Brake questions

So after Oregon Trail, I decided the first thing that I wanted to change on the Corolla was brakes. Mostly it was a pedal feel (start pumping it early to see what would be there when you needed it) but figured while I was at it I would look at just getting more brakes on the car.

RX7 4 piston front calipers are the cheapest/most common upgrade and I have a set of those but the question I have is: How much clearance do most consider acceptable on a rally car between the caliper and the wheel (I am thinking both for rocks getting up in there, and wheels getting bent)? The RX7 calipers are a tight fit inside my 14" wheels, leaving about 1" between the inner bead and the caliper (most likely spot to bend) and a gnat hair in the inner part of the wheel.

Other options are keep the stock calipers and rebuild them and run good pads, or look into going to 15" wheels (not sure the car has suitable room for that, and I lose a lot of spare wheels it came with).

Thanks in advance!

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John Reed
John Reed Racing
www.johnreedracing.com
johnreedracing@gmail.com

What kind of budget do you have? There are a few different brake kits out there for AE86s.

Also, how often were you bleeding your brakes? Did you try that to regain some pedal feel? Had you bleed them before the rally?

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/09/2012 04:44PM by Dazed_Driver.

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Dazed_Driver
What kind of budget do you have? There are a few different brake kits out there for AE86s.

I didn't have a set dollar figure in mind. The main goal was to just improve them, without wasting money. I have found a lot of options but the 14" wheels are the roadblock I keep running into. The RX7 setup seems to be the best bang for buck, they do fit the 14" wheels, but there is not much space left inside the wheel in the event something gets bent up. I have seen other rally cars where they run them pretty tight, so maybe it is fine like that. I guess the main goal is always, just don't bend stuff up. HAHA

I looked at a Wilwood caliper which would probably fit nice with a custom bracket but wasn't sure how important it would be that it doesn't have dust seals like an OEM.

I have seen your build on EvoM, car is very cool!

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John Reed
John Reed Racing
www.johnreedracing.com
johnreedracing@gmail.com



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/09/2012 04:52PM by John Reed.

Not 100% sure what's considered acceptable clearance, but my 40mm offset (vs 53 stock) Team Dynamics 15s vs a stock WRX front caliper just barely clears and I doubt I'm the only one with this combination.

I'd wonder if you can bend a rim in an area that would affect caliper clearance without royally fubaring the car/wheel/corner in the process.

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This isn't floor mat anarchy

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John Reed

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Dazed_Driver
What kind of budget do you have? There are a few different brake kits out there for AE86s.

I didn't have a set dollar figure in mind. The main goal was to just improve them, without wasting money. I have found a lot of options but the 14" wheels are the roadblock I keep running into. The RX7 setup seems to be the best bang for buck, they do fit the 14" wheels, but there is not much space left inside the wheel in the event something gets bent up. I have seen other rally cars where they run them pretty tight, so maybe it is fine like that. I guess the main goal is always, just don't bend stuff up. HAHA

I looked at a Wilwood caliper which would probably fit nice with a custom bracket but wasn't sure how important it would be that it doesn't have dust seals like an OEM.

I have seen your build on EvoM, car is very cool!

Thanks!

grp4fabrications does have two AP brake kits. One is said to fit under 13" wheels. They probably mean motorsport wheels like a mini light or something, however, they would probably fit under stock 14s.

I made a custom Wilwood set up for my fronts, however, if it proves to not work out, I'll be going to that AP kit.

http://www.grp4fabrications.com/product_info.php?cPath=42&products_id=428 <- that is the kit.

Obviously, it's AP, so its a bit spendy. But, it's AP... so its quite nice. The conversion rate isn't TOO killer right now, but I have no idea what shipping would be like. Nor do I know if you can piece together everything in that kit save for the brackets and buy just them. Also, if you can, you could always MAKE your won brackets and run a wilwood/ap/whatever caliper.

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Welcome to the cult of JVL drink the koolaid or be banned.

An inch is probably more then most people have. The 2 pot Subaru non wrx calipers really take up most all the room under a 15" rim. then there are 15" rims out there that fit over wrx calipers, and with street rims you need 16s to clear them.

I say press on, and just stick with tough 14" rims if you are really concerned about it. Personally I wouldn't give it two thoughts.

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"Rally racing makes a heroin addiction look like a vague craving for something salty"

Hmm... read that wrong. I read ".1"...

About how much is a gnat's hair? Literally almost nothing? You might consider just a 1/8-1/4" wheel spacer maybe, to move it way.

I thought you "needed" 15" wheels for the rx7 calipers? What wheels are you running?

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Welcome to the cult of JVL drink the koolaid or be banned.

It would depend on the rotor at that point. If he's doing rx7 rotors then yes he will need 15s. But if he's making the 4 pots fit on his stock rotors then he probably would be ok.

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"Rally racing makes a heroin addiction look like a vague craving for something salty"

Ooooh, ok. What sort of rotor is an RX7 front? bolt on the hub style?Or does it slip over the studs?

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Welcome to the cult of JVL drink the koolaid or be banned.

They slip over the studs.

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"Rally racing makes a heroin addiction look like a vague craving for something salty"

Those AP brakes are so sweet! I wish my budget had room for those....

The RX7 brake setup everyone seems to run (at least that there are off the shelf brackets available for) use a Honda Civic rotor that is bigger than stock AE86 but obviously smaller than the RX7 rotor. With this setup they will fit certain 14" wheels (I have stock GTS wheels), but not all and if they do the space is very tight.

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John Reed
John Reed Racing
www.johnreedracing.com
johnreedracing@gmail.com

Yeah, I plan to run pizza cutters. I would try the wheel spacer, then. You keep the wheels/tires, but gain some clearance on the thin side.

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Welcome to the cult of JVL drink the koolaid or be banned.

Yeah the brakes were always a conundrum on the corolla, it's too bad there's not a ton of room for 15's. Would try the rx7 stuff, because if it doesn't work there's a good market to sell it off and you can return the calipers to the parts store.

You're already running wheel spacers right? I think for pedal feel dual master cylinders would help the most, at least that's the next upgrade we planned to make to the car.

I also have rebuildable calipers and rebuild kits that come with the car.

Any one have info on what Adam did on his? Didn't he end up doing Volvo stuff up front?

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"Rally racing makes a heroin addiction look like a vague craving for something salty"

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mellow65
Any one have info on what Adam did on his? Didn't he end up doing Volvo stuff up front?

I'm not sure. I seem to recall his did something like an entire volvo upright swap? Maybe?

I'm not sure about the rears either... if I'm remembering right he used the volvo wheels, so he could keep the volvo calipers, as they're 2 pots and too wide to fit into a corolla wheel. Or something. They didn't fit...

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