This is the culmination of an idea I've been stewing on for a while. This is just the mock-up, but definitely shows feasibility.
The setup is for 88's (or cars with 88 front suspension like mine).
It uses a 13" rotor from the 98 Cobra Mustang, and a dual piston 4'th Gen LS1 aluminum calipers.
Unlike the Corvette rotor, this setup does not move the rotor in towards the a-arms. It is almost the same depth of the stock 88 rotor. The bracket for the caliper also nearly lines up perfect with the Fiero upright, so the adapter plate is simple and bolts directly to the upright and caliper bracket.
I'll load more pictures later, and fill in the details as I work them out.
Looks good so far! Might want to put a wheel on to make sure the caliper clears the backside of the wheel. It looks like the 13" mustang rotor is about the same depth and rotor thickness as the camaro one, so this "should" be good. Also might want to put the suspension at ride height and check clearance to the upper a-arm with the wheels fully turned to the left.
[This message has been edited by fieroguru (edited 10-24-2012).]
@Fieroguru, the caliper is out about an inch from the rotor hat. Based upon the numbers I got from my friend who's running the Cobra setup on a SVO Mustang, (similar PBR caliper) the caliper was about an inch from the wheel with a 31mm offset. I currently do not have wheels to put on it, so I have to go from that, but it looks pretty good. Also, I plan on working the suspension through travel tonight.
Tonight I jacked the suspension up and found there appears to be no clearance issue beyond full droop. At fully extended, the bolt for the brake line hits the control arm at full lock. I do not think this is realistic, but something worth noting.
I also put the brake line on. My setup uses replacement 84 stainless hard lines, and 84-87 Russel stainless flex lines. With minor bending of the hardline, and moving the coupler back several inches, it appears the lines should not be an issue throughout travel. I'll post pics once I take some. Obviously, with my setup, I can not say whether a stock 88 setup would be similar.
@Fieroguru: I have the 84 rear suspension, running Celebrity wagon uprights and hubs (5x115 pattern). I'm also using the brakes and 10.25" rotors (for now).
Anyone is free to use this drawing at there own risk. I should have noted that the top of the drawing is up.
To center the caliper bracket, use a 0.090" washer as a spacer between the adapter bracket and the Fiero upright.
I still need to get 8 grade 10.9 metric bolts to finish it up. I will edit the post with the size
Bob
Edit to add the concentric ring drawing. The rings will need to be heated prior to installation. Put them in oven and pre-heat to 450*. They will drop right on. Please use at your own risk...
[This message has been edited by RCR (edited 12-06-2012).]
Doesn't look like you are getting full brake pad friction material surface to rotor surface coverage with the positioning of the Caliper in your pictures. You may want to reposition your calipers higher or lower to clear the piston bores and hub mounting ears so you can move it inwards to get full pad coverage. Moving it up would also eliminate your brake hose to control arm interference you mentioned.
Doesn't look like you are getting full brake pad friction material surface to rotor surface coverage with the positioning of the Caliper in your pictures. You may want to reposition your calipers higher or lower to clear the piston bores and hub mounting ears so you can move it inwards to get full pad coverage. Moving it up would also eliminate your brake hose to control arm interference you mentioned.
You are correct. In a designed to fit system, the brake pad contact would be better. I didn't have the pads when I first did this, so I couldn't verify fit.
I do have the pads now and verified that they DO overlap the rotor. However, as seen in this photo: I verified that the contact area is the same as the Mustang Cobra the rotor came off of.
I also looked at repositioning the caliper bracket.The bracket can not be moved to a different position that gets any closer to the rotor without major modifications to the upright ears. I wanted to keep this as simple a bolt-on as possible.
I get what your saying about your caliper placement, when I made my 12" brackets I had to use countersunk machine screws and have the bracket to knuckle holes taper countersunk to allow me to get the calipers as snug as possible and that added to the initial complexity and pretty much doubled the cost of machine work to mine. I went through 7 templates untill I got them how I wanted them. I used hardwood blanks for my templates, that made it easier to work with and faster to get it figured out.
