New Brakes for the Amazon

So we cooked the brakes - again - this year at Lemons. We need a brake caliper/rotor combo that facilitates the following:

We have three cylinder calipers now, would like that many or better

Will fit inside a 14" wheel

Cheap Hawk HT-10 pads must be available

Rotors must be relatively inexpensive. We're going to lathe the centers out and bolt them to the hub portion of the original volvo brakes.

Calipers must be relatively inexpensive

I have no idea what car would fit this criteria. Anyone?

Thanks -brian -Tunachuckers

86-91 RX7s had 4 piston front brakes on some trim levels (GXL?) but I'm not sure if they fit under 14" wheels.

I don't think the FC GXL/Turbo II brakes will fit behind a 14" unless it has big brake clerance. Rotors are 10.8" in diameter and vented. They barely fit behind the stock 15's on mine. Rotors and pads aren't too spendy if you go for the PepVanceZone stuff.

That being said, if you can fit 'em, get 'em. My RX-7 stops like someone threw a boat anchor out the rear, and I haven't even installed the Hawk pads yet!

Have you tried better pads, some air ducts to your hubs/rotors, fresh fluid, and some driver training? Sometimes the easiest/cheapest mods are the best. I don't know much about what you guys have done to date.

Bryce

We used good fluid and semi metallic pads. Our drivers all suck, and will continue to suck.

The deal is this: the rotor is rare - really rare. You have to buy them from Sweden. They have an integral hub. Our captain, and Volvo parts guy, doesn't want to give up his spares, and we've already on our third.

The rotors are solid (non vented) anyway, so they're probably not a good fit for racing. The Hawk pads to fit into those calipers are over the 200 mark too, so that's prohibitive.

Thanks for the suggestions though.

I would talk to John Parker at Vintage Performance Developments. He's pretty good at making a lot from a little.....

Brian, if you can get me the OD of your hub I can check my '90 RX7 'vert roller to see if the rotors will slip over them. It has 15" wheels on it but there's a good bit of clearance between the caliper and wheel, probably 1 1/2". Here's what I am thinking:

The 'vert has the 5 x 114.3 (5 x 4 1/2") bolt circle you need (IIRC) and also bigger calipers with readily available pads. Machine the rotors off of your old hubs, leaving only the hub for your wheel bearings, etc. Slip the RX7 rotor over the hubs and then fab adapter brackets to use the RX7 calipers.

It may even be possible, if the calipers needed to come in a little, to machine maybe 1/4" off of the rotor OD. That's easy to do in a brake lathe.

OD of the hub is 6" but to fit Mustang GT front rotors we will likely turn them down to 5.5" or so.

Does anyone know of a 4 pot caliper which will work with 10ish" discs?

Here are likely sources Porsche 944 Corvette (late C3) Nissan 300ZX Toyota truck (yup)

The issue is mainly that of dimensions, because the Mustang rotor places the braking surface much closer to the wheel than the stock Volvo stuff did. We have about 0.800" between the outside brake face and the wheel mounting face. Is that enough room for any of the four pot calipers or do we need to get deeper rotors?

The reason the Mustang stuff is sitting here is because of the bolt pattern and cheap availability, but it's not set in stone.

Thanks -Brian

I don't think there's any need to get hung up on the number of pistons, Brian. The Amazon is a light car, and it's not like you guys are barreling down the straights at very high speeds. As you mentioned, the stock stuff is solid so just going to vented up rotors would be a huge improvement. I'm willing to bet that just about any vented setup with a set of decent pads and some cooling ducts will sove your problems. As you mentioned, sticking with the stock bolt pattern would make things easier and cheaper, sticking with the whole LeMons goal. I think you're right to be checking Mustang stuff.

If I were in your shoes, I'd probably go to the yard with a Volvo hub/caliper/wheel handy and see if you can find Ford stuff that will fit into the same package. Those are sure to be cheap, easily available, and probably plenty powerful for your application. Avoiding the four piston caliper will free up a lot of packaging space on the outboard side of the rotor, so that should help with your rotor-to-wheel clearance.

Let us know what you end up doing!

