S brake conversion & caliper rebuild

[ekam]

Originally Posted by BudmanV24

I snagged a pair of Boxster S knuckles off ebay for $50 plus shipping. You can find them around for decent pricing if you look around. But I'll look into making spacers for this conversion to eliminate the need for replacing the knuckles.

I have these "knuckles" but the FVD spacers are still required for the swap. I spoke with my local Pcar garage and they told me it would cost too much time & money to make these spacers (basically a lot of fab time and test fitting, etc).

I spoke with Rhonda from FVD and she cannot provide any drawings for that part either.

Front base calipers are dropped off to be powercoated. Going to order the seals & dust boot tomorrow.

UPDATE:
Seals and dust boots ordered!! They were able to ship via USPS which is great.

[BudmanV24]

Where do the spacers go? I will be jumping into this project here in the not so distant future and will be engineering any parts necessary to make the conversion.

[ekam]

High quality shot of the caliper and rotor.

[chaudanova]

Ekam, any updates on your brake project? Did you end up getting your front brake calipers installed on the rear?

[ekam]

Thanks for reminding me. I'm going to pickup the old front calipers tomorrow from the powder coating shop.

Next step is ordering the rest of the parts (caliper spring kit, screws, bleeder valves, pads & rotors).

After the front brake swap, braking is more confident. You can feel there's always room to spare.

[chaudanova]

Originally Posted by ekam

Thanks for reminding me. I'm going to pickup the old front calipers tomorrow from the powder coating shop.

Next step is ordering the rest of the parts (caliper spring kit, screws, bleeder valves, pads & rotors).

After the front brake swap, braking is more confident. You can feel there's always room to spare.

haha, sounds good... Looking forward to seeing how the rest of your project unfolds.

So, as of right now with just the only change being the front S calipers, and new rotors/misc. setup, do you like the braking characteristics overall? I know some will say that it might upset the brake bias, etc... But would you say that it has been a solid improvement thus far, and have you experienced any downsides yet?

Thanks in advance..

[ekam]

It does require less effort on the brake pedal to slow down. That being said, my previous front rotors were toasted and the pads were on their way out.

I haven't been to the track yet so I can't say much about brake bias. If you look at the difference between the base vs S rear caliper/rotors, the S rear rotors are 300mm diameter and 22mm thick vs base 292mm and 20mm. I assume piston sizes are identical (since the base & S front calipers piston sizes are the same). Those .2" bigger S rotors won't make much of a difference if at all. The added thickness is mostly for cooling.

There's all kinds of arguments out there, but most car suspension & brakes are setup to have tendency to under-steer. Putting stronger rear brakes might correct that a bit.