[This message has been edited by jelly2m8 (edited 11-23-2012).]
No big update. I'll be buying the new rotors soon. We also had some warm weather last weekend, so I painted the calipers and all of the brackets. Hopefully somethng new soon.
The rotors have arrived and I drilled the 5x100 pattern in them this morning. I used the old hub, with a hub spacer, to locate the holes. I tried to center them on the old holes as much as possible. I temporarily installed everything to get an idea how it will work out.
I purchased some 17x7 wheels to get the car rolling again and ran into an issue.
The caliper just touches the wheel. I find going to 18" wheels unacceptable for this brake swap, so I'm working on Adapters 2.0. I also will take care of the pad contact mentioned above. Look for an update forth coming.
Lookin good Bob. Have you had a chance to weigh the combination of rotor, caliper and bracket yet? I'd be curious to know what the difference is between this set up and the 12" C4 conversion.
Blooze...You know, I weighed both this setup and the original 88 when I first started, but I have no idea what I did with the numbers. IIRC, the new setup was a good 10-12 lbs heavier.
Doublec4:
Update:
Everything is back together, but I'm waiting for some wheel spacers. It looks like the wheels are 17x7 et 47ish. I'm going to put 5mm spacers on for added clearance.
New brackets with an old one.
I used 1.5" x 1/4" bar stock for the spacers.
Put back together.
I will update the drawings accordingly.
Bob
[This message has been edited by RCR (edited 04-13-2013).]
At the time I didn't really see the need. The wheels in the pics were temporary anyway. Since the project has changed scope with the body kit, the wheels I did get are 18".
Bob
After rereading my original post, I wanted to add that it was my intent to make sure this upgrade worked for existing 17" wheels, and not force someone to upgrade. I wanted it to be a cheap upgrade. That most anyone could do.
[This message has been edited by RCR (edited 11-25-2015).]
I'm wondering if your bracket would work to mount this caliper to the rear of an 88 as well? I know you would need to figure the parking brake out if you care about such things, but it would certainly be an impressive stopping setup if it would mount up. Also what are you doing with the master cylinder? Will the factory master be sufficient, or will you require a larger bore master to provide enough fluid for these calipers?
I'm wondering if your bracket would work to mount this caliper to the rear of an 88 as well? I know you would need to figure the parking brake out if you care about such things, but it would certainly be an impressive stopping setup if it would mount up. Also what are you doing with the master cylinder? Will the factory master be sufficient, or will you require a larger bore master to provide enough fluid for these calipers?
I have no idea about the back. My car is an 84 and still uses the older cradle. Everything is heavy duty, using Celebrity uprights, but it's still different than the 88. As for the master cylinder, I didn't have any real issue stopping, but I've had minimal time on it since starting the body work.
could also use 2004 subaru sti front rotors 12.84" and come in 5x100 bolt pattern already. hat height is also very close. just my .02
I got a note from DKCustoms. He said he tried using the STI rotors, but they have a smaller hub bore diameter. I don't know what the size difference is.
Bob
Edit...Looking at the drawings on Rock Auto, the 88 Fiero and 04 STI look to share a very close 58mm bore. Hmm??
Edit2: DKCustoms cleared up my confusion. Although the STi and Fiero share similar hub bores, the rotor hat inner diameter is smaller than the Fiero hub. The hub will not fit into the rotor without machining.
Bob
[This message has been edited by RCR (edited 12-15-2015).]
Are these kits still available? How much are they? And what car are they from?
Not a kit. I was more interested in moving the community forward than making a profit, so I posted everything I did so anyone with some fab skills and basic tools could make it.
Brake calipers from Camaro. Rotors from a Mustang.
If you need a bolt on kit, Feiroguru makes a nice setup.
Bob
[This message has been edited by RCR (edited 03-10-2017).]
