TARP Blog

Last night after the Missus went to bed early to try to get rid of her cold before we travel for Chrismas, I stopped by AutoZone to get the rebuild kits for the front brakes. To my amazment and amusement, they were cheaper than expected. I’ve read up on the procedure and it’s pretty simple. I was expecting to spend about $12 for both caliper sets, but it ended up at less than $6. I had to buy some caliper assembly grease that pushed it higher, but that can’t be avoided. Rumor is that you have to use the special grease for caliper assembly as other greases/lubes will contaminate brake fluid, which is pretty much exactly the opposite of what we’re going for here.

My plan for the weekend is to try to knock out all the brake system things I can take care of. It’s a dirty job (literally), as anyone who has done a brake job knows. Filthy. But when I’ve got the wheels off and the car jacked up, it just makes sense to do all the jobs at the same time rather than repeat steps. The tasks on the agenda are as follows:

• Remove and rebuild front calipers;
• Remove and rebuild rear calipers if I can find rebuild kits locally;
• Remove and discard front dust shields;
• Swap caliper mounting brackets to brackets from ‘87 parts car to allow use of larger ‘87+ rotors;
• Examine wheel bearings & repack (thanks, Grayson);
• Examine front end of car for routing brake cool air hoses;
• Install new rotors;
• Install new pads.
• Flush brake system.

However, those last three steps might not happen, and this is where I need some input from you guys. Given that cheaper is preferable to more expensive and bearing in mind that this is not a cost-is-no-object project, how much coin do we want to throw at our rotors and pads? From talking with other MR2 teams, it sounds like these cars are not too tough on the brakes (must be the weight or lack thereof). So it sounds like we can go to a street+ level pad and that will suffice. Anybody have any specific recommendations on a pad to use?

Second, there are a wide range of rotors to use. We could go with the “premium” street rotor at Napa, which run about $30/wheel. That’s a vented steel rotor, nothing special, although it’s a big step up from the solid rotors that were standard on the car. Standard rotor = easy to warp.

The middle option is something like the Power Stop slotted rotor that runs about $47/wheel at Summit Racing. The slots supposedly help to keep the brakes cooler by making it easier for the hot brake gases to escape during braking, resulting in less fading. I suspect they are harder on pads, too, but I don’t know that.

The most expensive but best performance option is the cross-drilled rotor. Those are about $72/wheel and allow for even better braking performance than the slotted rotor, resulting in even less fade.

I really don’t have any experience in the difference among these, although which rotor we select will have some bearing on the pads, as some pads are not to be used with slotted or drilled rotors. Anybody have any thoughts on this?

Unless we go with something that I can pick up from Napa/AutoZone/Pep Boys/O’Reilly on Saturday, I’ll hold off on the pad/rotor change and the flush until we come to consensus on this issue.

Incidentally, Grayson & Dave & Brad, you guys are all welcome to come over whenever on Saturday to work on the car/drink beer/etc.

Advice from Other Teams, MR2, Parts Author: Pat