AW11 brake upgrade - cheap/easy options?

[gmacrae]

Just want this aw11 to stop better - what options are there for bolt on calliper/disc upgrades from other cars? I've got a set of lexus 4 pots sitting here... probably overkill though

Cheers

[Mr Revhead]

Isn't there a realativly easy upgrade to SW20 brakes?

[levinguy]

celica early 185 gt4 twinpots bolt on with facelift supercharged rotors for the front.

for the rear you can use the same front rotors with 3rd gen + sw20 calipers if you space the disc out 5 or 6 mm, although i think Malcolm came up with a rotor that works without spacing it.

[nz_climber]

Have you already changed the pads, fluid and discs to good quality items? This can have a massive effect on performance without costing too much

[gmacrae]

Cheers guys

Yea I know what healthy brakes feel like on one of these. But as this car needs new pads, fluid and discs at least, i figure I may as well try to upgrade things if there are some easy options.

Celica or sw20 brakes will need the discs to be redrilled... im kinda wondering if some front discs/calipers off a ae101 s/c might work? Plus rebuilding the stock rear brakes with new discs?

This guy malcolm, you able to chime in mate?

[Malcolm]

This guy can indeed, first of all I can point you to my old website which has some info:
http://fasterthanjesus.net/technical/awbrakes.html

So to add to what's written there:
I use the twin pot Celica brakes (which work with stock facelift AW11 rotors), and I'm not that happy with the brake balance you get from doing so. I'm currently looking out for some of the big single pots from the facelift ST185s which should give increased braking capacity without quite so much forward bias. I'm not aware of any disks that can be used with these without redrilling them to 4x100

On the rear, there's not much point going for the early SW20 calipers, go straight to the Gen 3+ ones (IIRC, 22V on the caliper). These have a much larger piston than the AW11 and early SW20 ones, helping to shift the bias rearward. You can use disks from a Renault Clio without having to redrill them, but there is still some work to be done, info in the first two posts here:
viewtopic.php?t=70499&start=7

That ridge on the inside I turned off with a lathe could be done carefully with an angle grinder, but you still need to sort out an adapter/spacer for the hub spigot.

[85AW20v]

I've put AE101 disks all round on my racecar, keping the AW calipers both front and rear but using the AE101 caliper mounts. Pads are Bosch Ultra - I think - and fluid is Motul 600. Stone guards are gone so there's plenty of cooling and I've never had brake fade on the track. Disks both front and rear are now a pretty blue so they must be getting hot when racing.

I also got a much better feeling brake pedal by adjusting the rod that goes through the firewall to the master cylinder and lifted the pedal off the floor further. And I can lock the brakes anytime I want even with semi-slicks on the track so there's enough braking power there.

[gmacrae]

Shit Malcolm, that's one helluva project you've done there!

Some great info thanks, but I dont have access to that kinda equipment, or time - just looking to keep it simple.

Simon, that's interesting stuff there. Just upgrading discs (as they need replacing anyway) and rebuilding the calipers - now that I can do!

So you used standard ae101 20v discs or s/c discs? Is there a certain breed/type I should look for? What brand discs did you get, or did you just find some at a wrecker? ae101's have "caliper adapters" ? so they dont just mount directly to the hubs?

[85AW20v]

Standard 101 discs - donor car was a 94 so they might be facelift. No idea on the caliper adapters. As far as I can recall the brackets I've used for the AW calipers were straight off the 101.

[gmacrae]

righto cheers guys