S brake conversion & caliper rebuild
 

I just thought I'd make a quick post here about my S brakes conversion & caliper rebuild. I got a set of used S calipers from fellow board member "Fred Demara" as he's parting out his car.

Cleaning:
At first I tried to spray them with brake cleaner which was not a good idea as the mix of grease & brake dust wouldn't come out at all. Off I went to get a bottle of Simple Green and everything comes right out with a tooth brush.

Rebuild:
I've contacted Jim @ zeckhausen.com to order the dust boots & inner seals since Porsche do not sell the inner seal (they believe their calipers do not need rebuilding - or you have to buy new set of calipers from them, ha!) Jim was very useful on looking up the size of the dust boot & seals.

I've ordered the following from him which is complete set.

Fronts
2 x 40mm Caliper Rebuild Kit - 2 Dust Boots & 2 Seals (143.99040)
2 x 36mm Caliper Rebuild Kit - 2 Dust Boots & 2 Seals (143.99036)

Rears
2 x 30mm Caliper Rebuild Kit - 2 Dust Boots & 2 Seals (143.99030)
2 x 28mm Caliper Rebuild Kit - 2 Dust Boots & 2 Seals (143.99028)

I also called guys at Suncoast to order the following:
- pads
- bleeder valves
- spring kits
- caliper bolts
(dampers & wear sensors are missing here since I can reuse the current ones.)

For front rotors, I've ordered the Performance Friction 2-piece rotors from Dan @ VividRacing.com. Again the parts were shipped very quickly.

I'm waiting to take the calipers off to my friend's workshop to pop out the pistons, then they're off to get powder coated.

Oh I've even got a dozen Porsche stickers made for $20 at a local vinyl shop. :p

The front brakes will be done first as I'm still collecting parts for the rears as they're NOT drop-in and slightly more complicated (requires fitting parking brake assembly from the S as well as getting caliper/rotor spacers available thru FVD Germany.)

I'll update this thread again once I get more updates... thanks for reading!

Oh the joys of caliper rebuilding! I am very curious to see how the 2-piece rotors work out though as I am leaning toward these when I do rotors on my car.

Inner seal, dust boot and pistons are all out (along with a nice amount of green brake fluid!) Will drop it off for powder coating tonight.

Would you be willing to weigh the 2-piece rotors as I am considering the upgrade as well? I am extremely curious as to the actual weight difference.

:cheers:

Sammy

a cost total would be awesome as well!

I'll weight them but I don't have a stock S rotor weight to compare it to. Dan from Vividracing said it saves about 1-2lbs each corner.

It's going to be over $3k Canadian money for all 4 corners using OEM stuff when it's all said and done.

After this there's going to be no more mods I swear... :eek:

If all else fails I'll pull one of the rotors off of my car and weigh it (2002 S). :D

Rotors and pads are here. Not expecting the hats to be natural anodized. :(

http://img520.imageshack.us/img520/8...c00063q.th.jpg http://img361.imageshack.us/img361/1...c00060h.th.jpg

They weight 20lbs each (with the plastic bag).

I'm looking into getting the rotors cadmium/zinc plated. More update next week.

Oh.... shiny....

http://img441.imageshack.us/img441/3...0072cyk.th.jpg http://img268.imageshack.us/img268/8...0071jcl.th.jpg

curious, why did you plate them?

Learned my lesson on a pair of non-painted/coated rotors from my last car. We use huge amount of salt here in the winter time, it only takes one drive on the street to rot your rotor on the parts where the pads are not touching - hats, outer edge of the rotor. Very very ugly to look at. Once they're rusted there's no way to get it off.

What does that coating do to the friction properties of the rotor's braking surface or does it just "burn off"?

It'll be rubbed off so yes I will take it slow when I first drive it after they're on the car.

Got the calipers. Yes I know I need new bleeder valves.

http://img267.imageshack.us/img267/5...c00077c.th.jpg

I think I used to own a hypercolor shirt like that :p

Previous pic was crap. Planning to go to a few track days next year to use up my brakes before the swap.

http://photos-g.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos..._6249582_n.jpg

Red? Why red? Black would have looked so much nicer.

Nice calendar BTW.

So today I finally (finally) put the seals and dust boots in the calipers. Will let a shop install the front pair first to see how it works out.

http://img10.imageshack.us/img10/316/dsc00143mq.th.jpg http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/7...c00142g.th.jpg

Sorry, fingers were dirty so I just quickly snapped these with my crappy camera phone.

You may want to search for my post regarding rotor weight. I don't remember exactly, but I seem to think the two-piece rotors save about six pounds per corner.

Well apparently the rear S calipers will have problem fitting without the adapter/spacer from FVD Germany, of which that part is discontinued.

If I can't locate someone that's selling them, I'm selling the complete rebuilt rear S calipers and swap my base front calipers to the rear.

GOLD......

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-...16_18560_n.jpg

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-..._5651474_n.jpg

http://img816.imageshack.us/img816/5...6291904.th.jpg http://img30.imageshack.us/img30/940...6291905.th.jpg

Any difference in stopping won't be attributed to the difference in rotors, assuming the pads mate with the rotor surface properly.

Too early to tell since the pad is still bedding in to the rotor. Again I think the difference will be most noticed at the track where it'll see severe braking. For now it just looks damn good. :cool:

Very cool! Are those 2 piece rotors pretty costly compared to stock rotors?

They're about $1k after refinishing.

You should get up on a nice highway and bed your brakes correctly. Get up to about 70mph and brake very hard but not locking up the brakes and get your speed down to about 30mph. Do this 3-4 times and your brakes will feel better.

Took out the pistons from the base front calipers, to my supurise they're 40mm and 36mm - same as the S front calipers!!! :eek:

It's going to be interesting to put these on the rear... I have to learn how not to do any trail brake...

Or maybe I need a crappy set of pads... what do you guys suggest? Textar? Mintex?

Have you considered buying Boxster S rear knuckles so you can run the Boxster S calipers?

Have you priced out what that will cost? A lot of $ for very little additional braking................

Right now I'll need a new set of front rotor for the back, a set of new seals/dust boots, new pads and cost of powercoating, and all the additional parts to make them fit, plus labor. Hey, driving our Porsches also cost a lot of $ for going from just going point A to point B... :)

I've always wanted red brembo calipers even before I got this car. I admit I really like the looks of it. :cool:

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.

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.

High quality shot of the caliper and rotor.

http://img704.imageshack.us/img704/470/dsc6344t.th.jpg http://img824.imageshack.us/img824/8501/dsc6345.th.jpg

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

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..

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.

I'm doing so more research on parts needed... apparently Brembo makes a special rotor for the base Boxster to use the S rear calipers. Problem is nobody knows where to get this mysterous part. Can't locate this on the Brembo catalogue webpage either as it only shows front rotors for the base boxster.

http://986forum.com/forums/125577-post16.html
http://www.boxsterforum.com/forums/showpost.php?p=23054&postcount=3
http://www.6speedonline.com/forums/boxster-cayman/112389-brake-upgrade-2.html#post1578029