Not on my Z, but maybe usefull info?

[datsunlover]

Figured I'd write a little blurb about my home made brake upgrade on my 85 Mazda RX7. It's a fairly similar car to the s30 Z's (weight, size, SMALL factory front brakes, ect) and I've got a burly chev 350 up front now... yah. stock wasn't gona cut it. Sooo... started messing around.. After a week or so of annoying the parts store people, some late nights at work (after hours) and about $350, I've managed to get rotors/calipers and pads from 95+ ford Contour/Mercury Mystique (sp?) attached to the Mazda's front struts. (acording to my friend at Ford, they are about a 3700 pound car.)

 

The hard part was making 'hubs' out of the old rx7 rotors. The stock rotors are a slide on rotor, with the typical tapered bearings, nut and cotter pin, but have a raised 'hub' area sticking out off the rotor surface (kind of like a dually truck..) with the stud pattern THREADED in them. grrrr.. I hated that anyway. So I turned down the rotor surface enough to get in from the back side, and milled out (through the old Mazda pattern, which is 4x110mm... stupid..) the 'new' pattern into them and pressed in studs. (This whole affair obviously wouldn't be required on a Z however)

 

As for bolting the calipres on, I just made some brackets out of 1/2" alluminum to bolt to both the new caliper and the existing strut mount. Spaced accordingly to center the caliper/pads on the rotor with some thick washers. I know the ford 4.250" patern is diffrent than the Z's, but redrilling to the 114.3 wouldn't be too hard imho. The calipers are single piston, but they're HUGE (almost the size of the ones from my old 91 GMC 1 tone dually!) and the pad area is about double from stock, which also is pretty close to the Z. Now.. although the initial cost of the calipers is a hit (about $160 a piece), $25 a rotor and $40 for pads is alright by me!

 

Obviously, this wouldn't be a simple 'copy and paste' to work on a Z, but possibly another option to the toyota swap.. And I have to say I'm VERY happy with how they work.. I only WISH the Z would stop like this! It's actually better than my girl's 2004 Sentra SER! (although she has ABS... Meh..) The stock master cylinder seams to work them very well, although it travels a little further before the brakes grab.. to be expected though, seeing as I've increased the volume of fluid that is required to work them, which the stock master wasn't intended for.

 

Anyway, thought this may be of intrest to someone, I'll try to get some pics if anyone wants.