Brake Journal/Idea Log *INSTALLATION*

[originalcyn]

Ok, this upgrade is going to happen at some point, but I really just wanted a place to keep track of everything I'm thinking for the time being, as well as to get some comments and recommendations from people.

Top post is current choice and running price. Bottom post is thoughts on options and links to options.

This list assumes that the owner has a master cylinder with a 1-1/16" bore and at least 16" WRX wheels.

1x (Front Brakes) 05 WRX Calipers & Brackets - $50.00 (Purchased)
1x (Rear Brakes) 03 Legacy Calipers & Brackets - $50.00 (Purchased)
1x (Rear Rotors) 03 Legacy Centric 120.47017 $71.86 (Purchased)
1x (Front Rotors) 05 WRX StopTech Cryo-Stop 120.47018CRY - $111.36 (Purchased)
1x (Front Caliper Rebuild Kit) 05 WRX Centric 143.42017 - $10.00 (Purchased)
1x (Rear Caliper Rebuild Kit) 03 Legacy Carlson 15155 - $11.84 (Purchased)
1x (Front SS Lines) Stoptech 950.47003 - $50.00 (Purchased)
1x (Rear SS Lines) Stoptech 950.47503 - $45.00 (Purchased)
1x (Front Pads) 05 WRX StopTech Street Performance 309.09290 - $55.00 (Purchased)
1x (Rear Pads) 03 Legacy StopTech Street Performance 309.07700 - $45.00 (Purchased)
1x (Brake Fluid) ATE Super Blue Brake Fluid Dot 4 1L 108287 - $20.00 (Purchased)

Actual Total (Including Shipping & Tax) - $520.06

Optional Costs
1x Caliper Stickers Pack - $11.58 (Purchased)
Powder Coating - $50.00 (Purchased)
Eagle 1 Mag Cleaner - $7.35 (Purchased)
CRC Brakleen - $5.29 (Purchased)
Dupli-Color Clear Coat Engine Enamel - $7.35 (Purchased)



Actual Total With Options - $601.63

[originalcyn]

FRONT CALIPERS AND BRACKETS (WRX)

02-05 wrx front calipers with brackets, cheap upgrade for legacy turbo- $50

Euroshark seems to have the calipers I need, but i'm not really sure what's up with the brackets.
http://bbs.legacycentral.org/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=50154

Purchased 09.29.12 from Euroshark.
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REAR CALIPERS AND BRACKETS (Legacy)
Nothing Yet. I'm guessing I will have to junkyard these

Mike-Tracy grabbed a set of 03 Legacy Calipers for me from pick n pull.

Arrived on 10.06.12
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SS LINES
Someone on Sl-i was saying that when you get brake lines you choose your car, not what the calipers are. Is this the case? So even if i install 05 wrx calipers in the front and 03 legacy calipers in the back, i need to get technafit sub-1000 for 93-01 imprezas, NOT sub-1050 for 02-07 wrxs OR sub-1108 for 01-04 Legacy L & LS right?

For lines, several threads seemed to suggest these:

Goodridge SS Braided Brake Hose Kit GR24215
http://www.oakos.com/Merchant2/merchant ... _Code=3900

Stoptech Rear Brake Lines STP 950.47501
http://www.rallysportdirect.com/Stoptec ... -2002-2007

Stoptech Front Brake Lines STP 950.47001
http://www.rallysportdirect.com/Stoptec ... -2002-2005

Jamal recommended technafit lines being 88.55 for the set. Kimo also apparently has this set.
Technafit Brake Lines SUB-1050
http://www.jnaperformance.com/index.php ... ct_id=2091 (88.55)
http://assaultech.com/technafit/technaf ... 86855.aspx (80.50 But pretty much any color)

Purchased Stoptech lines from Jamal on 10.04.12
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FRONT ROTORS (WRX)
Front OEM WRX rotors seem pricey. Trying to find a used set hasn't be super fruitful, but also i haven't tried that hard. There's a bunch of ebay ones that look all sporty, but i get the gut feeling they're not great. Threads also suggest deep cryo treatment. The place Josh used (http://www.onecryo.com/) seems to be an odd japanese site now. Cryo treating apparently must be done to new rotors? Meaning I can't buy used rotors unless they're already cryo treated? I like the look of slotted ones, but i think that they're not really going to help me. Does slotted actual do anything? Someone said that they had a bunch of extra noise from their slotted rotors.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/SUBARU-Genuine- ... vi-content

I think this is the right one, part #26300AE061. Am i reading this right? about 100 per rotor? Yeesh, i thought it was 100 a set.

