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Thanks joemg for all this research - seems like you've put a lot of thought on those tasteful mods. Would like to see your SC if you're ever out here in West LA
Ok... So today I went to "gearheads" in Oceanside, CA where you can rent a shop bay. It's the best thing I've ever seen, highly recommend it.
I got the brakes installed, but was met with a terrible surprise. The fronts do NOT fit inside the oem 18" wheels. Unfortunately, I did not see anything mentioning that when I bought the kit.
I think a 19" wheel will work, I'm going to check the measurements of whatever I decide to buy. It's the side wall of the wheel that didn't clear it, not the face. These are HUGE brakes.
The rears fit fine. Both front and rear required quite a lot of dust shield trimming, as I didn't want to remove it completely, no big deal there.
Luckily the guys at gearheads are the coolest, and they were cool about leaving the car there while I get new wheels. I damn near had a heart attack after working on it from first thing this morning until at least an hour or 2 after the shop officially closed when the wheels wouldn't go on.
1 other note, if you're wondering why the fronts are drilled rotors and the rears are not, it was a total surprise to me when I opened the box for the fronts and saw they were drilled. Kind of bothers my OCD, but whatever, I'm not taking any of it apart anytime soon, lol.
Front: LS460 Caliper w/ ISF rotor
Rear: LS430 Caliper w/Supra TT rotor
Porterfield R4-S pads all around
Stoptech braided SS lines all around
Even though the rotors are only .65" larger than our rears, they are vented rotors, not solid, which is a pretty big upgrade. Plus the LS430 rear calipers are significantly bigger/better than ours.
EDIT: I uploaded some "before" pics.
Front before:
Front after:
Ok... So today I went to "gearheads" in Oceanside, CA where you can rent a shop bay. It's the best thing I've ever seen, highly recommend it.
I got the brakes installed, but was met with a terrible surprise. The fronts do NOT fit inside the oem 18" wheels. Unfortunately, I did not see anything mentioning that when I bought the kit.
I think a 19" wheel will work, I'm going to check the measurements of whatever I decide to buy. It's the side wall of the wheel that didn't clear it, not the face. These are HUGE brakes.
The rears fit fine. Both front and rear required quite a lot of dust shield trimming, as I didn't want to remove it completely, no big deal there.
Luckily the guys at gearheads are the coolest, and they were cool about leaving the car there while I get new wheels. I damn near had a heart attack after working on it from first thing this morning until at least an hour or 2 after the shop officially closed when the wheels wouldn't go on.
1 other note, if you're wondering why the fronts are drilled rotors and the rears are not, it was a total surprise to me when I opened the box for the fronts and saw they were drilled. Kind of bothers my OCD, but whatever, I'm not taking any of it apart anytime soon, lol.
Even though the rotors are only .5" larger than our rears, they are vented rotors, not solid, which is a pretty big upgrade. Plus the LS430 rear calipers are significantly bigger/better than ours.
Cant wait to see final result.
I believe all ISF rotors are drilled.
I suggest you shop for wheels with better offset to make it flush with fender.
BTW, If you painted the calipers red, you instantly got an extra 20WHP.
Cant wait to see final result.
I believe all ISF rotors are drilled.
I suggest you shop for wheels with better offset to make it flush with fender.
BTW, If you painted the calipers red, you instantly got an extra 20WHP.
Oh, they're all drilled? Damn, I had no idea or I would have ordered matching rears. I generally don't bother with slotted or drilled rotors because it doesn't make any difference if you're not on the track. The Miata guys found that slotted or drilled rotors were more prone to cracking on the track and the solid rotors are pretty bullet proof.
Funny enough, my rear calipers were powder coated red and I painted them black, lol.
And yes, I want them flush... I have to figure out what size/offset combo is going to achieve that. I'm looking for 10 or 10.5 on the rear and anything between 8.5-9.5 on the front, the smaller the better I'm thinking, but 9 would be a nice compromise.
Does anyone know what the inner diameter of a 19" wheel is? I don't want to go with 20s if I don't have to, but I definitely don't want to order wheels and find out they don't fit either, lol. I need about 17" from wall to wall of the inner diameter.
You're correct about the ISF rotors, even the OEM ones are drilled. Just for giggles, I looked up how much drilled rear Supra TT rotors are, the only name-brand I could find was Powerstop and those are $120 EACH... as opposed to the centric premium rotors (centric is the same company as power stop) that were like $45/each and will never crack.
Side note, those ISF rotors are absolute beasts. Aside from being the size of a small pizza, they're extremely thick too. I splurged a little on those and went for the Brembos over the centrics and I was not disappointed. The fit and finish of the Brembos is really nice.
The nice thing about the new wheels is that they'll show off the new brakes quite well.
Ok, so a word of caution about the front brakes... they're ENORMOUS. My 19" aftermarket wheels barely clears them on the barrel (.2" of clearance), and the face of the rims I chose needed a 20mm spacer to clear them (did not expect that, luckily I had spacers on the OEM wheels), which makes the effective offset 10ET. I have some fender rolling/liner trimming to do to make this all work.
I can't really give a review of the performance yet because there's so much rubbing I was just trying to get the car home without damaging anything. I'll report back once I can really stomp on them.
I think I'll play it safe and stick with my Supra TT brake
btw, are you sure about the rotor direction?
LOL yeah, the supra/ls400 brakes are definitely a little easier route. You could still do the LS430 rear kit with the supra rotors like I did though, that was pretty painless, just dust shield trimming.
As far as rotor direction, the rotors had the same part number, there weren't right and left ones. BREMBO 09A30011
This was a total pain in the *** for fitment being one of the first to do it, but in the end it was totally worth it. I ended up swapping to a 245/35 tire in the front.
Here are my impressions of the brakes on my first real test drive (copy/paste from another thread I wrote it in):
"The brake upgrade was huge and totally worth the trouble. This car slows and stops effortlessly, pedal feel is nice and firm and requires little effort to smoothly bring the car to your desired speed. It definitely doesn't feel like a 2 ton piggy."
Any new pictures with the new tires & fenders rolled?
I need to find some times to work on my car, too busy with work and life.
Supra TT calibers, valve cover gaskets, engine mounts (PIA).
Still on the fence if about coilover since my shocks were just replaced a fews thousand miles ago.
Any new pictures with the new tires & fenders rolled?
I need to find some times to work on my car, too busy with work and life.
Supra TT calibers, valve cover gaskets, engine mounts (PIA).
Still on the fence if about coilover since my shocks were just replaced a fews thousand miles ago.
I'll take some pics this weekend.
Engine mounts sound like a total pain in the ***, I got a glimpse into what it takes to get at the bottom of the engine when I had my headers done. Good luck, lol.
12-19-19, 09:04 AM