Bryce

Nashco wrote: I don't think there's any need to get hung up on the number of pistons, Brian. The Amazon is a light car, and it's not like you guys are barreling down the straights at very high speeds. As you mentioned, the stock stuff is solid so just going to vented up rotors would be a huge improvement. I'm willing to bet that just about any vented setup with a set of decent pads and some cooling ducts will sove your problems. As you mentioned, sticking with the stock bolt pattern would make things easier and cheaper, sticking with the whole LeMons goal. I think you're right to be checking Mustang stuff. If I were in your shoes, I'd probably go to the yard with a Volvo hub/caliper/wheel handy and see if you can find Ford stuff that will fit into the same package. Those are sure to be cheap, easily available, and probably plenty powerful for your application. Avoiding the four piston caliper will free up a lot of packaging space on the outboard side of the rotor, so that should help with your rotor-to-wheel clearance. Let us know what you end up doing! Bryce

Well it's been a year for this poor thread that I forgot about. I found it searching for more brake issues... We ended up making adapter plates to run Mustang GT calipers and 1998 nissan 240SX rotors. It worked like a charm - brakes for the entire race - until the fire, but hey, whatever.

Hmmmmm, doesn't the later 1800(1970+) have vented rotors? As well as 4 wheel disc brakes

it should all just bolt in

just did some quick checking.... 1972, and 1973 had brakes that still show rotors available for the front. Suggest you find a 72+ 1800E, or ES and grab the brakes

Not that you need it now, but if you can update to the 140/160 front brakes there is/was a 164 in the Knoxville Pull-A-Part last time I was there.

oldeskewltoy wrote: Hmmmmm, doesn't the later 1800(1970+) have vented rotors? As well as 4 wheel disc brakes it should all just bolt in just did some quick checking.... 1972, and 1973 had brakes that still show rotors available for the front. Suggest you find a 72+ 1800E, or ES and grab the brakes

Yeah, it mostly bolts on, but the bolt pattern is different, and they are still very expensive - so we didn't go that route. Keep in mind this is very past tense.

tuna55 wrote:

oldeskewltoy wrote: Hmmmmm, doesn't the later 1800(1970+) have vented rotors? As well as 4 wheel disc brakes it should all just bolt in just did some quick checking.... 1972, and 1973 had brakes that still show rotors available for the front. Suggest you find a 72+ 1800E, or ES and grab the brakes

Yeah, it mostly bolts on, but the bolt pattern is different, and they are still very expensive - so we didn't go that route. Keep in mind this is very past tense.

Yeah, I have a '73 1800ES, and have parted out a few of them. They use a very funky bolt pattern that is difficult to find wheels for- I think its like 5 on 100mm or some damn thing. I have lots of those wheels, rotors, and calipers, but the rotors are NOT vented, so we decided not to go that route.

Other than needing a custom adaptor plate for the Mustang calipers, going that route wasn't difficult and provided us with plenty of stoppage. Heck, the Hawk pads lasted an entire race (well, most of a race, sans the fire bit) and still have 3/4 meat left on them.

Mustang front springs, cut down, also provided a cheap-ish ticket for a stiffer front end, in further attempts to cure our oversteery little Swede. (and yes, we would like potentially stiffer shocks, but haven't gotten there, yet) Alas, we didn't get much of a chance to try them, as our engine seized 4 laps into the February race. Due to time and money commitments we won't be at the May race, but we are still hoping to get our acts together for September.

BTW, where did you find front brake rotors available for the 1800ES? Link?

BTW, where did you find front brake rotors available for the 1800ES? Link?

I did a quick google search and found a few places that say they have them.......

upon looking, the places are likely overselling.

Its been a long time since I was into 1800, and 122 models... I'm surprized that there are few if any options for the Volvo these days.....

When I owned mine(over 15 years ago now)... I paid $25 each, and I got them through Beck Arnley....

Tuna, I'd love to ask you a few questions about this brake upgrade. Unfortunately I can't PM you as I'm a new user... Going to be doing some more rallying with my Amazon next spring and the stock brakes were the definite weak point of the car this year.

bkb001 at gmail

...or tunachuckers at the gmail thingie.

Or email us both. We love to argue.

volvoclearinghouse wrote: ...or tunachuckers at the gmail thingie. Or email us both. We love to argue.

No we don't!