StopTech Cryo-Stop Rotors 120.47018CRY
http://www.jscspeed.com/catalog/Subaru/ ... X_STI.html

Everywhere wanted 30ish bucks just to ship these rotors. 16 dollar shipping through a reseller on amazon.

Hopefully this site is legit. They offered free shipping on orders over 100 dollars making my grand total for these rotors $111.36 shipped. Which is higher than the previous estimate (but that estimate didn't include shipping, putting the actual estimate at $116.74) http://tunedcustoms.com/stop-tech-02-10 ... 0.47018CRY

Purchased 10.03.12
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BACK ROTORS (Legacy)
Stoptech Cryo-Stop Rotors 120.47025CRY
http://www.jscspeed.com/catalog/Subaru/ ... cy_GT.html

Looks like they're already cryo treated Also sold as a set! This is a vented set. They will require a different set of calipers than the 00-06 Legacy calipers. Most likley the LGT rear calipers and brackets.

Apparently this:

The thing about the rear vented rotors is that the caliper and caliper bracket are different as well. So it's not just a matter of getting different rotors, you need different caliper brackets & calipers.

Means I need to find solid rear rotors. Hopeful to find a set that match the stoptech fronts...

BAM - Centric Parts 120.47017 Premium Brake Rotor with E-Coating 120.47017

http://www.amazon.com/Centric-Parts-120 ... =120.47017

Josh verified these for me.

Centric part # 120.47017 is the correct part # for the H6 non-ventedrear rotor.

Here are the specs on the rotor

http://extranet.soleniuminc.com/Centric ... 047017.jpg

Their online catalog is pretty good if you want to search and play
around with it.

http://extranet.soleniuminc.com/centricparts/

Not cryo treated apparently, but perhaps i can find a local service to do that at a reasonable price.

Purchased 09.27.12 from amazon.
__________________________________________

PADS
For pads, i pretty much just want some thing that's not going to destroy my rotors and that will last for a decent amount of time. I don't need to stop instantly if that means that my rotors and pads are only going to last a year or two.

Freaking brake pads all went up in price by like 10 dollars today for some reason. (10.03.12)

Extra pad information from Jamal: http://www.functionauto.com/index.php?m ... crb0nannr0

Couple suggestions on this. Either stoptechs or EBC red stuff

Front Pads:
EBC Brakes DP31134C $98.29
http://www.amazon.com/EBC-Brakes-DP3113 ... s=DP31134C

Beatersubi Recommended Green stuff Pads (Though it appears that there are several versions of them)
EBC Brakes DP21661 $85.26
http://www.amazon.com/EBC-Brakes-DP2166 ... automotive

StopTech Street Performance 309.09290 $38.50
http://www.amazon.com/StopTech-309-0929 ... automotive

Rear Pads
EBC Brakes DP31293C $81.81
http://www.amazon.com/EBC-Brakes-DP3129 ... automotive

Beatersubi Recommended Green stuff Pads (Though it appears that there are several versions of them)
EBC Brake DP21293 $76.10
http://www.amazon.com/EBC-Brake-DP21293 ... automotive

StopTech Street Performance 309.07700 $42.24
http://www.amazon.com/StopTech-309-0770 ... automotive

Apparently these guys price match. http://www.autoanything.com/brakes/61A3 ... QgodmgQAmg

Went with the stoptech pads. Purchased from Jamal on 10.04.12
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Fluid

For fluid I have used the motul stuff just because we had it. It's kind of expensive though and the stoptech pads will never get hot enough to fully take advantage of it. The better option would be ATE superblue or any namebrand synthetic fluid they have at your local parts store.

