c4/c5 Hybrid Brakes

[Jimmy Sean]

Shooting a dead horse again. :hand:

I searched three boards not much luck in finding an answer or maybe I'm dense. I know I can go guy brackets from Speed Tech or Touring Classic. What I would like to do is make my own bracket, the budget is tight.

What I have is C4 rotors, C5 calipers, C5 baskets / abutments. Can the brackets be made? I did mock them up lastnight with the bracket from Pozzi's site, the placement of the abutment was against the rotor diameter(easy enough to fix) but the abutment was up against the inside of the rotor.

Thoughts?

Thanks,

[shep]

I have thought about this as well. All I could come up with was a two piece bracket, with the abutment mounting holes being one piece and the spindle mounting holes being the other. Basically take the Pozzi bracket cut it in half long ways, find the space that needs to be between the two pieces and figure out how to attach the two pieces back together with the proper spacing.

[Jimmy Sean]

Thanks Shep,

After thinking on it for two days that is basically what I came up with. I thought of using two 1/4" thick pieces and over lapping them and welding together.

Would there be any reason why I couldn't or shouldn't use a spacer/washer between the fabbed bracket and the abutment? This would be to fine tune the abutment spacing over the rotor.

[Skip Fix]

I wondered if you couldn't do something similar to use that caliper on a 1LE rotor.

[Hammered]

I made my own brackets to mount LS1 rotors to my F-body spindles with A-body hubs. I carefully measured everything with a caliper and micrometer and mocked up a prototype out of 5/8" thick wood. I then made adjustment from there. I believe the brackets you want to reproduce start with 5/8" thick material. Frankly, I don't think you'll save enough to make it worthwhile.

[novaracer_2000]

I am using 96 corvette rotors,calipers and cages along with A body drum brake spindles and hubs.A friend of mine made up a adapter plate to mount the cages.I think he said you need to machine down the top mounting hole a bit to get it to work right.He did the same conversion on his brother firebird and it worked awsome.

[novaracer_2000]

here is a link to the page my friend used to make up this brake swap.
http://www.pozziracing.com/12_corvette_brakes_on_fgen.htm

[Hammered]

I'm pretty sure that template is for C4/C4 rotors/calipers. He wants to do C4/C5

[Chewy72ss]

Is it even possible to do a C4/C5 hybrid setup?? Don't the C4 rotors have a much smaller firepath than the C5s? Would the correct pads cure this possible problem.

I would be interested in using the C4 rotors, simply because the "hat" is taller than the C5 rotors, which would net more wheel "spoke" clearance.

[Apogee]

Is it even possible to do a C4/C5 hybrid setup?? Don't the C4 rotors have a much smaller firepath than the C5s? Would the correct pads cure this possible problem.

I would be interested in using the C4 rotors, simply because the "hat" is taller than the C5 rotors, which would net more wheel "spoke" clearance.

It's not only possible, but companies like Speedtech and Touring-Classics have been selling them for years with excellent results. The firepath of the 13" C4 HD rotor is pretty much a standard medium annulus rotor at 2.23" whereas the C5/C6 are actually a little bit smaller at ~2.12".

As there isn't really a problem to cure, you just run the C5/C6 pads with the C5/C6 calipers and you're good to go. The only thing not really to spec is the 28mm thick rotor being used with a pad abutment designed for a 32mm thick C5/C6 rotor, but unless you like to run your pads down to the backing plate you should never have an issue. Most pad manufacturers suggest replacing the pads before they reach 30% as they need a certain minimum pad volume to dissipate heat properly.

Tobin
KORE3

[Chewy72ss]

Cool, thanks for the definitive answer. Is this only true with the "HD" rotors, or will the standard C4 rotors work?

Also, am I "correct" in saying that the C4 rotors will place the caliper further away from the wheel than the C5 rotors would??

Thanks again. I'm in the middle of doing this swap on my '80 Malibu, using a set of late-model Blazer spindles. So, I'm lookin' for as much info as possible.

[Apogee]

The C4 standard rotor is only 12" and would require a specific bracket moving the caliper radially inward by 1/2". I don't know of anyone who's done this over the 98-02 F-body swap as the latter uses thicker rotors, but I think it would be possible, if not that desirable.

As for the caliper clearance, the C4 13" HD rotor has .59" more clearance for the caliper by my measurements. You could always pull the wheel fitment templates from various manufacturers and confirm it for yourself as well.

Tobin

[ebmiller88]

I did a set of C4/C5 brakes for a MCSS using the 13" HD rotor and a C5 caliper and they turned out great. The rotor thickness difference is only .15" (1.1" vs. 1.25") which is not that much:

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2008/01/4ba4re2-1.jpg

I thought I had an assembled pic of them but this is the one I found.

Ed

[Crafty One]

EB,
What hubs did you use?

[ebmiller88]

EB,
What hubs did you use?

Machined down stock style units, they work great.

Ed