quadnie

Vince has a good setup and gave a good synopsis of the proper feel a big brake kit will show.

One thing that must be noted aside from bigger rotors is larger pads and calipers. To go along with the larger 11" rotors I have the larger caliper, not the standard 10" caliper. The typical 9" rotor had a dinky caliper to go along with it (yeah, my rear 10" calipers are larger). The larger diameter piston offers more contact area for a bigger pad to be used. Fastbrakes is one of the very few who offer an aftermarket solution for the honda crowd. I on the other hand have enough metal machining tools that I can seek cheaper routes; of course utilizing the larger calipers available. These calipers are OEM and can be found stock on ITR, Prelude VTEC, Accord V6, Accord Wagon, Odyssey, CRV, and most all the Mid-Full sized acura cars... if absolutely necessary I can provide pics of the various braking components - but the above mentioned calipers/rotors are beefy and surprisingly larger than a stock 7 thousand pound tahoe.

I have spent many hours researching the best bang for the buck in brake upgrades and know the direction to take. Currently I have the drilled/slotted zinc plated rotors (yes I know most drilled will stress under high stress applications) but I bought them because they were cheaper than dealership/brembo blanks and offer the complete bling factor for my neegro-tastic ride.

I have quite a few excess parts up for sale if anybody is interested. PM me

sharkytm

I agree that you need a new proportioning valve if you swap to discs, never said that you didn't.
I've never had an OEM wheel cylinder fail, unless it was really old, like 150K+miles. Don't buy wheel cylinders from AutoZone or Napa, buy them from the dealer, or get the same MFR's parts. Cheap wheel cylinders fail constantly, I know, I used to work at AutoZone. As for the "awful pedal travel", thats determined by the MC diameter (diameter*travel*pi=volume), not the wheel cylinder's inherent crappiness. You want a smaller pedal travel, upgrade to a larger MC. Nonetheless, read my final statement.

So increasing your rear braking power decreased the rear-end lock up? Sorry, I don't buy it. If you were overpowering the tires with the small brakes, upgrading them certainly would have made it worse, not better.

I realize that everyone and their brother has an opinion on this issue, but I've done a bunch of testing on my cars, friend's cars, and done the actual calculations. The science doesn't lie, people are biased, and 90% of the time, brake "feel" is completely and utterly qualatative. No numbers=everyone is right... So, go out with a properly maintained stock brake setup and either ABS, or a trained driver who can threshold brake, and put up some stopping distances. Then upgrade that car's brakes to rear disc, a different MC, and whatever you want (including pad material switches, fluid, lines, whatever), and put up those stopping differences. I'm not talking about 10 100-0 stops in a row, I'm talking a single 60-0 or 75-0 stop. If there's a difference (and I'm not talking about 2ft) under controlled circumstances, I'll be amazed.

danronian

I don't know, I think rear drums tend to hate me. I've only ever had one rear disc related problem ever (one slider siezed), but I've replaced about 6 different rear leaking wheel cylinders, and about 3 sets of brake shoes, and one complete rebuild kit (all springs were breaking). Given, this was on three different cars, only two were Hondas. But I just hate drums. Maybe it's a salt thing messing them up with the roads here in the winter....I don't know. I just like rear discs (minus buying the calipers, which cost an ***-ton)

quadnie

Cool. But many unsuspecting viewers might have overlooked that ---- when deciding on their setups.

Nope, they fail all the time - sorry to break it to ya. The wheel cylinder will fail before anything else, but will also seep brake fluid on the shoes causing absolute rear failure.

I agree that the bulk of the products found at the mortar+brick parts stores suck *****. It is unfortunate that 99% of the users of this website rely on such parts stores for most any part (but yet find ways to improve those parts through innovations). If I only had $500 every time my car ***** up to blow at the dealer... It would be nice to have the right part all the time to install with my learned knowledge of stolen honda repair manuals. In reality we make do with what we have and do the best possible from experience and help from peeps around the globe.

Sorry homie, but your street cred has gone to ---- with that statement. We all have worked somewhere in the automotive industry before, I did also as a teenager. The pure fact is; working an above minimum wage job for a summer doesn't equate to a masters in hondaoligy.

You almost redeem yourself with the offering of some basic physics (which I can at least expect from any senior in high school with an interest in cars). With real life experience you can actually feel what rear drums do to the pedal travel. Not two days ago I had a bare DX proportionating valve in my hands - blowing brake fluid out of it. The channels leading back to the shitty drums flowed like twice as much as the front 9" disc setup. I am well aware of the ability of adjusting proportionating valves; but come the ---- on. This is pretty much obvious using basic observation skills how the ---- operates.

I'm sorry but that ---- made absolutely no ------- sense. Why the hell are you knocking a guy who has actually paid the money for a real upgrade and contributed his thoughts? To the least I would have expected him to have a decent set of rubbers being a true HMT club member. The only rear lockup experience one would receive is that of the ------- noob who kept the same proportionating valve (as mentioned earlier). I have illustrated the benefits of the upgrades at least twice in this thread - please pay attention next time.

quadnie

Oh yeah.. no disrespect to Mista Bone; he has contributed a lot to this site and I have a lot of respect for him. I have brought to light some braking concepts that a few noobs don't quite get.

If Bone wants to prove me different than he is welcomed to contact me for discussion on honda brake solutions.

psycho_vince

Your an idiot. *I* didnt have that problem, it was stated before my post. Learn to read. You work at Autozone, lol. I have nothing left to say to you.