So ATE Superblue it is. Purchased from Jamal on 10.04.12
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Optional
Powder Coating Red. Is it even a good idea to powder coat calipers? I'm getting mixed signals on this. The big brand calipers like brembos and what not appear to be powder coated, or maybe just painted. Lots of people are saying it perfectly fine to powdercoat, other people are saying that they'll retain heat and it's a bad idea. Thoughts on this? if it is fine to powder coat, how do i avoid screwing up the threads for the bolts and the pistons?

According to beatersubi, if i powdercoat the calipers i will need to get a rebuild kit.

These might be the right kit, but i'm not sure. They look massively universal, which kind of scares me. Can anyone comment on this? Does brand matter? I mean, i'm sure it does to a certain extent, but for whatever reason centric sets seem to be 3 times as much.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/compat ... d=005&i=50

Apparently the quality is fairly similar across the board. Here are the correct kits:

05 WRX Front Calipers - Centric 143.42017
03 Legacy L Rear Calipers - Carlson 15155

Thinking I might go with G2 Caliper paint. Anyone have any experience with this? If I do, I might not have to rebuild my calipers, in which case I could either return the kits or sell them.

http://www.amazon.com/Temperature-Level ... iper+paint

But then again, i still need to sand blast these to get them all nice, so I guess i'd probably have to rebuild anyways...

Sand blasted, and sent to powdercoating. It'll be $50 for 4 brackets and 4 calipers. He'll do some more cleanup for me and he'll do the masking, which probably raised the price of the normal 25 i'm use to. Should I be worried about the powdercoating adding thickness to the brackets and calipers?

Apparently the average thickness added is about a 3rd of a millimeter.

I bought these decals http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 0978803024 to put on the calipers, hoping they'd look sort of like the 4 pot brakes. I guess you put them on and then clear coat over them.

Not super solid on how cryo treatment works. Also cannot find a place locally that seems to do it. Additionally, this set of rotors has a "e-coating" on it. I contacted stoptech to ask whether they can be cryo treated even with the "e-coating."

Stoptech Representative got back to me. He said: "Cryo treating has no effect on the e-coated surface. All of our in-house cryo treated rotors are processed as already coated parts with no issues."

The rear rotors get less rough treatment than the fronts. I might not cryo treat my back rotors.

[jamal]

Pretty good start. I have been using the wrx front/h6 legacy rear setup for quite awhile. Had it on my 93 first with axxis ultimate pads then I think I got hawk hps. Then transferred it over to my 98, again with hps pads, then switched to stoptech pads. The stoptechs are cheaper and better in every way. More cold bite, higher temp rating, just feels great all around.

The one problem you get from going to this setup is that the pistons in the calipers are much larger (unless you have a turbo), so the pedal is going to have to travel farther to get the same pressure. I did notice it and the fix is to go to a 1 1/16 master cylinder. It worked ok without it but my 98 has the bigger MC and the brakes feel better.

My setup is
WRX front brakes
H6 rear brakes (I say h6, but really all 00-04 Legacys had those brakes)
Centric blank rotors (not cryotreated, not sold on that whole thing)
Techna-fit SS lines
Cusco MC brace that I got for free and drilled new holes in to make fit

I could come up with a better setup but it would cost A LOT more money. The next step up would be Subaru 4-pot calipers and Ferodo DS2500 pads and after that it's stoptech calipers and such.

I'm also two years on my current set of rotors and pads and they have tons of life left.

Oh, and you might notice that vendor thing below my name. I carry stoptech/centric stuff if you want pricing on rotors and pads.

[kimokalihi]

Would you recommend the h6 or the lgt rear brakes? Aren't the h6 not vented? Is it a vig enough difference to hunt down the lgt rear breaks? They're a bit hard to find.

[originalcyn]

Jamal, Thank you as always.

You're not sold on the cryo treatment? I think it's about 10 or 20 dollars more a rotor, which i guess is pretty significant at the end. Which set of stoptech pads are you using? There appear to be several model lines.

