brake upgrade underway (pics inside)

[Miataracer]

I haven't gotten all that far with the upgrade yet, mainly because I work too much and I have a problem with wanting everything I do to be perfect. Anyways, here's whats going on so far.

The old crappy drum brakes and suspension arms have been removed. I posted this somewhere else about having a stock suspension and wearing off the inside of my tires. Well now I know why, at 180,000 miles the bushings in my lower arms were totally destroyed. Here is a pic of the old stuff, ignore the Frankenstein Miata wheel in the corner.


So at the moment the car has no rear suspension under it besides the stock shocks and springs. Yes, I still have the crappy shocks and springs under it, I will get them changed out soon enough but right now its time to get the brakes done. So here are a couple general pictures of the car sitting there.



And here sits one of the rear calipers that I am getting ready to put back together. Things like this are the reason I always take forever to finish a project. Even though these rear brakes came off of a 2001 GSR and looked pretty good when I got them, I figured what the heck and went ahead and cleaned them all up and rebuilt them. This is the second one, the other one is done already.


When doing a rear disc swap it is important to get the correct proportioning valve. Rear disc swaps need a 40/40 valve, my car which had stock drums has a 30/30 valve on it. Top picture is the 40/40 valve I got, middle picture is the stock 30/30 still in the car mounted to the firewall, and the bottom picture is the spot where the number will be stamped on the valve.




Thats all for now, the front GSR spindles/rotors/calipers should be here soon as well as a non-ABS master cylinder. I will continue to take pictures as the rear disc swap is put back together and installed as well as when I start working on the front brake swap.

[SilverY2KCivic]

A friend of mine that got a 3rd gen Teg disc brakes rear disc swap for his '98 coupe was telling me about that while not having to upgrade the MC, you DO have to change out the proportioning valve like you mentioned. He was telling me that they don't cost that terrible much either, like $30 of something? How much did your's set you back?

[Miataracer]

I got the rear brake swap with the 40/40 prop. valve for $290 and the front spindles/rotors/calipers for $75 each. Oh yeah, got the master cylinder for $35.

[Miataracer]

I will be going with the Brembo slotted rotors when I get around to doing that and I haven't decided on pads yet... any recomendations?

[SilverY2KCivic]

Originally Posted by Miataracer

I will be going with the Brembo slotted rotors when I get around to doing that and I haven't decided on pads yet... any recomendations?

Not sure of an advantage of PowerSlot slotted rotors, to Brembo slotted... Either should be fine.

For pads, I'd go Hawk HPS. Very good pad. I'm using AEM pads on my PowerSlot rotors right now, and I'm pretty pleased with them. No fade when auto-X'ing, and almost no fade when I drive the mountains. I have a set of Hawk HPS waiting to try on once I get through these AEMs.

[Miataracer]

The rear disc brakes are now installed. After getting the calipers all cleaned up and redone I am finally happy with them. I actually found this install to be very easy, there are only 6 bolts that hold each arm in place and they can be installed with the rotors and calipers already mounted.







I think they turned out pretty well all in all. I would replace the pads and rotors now as well but I am not going to have time/money due to a trip I will be taking in a few days. The pads and rotors actually looked pretty good minus a small bit of surface rust which i took care of. I haven't had a chance to drive the car and see how the brakes feel yet because I am waiting to bleed the brake lines until after the fronts get put on. The front brakes and master cylinder are supposed to show up today.

[B16 SiRII]

Let us know when the front discs come in!

[Miataracer]

front discs still not here, I am about to get pissed they are holding everything up! ugh lol

[DeleriousZ]

looking good man, how long did all that take you in actual man-hours?

[Miataracer]

I'd say it has taken anywhere from 5-7 hours or so as it sits now. The thing is that I haven't had a chance to just work right through the project like I usually like to, my job keeps getting in the way. lol Really though, the swap is not hard and would have taken a lot less time had I not taken the time out to get everything all cleaned up and rebuilt. It was probably overkill on my part but that is how I am about things. The most annoying parts have been getting the pistons back in the calipers with the seals on correctly and running the e brake cables back in the car. All in all even those two things didn't amount to much.

Here is a pic of the car as it sits right now... poor thing. The front brakes better come in tomorrow or I am gonna be pissed!



**A side note**
Today I also got my A/C back working again. Some of you may be aware if you have done a swap that the A/C compressor on a D series engine does not mount to the A/C bracket on a B series engine. Similarly, the A/C mounting brackets on the engines are not interchangeable. This leaves you with not many options if you chose to keep your A/C working. The solution to this problem that I found was a bracket made by HaSport. It is the "EGAC" bracket made to mount a D series A/C compressor from a 5th gen Civic to a B series engine. The sucky part here is that the bracket comes with no hardware at all and they do not tell you what belt you need to use. The price you ask? Well, this bracket goes for $165 and for me shipping was another $15. So that leaves you $180 poorer with a bracket, no belt specified, and no hardware. One important note that they do not mention is that you will need the tensioner off of a regular B series A/C mounting bracket, I found mine off of a '96 Integra. Supposedly some of the B series engines have different crank pulleys so they can't tell you what belt you will need for sure. I found that with the b18c1 you can actually go ahead and use the stock GSR A/C belt just fine.

Anyways, just thought I would throw that in there
**Side note complete**

[Miataracer]

well guys the brake upgrade is now complete (pics/details will be posted later) i seem to be having a problem, the brakes started out great. smooth, responsive, firm pedal... you know, just how you would expect them. well, things have now changed. now when i step on the brake i still get decent braking but the pedal drops away under my foot. so basically when i am coming off the highway or something like that i keep slowing down at the same rate while the pedal sinks lower and lower. if i keep my foot on the brake long enough the pedal goes all the way down to the floor. i first thought that i must have a leak somewhere. this isn't the case. all four brakes are leak free, so is the brake proportioner. i am also not losing any brake fluid in the tank. i don't get it? have i possibly blown out my master cylinder? i haven't yet got the integra master cylinder on the car yet, maybe full teg brakes were just more than my old one could handle or something? someone please help me here as I need to take this car on a pretty long trip in a couple of days

[DeleriousZ]

yeah i'm pretty sure it's your master cylinder... that's what happened when mine went too, the teg one should fix that problem right up