I do have good tires, before and after the brake swap. I had to run 15" rims because of the front calipers and they barely clear as is now, hence the new tires. They almost hit the sticky weights on the inside of the rim lol. But regardless, thanks for backing me up, you sound like you know you ----. I too did alot of research on braking setups of local auto-crossers to see what they were doing. Thats why I went with a LESS aggressive pad in the back than the front was to keep the rears from locking as I was informed by a RACER that was his major problem when he was trying to find proper balance. His next issue was slotted/drilled rotors, he used off the shelf parts store rotors and he never had any heat problems or cracking or anything. Plus you can cut blanks easier if they do start to pulsate. Another reason I got Napa rotors, I get them at cost through my shop, so I payed almost half for every rotor.

CLIFFNOTES/MORAL: You ask questions from people who know what they are talking about, who spent the money to get the right stuff, and can PROOVE the end results, then you can talk about what you think you know about a certain topic, ANY topic. Till then, all the noobs, ---- off, get a rope, theres no point in your existence.

Slo_crx1

This is the type of discussion I want to see. Most people on here tend to overlook the braking abilities of their car in lew of making it go much faster. Lemme break it down a little for the beginners in ultra-simple terms...stock honda brakes are a tad small even for the stock engine setups in the cars they came in originally. EF's especially, even if your car is an Si or has a full Si swap like mine does. Add a b-series swap into the equation, and you have even more weight over the front tires to try and stop, or a turbo setup with no way to slow you down fast after a quick full-boost run. The stock 9" front rotor sizes on these things are an absolute joke, they should have at a minumum a 10" size. My wrx has 11" fronts and 10" rears, and coupled with a large master cylinder and good proportioning stops on a dime and stops fast. Granted it's a larger heavier car, but the point is moot just for the fact is has more energy behind it to try and stop. I've talked to several people who run the fastbrakes 11" gti rotor swap, and the results from all of them are the same and nothing but rave reviews. Coupled with a larger master yes, you can lock your tires up, but if you do it's because you jammed on your brakes too hard or have a bad proportioning setup. There's a fine line between a quick stop and sliding due to locked brakes. And if the bias bothers you that much, get adjustable proportioning valves, go to an empty parking lot, and set up some cones to blast around and adjust the valves until you get the specific feel you want with the shortest stopping distance. That's probably what I'm going to look into this year, even though it's late in the year I want to hit a few solo events and see what I can run. Anyone even thinking about running some type of road course will want a rear disc setup, they're less prone to locking the rear wheels going into a corner than a well maintained and upgraded drum setup.

2point2

That's like saying that you need to upgrade your brakes if you're a fat-***.

I have an h-swap and a turbo kit under my hood and I really dont have any issues with braking. The only upgrade I have is higher end pads (forget what they are). I've slowed down from 120mph countless times and have never felt that my brakes were a weak link.

However, I'll bet that on a road course HEAT/USE would have more of an impact on the equation than weight.

sharkytm

So sorry for not reading what you said 100%. No need to get bent out of shape about it. And for the record, I workED at AutoZone. Gotta make ends meet. Now I'm an oceanographer, which was my major in college. I've been working on cars for almost 10 years... all kinds, Hondas, VWs, Subarus, many of them over 300hp, many of them serious race cars (open-wheel FSAE, ITB/ITC cars, and a ton of autocross cars). I'm glad to see that your racer friend steered you away from slotted/drilled rotors. I've never had anything but problems with them, cracking between the holes, and lots of vibration associated with the slots.

Anyhow, here's my experience:
I upgraded the brakes on my old beater 99 Jetta. Bigger rear discs, better pads, and SS lines. I swore there was a difference, and it sure felt to me that there was. I did some testing, and guess what, I couldn't manage more than a 4ft decrease in stopping distance over a stock setup. I could modulate the pedal better, and the pedal felt stiffer, but the end result was a total disappointment in that respect. It made a big difference on the track, as I could do repeated stops without experiencing brake fade (which is ------- scary when it happens) Once I upgraded the front brakes, there was a noticeable difference (12-15ft), but the rear upgrade, even on a relatively heavy car (3000+lbs), did little to nothing for a single 60-0 stop. The better pedal feel was nice, but it didn't help me stop in a shorter distance.

Everyone's going to have their opinions, I'll stick to mine until I'm proven wrong with actual test results. Apologies to anyone I offended.

Slo_crx1

Everyone's opinion of good braking is different. I've driven many different cars that are said to have "good brakes", but even that isn't good enough for me. My wrx stops on a dime with it's large brake setup, but it also has to do with front rotor surface area and how large the caliper is as well for pad contact area. You can slap a larger rotor on and decrease your braking length, but not as much as if you used a much larger caliper with it. As for your setup, I hope to god you have a minimum of a 10" rotor for it to be as decent as you say. Try that with a stock ED/EF Si 9" setup and you'll end up in somebody's ***-end. My main reason for wanting to upgrade my brakes is due to where I live...PA has some of the worst drivers in the country. Nothing like cruising along at 65 keeping up with traffic just to have to slam on your brakes and try to come to a dead stop in less than a 75 foot distance just because some moron decides they want to turn last minute. I'd say at least 90% of the people up here drive like that, so for me it's not just performance...it's survival lol.