My understanding was that I had the correct master cylinder already since i have abs. Is that not the case?

I would love to get an idea on pricing. Honestly i wouldn't mind going with centric/stoptech stuff all the way around. If the price is right, either cryo treated or not wrx fronts, cryo treated or not lgt backs, and the brakelines, depending on the price. I'm not trying to go the cheapest i can, but i'd like the best performance i can get for around 300-500 bucks. I don't know how possible that is. If cryo treated doesn't matter, maybe i should just find used wrx and legacy rotors. That would probably save me a lot.

Kimo, the rear rotors I specified apparently are an upgrade for 05lgt according to the site. However, it's throwing me that the same part number is listed as an upgrade for 02-07 wrx. That being said it might be because wrxs also benefit from the upgrade to h6 rotors i believe.

The stoptech rotors are vented I believe as well.

[Legacy777]

My thoughts....

I've been through most of this at one point and time before.

The 02-05 WRX front brakes are pretty decent upgrade for the money. You will need 16" wheels. As Jamal pointed out, the piston calipers are larger, so fluid requirements from the MC are more. As I mentioned in another thread, if you have ABS, you should have the 1-1/16" bore MC. If that's the case, you should be good. You can look on the MC and it will be marked what size it is.

http://www.main.experiencetherave.com/s ... P_1808.JPG

In the rear, honestly for a daily driven car the solid rear rotor will be fine. The vented is "cool" to have, no pun intended, but I don't see you really needing the added cooling of the rear vented rotor unless you're racing or really getting on the brakes.

Other thing to note with the brake upgrade, I don't recommend just doing the front WRX brake upgrade. It WILL jack up the brake balance of the car. Ask me how I know. However, the front WRX brake upgrade and the rear H6 upgrade is a good combination that keeps your brake balance very near to the original levels.

Regarding deep cryo-treating, I stand by it and have seen the benefits first hand. Is it absolutely necessary, no, but I do think it adds longevity to the rotor if you are hard on them. So cryo-treating's benefits may be one of those things that is more driving style and driver dependent.

One Cryo apparently went out of business....which sucks....but oh well. If you can get cryo-treated rotors from Stoptech for only a little bit more, I'd personally get it done.

As for pads, I run EBC red stuff pads on my Impreza and I like them for a daily driver. The stop well cold and when I push them. They reformulated the compound to last longer. I haven't noticed any degradation in stopping power with the new compound. The older compound wore out a little quickly, so we'll see how the new compound lasts. Like most performance oriented pads, they dust.

[originalcyn]

Josh,

Ok, thank you for all your help across multiple threads.

I have the standard 02-05 wrx wheels, so I should be fine. I'll definitely check out the master cylinder as well.

I don't think I need vented rotors either, but i'm not sure how much cheaper the solid ones are. By the way, were the parts numbers listed correct? I'm getting a little paranoid on this.

I'm without a doubt doing fronts and backs in one go. So it will be the wrx and legacy calipers, assuming i can find sets of them.

I don't think cryo treatment hurts anything. If it's 10 dollars more or so that's not terrible, and it might just be worth it for longevity.

How much can be reasonably saved by finding used rotors? I'm not sure how much i trust used rotors, and if the price difference is negligible i'll probably just go with new ones.



*Hahaha. 555 for third gear? Nice.*

[Legacy777]

The thing about the rear vented rotors is that the caliper and caliper bracket are different as well. So it's not just a matter of getting different rotors, you need different caliper brackets & calipers.

That is the correct part # for the 02-05 WRX front rotors.

I personally wouldn't bother with used rotors.

[originalcyn]

Josh,

Ok good to know.

So do i need different brackets on the front as well if i swap in those rotors? Thanks.

Jamal,

Is there a solid h6 cryo treated stoptech rotor for the rear? I'd like things to match, but i'm starting to think they won't be consistent visually.

[kimokalihi]

I'm glad you started this thread as I've been wondering these same things myself and should upgrade my brakes in the near future. I already have a nice set of techna-fit ss brake lines.

