drawings and photos of all of the brackets.

------------------
Engineer Bill

EngineerBill.com

This is the Beretta brake "upgrade" I formerly had on the front of The Mule


Previously modified front hubs


Will's special caliper bracket. This bracket is designed for the 4WD S10/Caddy calipers and will NOT work with the Camaro calipers typically used on this swap. The F-body calipers have a nub protruding right in the middle of the bracket. This significantly reduces the section thickness of the bracket. The F-body calipers also have the hose connections at the bottom and require longer than stock brake hoses. The 4wd S10/Caddy calipers have the hose connection at the top and can be used with stock brake hoses.


These are the spacers required between the knuckle and caliper bracket for use with the LeBaron rear rotor. They are 0.380" thick.


This is a LeBaron rear rotor. It is strange. It is also blue, but that isn't important. I has the same pilot bore diameter as the Fiero brake hardware and does not require hub centric rings.


Caliper mounted


Caliper clearance from the bracket. The spacer thickness adjusts this gap. A thicker spacer will move the bracket to the right. The caliper will move to the left and the gap will increase as the pad wears.


This is the spacer stack required to use the LeBaron FRONT rotor. It has a pair of 0.380" spacers as with the rear rotor, but ALSO has a pair of 0.430" spacers stacked. The total height is 0.810.


This is the hub centric ring I had to make to use the front rotor, as it has a larger hub pilot bore than the rear rotor. (WTF, Chryco? Bob Lutz, this is all your fault)


Because the mount for the hose connection is in a different orientation than it is on the stock calipers and the profile of the caliper around the hose connection requires a specific orientation of the fitting, the hoses end up twisted 180 degrees out from their factory position. To correct this, I needed to untwist the body end 180 degrees. However, the body ends are keyed into the brackets that support them. I used a small triangle file to modify the bracket to allow this.


With the LeBaron 16x6 wheels and the FRONT rotor, caliper clearance with the GM calipers is tight.

[This message has been edited by Will (edited 10-24-2010).]