Guest Anonymous Posted January 10, 2001 Share Posted January 10, 2001 Well, although I'm not completely poor, I am a cheapskate. The outrageous cost of high quality brake stuff really pisses me off. Rotors that bolt onto the rear of a hub piss me off as well I was trying to find a better quality setup than the 280zx style brakes(same as 84-86 rears, which also suck ass) that will fit on with the readily available flat maxima brackets(or with flat brackets that are easy to cut from plate and require no welding or machining). Danno: any help you can provide in finding a proper offset rotor to fit with the maxima brackets would be greatly appreciated. FWIW, I have a catalog(can't remember from where) with tons of brake parts - rotors range in price up to $100 each - for small diameter thin solid rotors up to 13 inch curved vane rotors. They are all hat-style(ie. need a hat to mount) Not very expensive in my book! Hats should be cheap, there is no reason a piece of aliminum turned on a lathe with a few holes drilled in it should cost $160. $160 a pair or for a set of 4 maybe, but not each! scca: you should make a kit that uses high quality oem calipers(and rotors if possible). It would make the kit cheap, and enable people to get the calipers(and maybe rotors) cheap at a junkyard and rebuild them, or fresh rebuilds from auto zone or whatever. Perhaps I need to look into the 87-89 rear brakes? They are large vented rotors that fit on the maxima brackets. But they are a single piston sliding caliper The e-brake is cable actuated on the caliper, ie. cable clamps the caliper onto the rotor. So e-brake should be workable with no major problem. ------------------ Morgan http://z31.com/~morgan/s30 http://carfiche.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Anonymous Posted January 10, 2001 Share Posted January 10, 2001 Part of those manufacturing cost is equipment and low production volumes. Price a industrial CNC lathe or mill and you'll get the idea. They don't sell numbers in the hundred of thousands of these items so its them trying to recoup an investment. Do I like it? Hell no, but I somewhat understand it. Price some of the billet accessorie stuff. It should be cheap, I can buy 6061 billet aluminum by the ton, but it ain't easy to work at all. Cutting it in any thickness is a bitch, and even CNC equip. doesn't spit it out very quickly, takes quite a while to carve that aluminum into something. Trust me, I share your dismay at the cost, but I guess we (hybridz communitee) have to be a little shrewder and investigate other options in the braking department. I doubt every possible option has been exhausted, just the leg work hasn't been done yet to uncover it. Respectfully, Lone Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Anonymous Posted January 10, 2001 Share Posted January 10, 2001 We're not talking about 2 rotor hats or 2 caliper brackets. Someone could have 50 or 100 pair of brackets made and they shouldn't cost over $20 or so a pair if they're flat brackets. Steel plate is cheap and automated plasma cutting machines can crank them out real quick. I know a place that had some flanges made, basically a kinda-triangular piece of 1/2 inch steel plate with 4 holes cut in it. They were cut out by a cnc plasma cutting machine and they were like $8-10 each or so for somewhere around 100 flanges. Hell, I would pay $50 for a pair of brackets to allow me to bolt-on a quality brake setup in the rear. And I think there would be plenty of people who would as well. ------------------ Morgan http://z31.com/~morgan/s30 http://carfiche.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pparaska Posted January 10, 2001 Share Posted January 10, 2001 I really like the idea of finding a rear caliper off of another car that has E-brake that can be cable actuated (preferably with the 240Z cable). If a stock rotor can be found to work with a simple, cheap bracket, that's be great. Price some of Wilwood's hats and rotors - the stuff isn't astronomical and there are alot of sizes available. Here's an approach: Design a bracket that might need to be other than flat to make one of these aftermarket rotor/hat combo's work with an OE caliper. You'd have a store bought OE caliper, a light rotor/hat (my wilwood solids are like feathers), and an e-brake. You could make the same thing work with a non-flat bracket and some sort of OE rotor, I'd think. But OE vented rotors aren't very light. Weight versus money here. I think that's a viable approach. Adding the wilwood mechanical spot caliper for e-brake seems wasteful. I did it because my Wilwood setup was used and pretty cheap. Has anyone looked at Arizona Z cars current vented rear brake setup? I have the older solid rotor version and the bracket is flat, but hogged out a bit where it bolts to the strut. I know the old version rotor and hat were straight from the Wilwood catalog . Anybody know if there is an rear OE E-brake type caliper (like the early 280ZX) that is good, cheap, available, that doesn't use shoes for the e-brake? ------------------ Pete Paraska - 73 540Z - Marathon Z Project pparaska@home.com Pete's V8 Datsun 240Z Pages Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest scca Posted January 10, 2001 Share Posted January 10, 2001 all the "trick" cars use a 2 piston rear caliper with a internal ebrake inside the drum. ala Z32, porsche etc... i think there is a twin piston Floating rear caliper witha ebrake like the ZX but its not common. hence not cheap! even 98 mustang is a single piston rear floating caliper with ebrake . the problem is making a choice we could all live with and i have no idea what that is. the mustang rear brake is tiny. sure it will work but it doesnt look that much (if any) better than the maxima /ZX combo. to me making something like the 300 rotor work with a internal drum ebrake would be IDEAL with a aftermarket or 300 caliper . and all bolt on like Danno is trying to accomplish. what we need is a rear caliper like the outlaw or wilwoods that one side can be actuated mechanically for a ebrake. but that aint gonna happen.. street rods are in the same predicimate as us. either ugly rears and ebrake or like Petes with spot calipers or like mine NO ebrake... ------------------ Mike mike@fonebooth.com http://www.fonebooth.com/brakes.html raceparts and brake upgrades. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest scca Posted January 10, 2001 Share Posted January 10, 2001 while the "park locks" may be adequate they arent DOT legal. if I lived in SFran i would want a cable actuated e brake! so thats not good for all . I sold a setup to Hoover stage3 all 4 corners and spot calipers for ebrake. everyone has a different preference to what they want. while on the topic of "cheap" the spot calipers are $65 each so not cheap. they can use a flat bracket but not a straight one. depending on the rotor used. after installing them they will cost at least $200 also the spot calipers are only made for a .81" rotor at max if you used a wider rotor you would have to widen the caliper. ------------------ Mike mike@fonebooth.com http://www.fonebooth.com/brakes.html raceparts and brake upgrades. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pparaska Posted January 10, 2001 Share Posted January 10, 2001 I prefer a cable e-brake as well. The spots aren't cheap - granted, but $130 for e-brake capability was not a biggie for me. I did wait months while my machinist buddy made FREE brackets, but I was in no hurry (as usual) . Actually, I almost redesigned the AZ Z car rear brake bracket to have provisions for the spot caliper, but it was easier to just bolt a secondary one for the spot to the AZ Z car bracket. Not alot of room, but enough. It would be definitely better to do it all in one bracket though, to have the fingers to hold the spot caliper closer to the rotor. The Wilwood spot caliper is available for several different rotor thickness, but the widest is probably 0.81", I can't remember - check their site. No biggie though, just machine a new spacer to separate the two parts that hold the pads. This is how they make them fit the different rotor thicknesses anyway! And the bracket to hold the spot caliper can be other than flat, but routing a cable to it gets tricky. It's tricky enough as it is! IMO, adding the spot is not that expensive, if it were designed into a bracket that could hold the the spot caliper as well as a light aftermarket or OE caliper wouldn't add much to a set of brackets, if it were done on CNC. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Anonymous Posted January 10, 2001 Share Posted January 10, 2001 ARGH! I still like the z32 calipers and I want them I wonder how necessary a parking brake is for me anyhow Anyone got any other ideas? ------------------ Morgan http://z31.com/~morgan/s30 http://carfiche.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Danno74Z Posted January 10, 2001 Share Posted January 10, 2001 Morgan/SCCA, Thanks for the support on this. I will have Rob (a mechanical engineer with a V8Z) over to the house this weekend and perhaps he and I both can come up with something. Having a fresh set of eyes on a problem really helps. I like the Z32 setup its cheap, readily available and most of all I think it's a good brake system. Danno Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Anonymous Posted January 11, 2001 Share Posted January 11, 2001 Why not a haydraulic e-brake? I would ASSume that the only calipers where the e-brake is the normal brake caliper are going to be floating claipers. All solid mounted rear calipers probably are gonna have drum style e-brake. I could easily live with the hydraulic e-brake.... It's a pretty neat idea. You could even have all 4 wheels locked for your parking brake! I know it defeats the "emergency brake" part of e-brakes, but with separate circuits for front and rear that really shouldn't be an issue. I've never had my brakes completely fail to the point I had to rely on the e-brake..... e-brakes were originally intended as parking brakes anyway, weren't they?(latching pedal e-brakes on old american cars) edit: what about a flat bracket(ie. cheap) that incorporates ears for mounting a mechanical e-brake caliper? ------------------ Morgan http://z31.com/~morgan/s30 http://carfiche.com [This message has been edited by Morgan (edited January 10, 2001).] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Danno74Z Posted January 19, 2001 Share Posted January 19, 2001 Morgan, I had to abandon the Z32 parking brake idea because of the lack of room. However, I think I have found a way to use the caliper and rotor in conjunction with a spot mechanical caliper. I'm in the process of designing a bracket that is welded onto the side of the stub axle housing and behind where the drum setup would normally bolt up to. I went to a wreaking yard and measured the mounting bracket on a late 300ZX car. This is a flat bracket that is exactly 3" or 76mm back from the face of the hub. I was toying with the idea of having those brackets torched off but I think it would be easier just to design my own out of stock material. I'm taking one lower control arm to work and at lunch talking to my weldor. If it can be done he can do it - safety is paramount. This is really no different than aftermarket brackets that one can buy and weld onto the axle housing of an early muscle car. I saw some ready-made brackets in the Coleman racing catalog so that got me thinking. I called Coleman and the brackets are just flat ¼" stock steel in different widths and lengths to accommodate many caliper sizes. I'm going to make a template first out of thin plywood and then make the steel ones using the template as a guide. A friend at work offered to cut them for me because his wife bought him a plasma cutter for Christmas and he loves using it. Having a tool like that would be so cool! I ordered the Wilwood spot mechanical calipers today for $55.00 each so I now have spent approximately $260.00 to convert the rears over. I figure about another $150 for miscellaneous stuff so for about $400 I should have the rears converted to disk. That is not too bad a price. The rear rotors are vented and .81" thick, so I picked up that size spot caliper. Danno74Z [This message has been edited by Danno74Z (edited January 18, 2001).] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Danno74Z Posted January 19, 2001 Share Posted January 19, 2001 Good news on welding the new brackets to the lower rear crossmember. I brought one lower rear member to the welding shop and it's a go on being able to weld a caliper bracket to the strut housing, no problem. He said " When I'm done it won't come off - ever" that made my day! This weekend I will mockup a bracket out of wood and give it a shot. I just wanted to pass that news along. Danno74Z Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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