[originalcyn]

Awesome! This is probably the most useful i've been yet! lol

Yeah, i'm trying to do a reasonable upgrade without having to change every single thing. Hopefully i don't have to change the master cylinder. But it's looking like it'll be about 600 dollars for everything. I was hoping to keep it under 5. I don't even have the calipers priced yet.

Kimo, the techna-fit lines fit on both the wrx and legacy calipers right? I mean, i assume so since jamal used them, but it was just something that's been floating around in the back of my mind.

[kimokalihi]

They better! Haha I don't know though but I'm assuming yes since there's no mention of needing different brake lines when people talk about using wrx calipers. One question I had was when people say wrx calipers they're not talking about the 4 pot ones right?how much difference is there between those and the regular wrx calipers? This info is probably in the brake spreadsheet but I'm at work on my phone right now.

[mike-tracy]

I think people generally talk about the 02-05 style when referring to "WRX" brakes. Over seas the 4/2 pots were pretty much an STI exclusive item. Possible to be dealer installed on a WRX, but only fitted to later GC8 STI's IIRC.

As far as how much difference there is, well, pedal feel is improved, and of course the rear rotor is 05 LGT sized. The 06-07 WRX's got the 1" MC bore, vs the 17/16"'s of the previous (and subsequent IIRC) WRX's. Not sure how relevant that is. I have noticed that on my SS, the rears barely get used. As in, if there's surface rust on the rotors, it takes a bit of driving to clean it off vs the fronts which clean up immediately.

[Legacy777]

Josh,

Ok good to know.

So do i need different brackets on the front as well if i swap in those rotors? Thanks.

What do you mean do you need different brackets? Are you asking whether you can use the turbo legacy bracket with the WRX caliper? If so, no you can't, you need to get matching calipers & brackets from whatever brake setup you are planning to use.

If you aren't planning on looking for used stuff, I'd suggest going that route. You can usually find decent used calipers. If they are so so, you can buy a rebuild kit and refresh them.

If I didn't answer your question, let me know.

[Someperson]

I'm going to be putting new brakes all the way around, what is the max I can get into 15s?

[originalcyn]

Josh,

I think that answered it. Euroshark is offering wrx calipers with brackets, and i wasn't sure if i need the brackets or not. So to do my NA brakes, i'll have to make sure that the calipers that i buy come with the appropriate brackets.

I'm guessing that i'll have to get used stuff for calipers. I'd actually prefer it. I'm hoping euroshark still has that set. I have no idea what price used calipers should be, but his listing seemed pretty reasonable.

[mike-tracy]

Those are really good prices.

[originalcyn]

for which Mike? The calipers? I'm hoping he gets back to me.

[mike-tracy]

For the calipers

[kimokalihi]

Where did you get those techna-fit lines? That's cheap. I paid $115 in a group buy on sl-i!

[originalcyn]

Haven't got them yet. There's a link in the second post. I'm not sure if they're the same ones you got or not. I'm trying to consolidate part numbers and links for where to purchase them, so keep checking the top two posts.

[kimokalihi]

Pretty sure that's the same technafit kit I got except mine are green. That makes me mad.

[originalcyn]

ooo green! I wish i had red ones.

[originalcyn]

The one problem you get from going to this setup is that the pistons in the calipers are much larger (unless you have a turbo), so the pedal is going to have to travel farther to get the same pressure. I did notice it and the fix is to go to a 1 1/16 master cylinder. It worked ok without it but my 98 has the bigger MC and the brakes feel better.

As Jamal pointed out, the piston calipers are larger, so fluid requirements from the MC are more. As I mentioned in another thread, if you have ABS, you should have the 1-1/16" bore MC. If that's the case, you should be good. You can look on the MC and it will be marked what size it is.

http://www.main.experiencetherave.com/s ... P_1808.JPG

I can confirm that the stock master cylinder on a 93 LS Sedan with ABS is the 1-1/16" bore master cylinder.

[originalcyn]

So it begins. I picked up Euroshark's front WRX calipers and brackets yesterday. Here they are ready to be cleaned and potentially powder coated (when i get feed back on that).