My Daewoo doesn't have brake fade. I have hammered it as hard as I can for half an hour at a time and it's never even given me a whiff of smoke, no bubbling brake fluid, no squishy pedal. However, it does two things that make me think I might need to upgrade.

1. It has a different bite point almost every time I step on the pedal. The harder I drive, the more variable this bite point becomes. It's not fade, because it doesn't get worse with heat and sometimes it will bite right off the top when it's seriously hot, sometimes it will bite after two inches when it's cold. I think this is caliper flex and pad knock back - makes it harder than it should be to threshhold brake.

2. It has the worst ABS system on earth. Long story short, if it lifts the rear, driver's side wheel, the entire system has a panic attack and makes the brake force for the other three wheels vanish. This is seriously scary and the reason I pull the fuse on track. However, when I pull the fuse, I end up with too much rearward brake bias and have a tendency to lock up the rears before the fronts. If I go with an aftermarket front caliper, this will correct (maybe overcorrect) the bias issues, no?

What do you have for brakes now?

2 could be fixed easily enough with an adjustable proportioning valve. Also, does it currently have stainless steel brake lines? What sort of pads?

You can also reduce the pad knock back by installing check valves in the brake lines going to the front calipers. Wilwood sells them, one for disc brakes and one for drum brakes. I used then on my Mustang which I converted to Wilwood front & rear brakes. It didn't eliminate the condition but it did reduce it by a factor of about 80%.

You could try staggered pads.

Stock on the rear and grippier ones on the front.

Kenny_McCormic wrote: What do you have for brakes now?

Stock four wheel discs with this:

iceracer wrote: You could try staggered pads. Stock on the rear and grippier ones on the front.

I run stock pads on the back and "Hardrun" sport pads in the front. I'm pretty sure you don't get this brand in the US, but it is much grippier than stock.

jimbbski wrote: You can also reduce the pad knock back by installing check valves in the brake lines going to the front calipers. Wilwood sells them, one for disc brakes and one for drum brakes. I used then on my Mustang which I converted to Wilwood front & rear brakes. It didn't eliminate the condition but it did reduce it by a factor of about 80%.

I'm fascinated. Is this a PIA install?