So I'm thinking about changing the name from project track-ho to project money-pit. So I got really spooked at almost eating 2 cars last time I was on track and after talking to quite a few people who actually road race, I decided it was time for a brake upgrade. This wasn't done for performance, it was done for safety.
So I went with ITR fronts and RSX/EP3 rears (same size as ITR rears). So I'm going from 10.3 to 11.1 in the front, 9.4 to 10.2 in the rear, and adding the 1" master cylinder. The unit from a 98-01 Integra is a direct replacement for any 96-00 civic. No line bending or anything.
I decided against wilwood brake setups because many people complain about the calipers flexing too much, and their full front/rear kits are too big for a spare tire to fit over it. With the setup I'm running, my spare will fit over the rear, but not the front. Thats fine, I'll just swap tires around in the event of a flat.
I got a set of carbotech bobcats for front/rear for street use. I plan to use Carbotech XP10's front and XP8's rear for track use.
When disassembling everything, I found that I had turned the hubs on my rear rotors blue... The rears... Not the fronts, but the rears... One of my front rotors had seized onto the hub. My front/rear rotors/pads had been on the car for less than 500 miles. My front pads (xp10's) were breaking up a bit. I had completely burned all of the paint off the backing plate of the pad. It looked like bare metal. My rears had some sort of weird white ash on the edges of the pads and the edges were frayed kind of odd. My old rear pads had seen 4yrs of street use, and 3 events and didn't look that beat up. So it really does look like I just pushed the brakes too far.
Parts List :
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Stainless Lines - $100
Machined ITR front Calipers w/Redrilled rotors - $250
Carbotech pads front/rear - $200
EP3/RSX rear calipers - $150
2002-2003 EP3 rear rotors - $25
98-01 Integra MC - $115
Total Cost : $840
So complete brake system upgrade for considerably less than what an aftermarket setup would have cost me. So if I had known beforehand that I needed to upgrade brakes, I probably would have just done an ITR 5-lug conversion up front. However since I've already replaced RTA bushings, and have 2 sets of 4x100 wheels, it was much more cost effective to do this 4-lug swap. I have a setup that is easy to get parts for, and is track proven.
On with the pics... I realized that I missed a few shots, so I will try to fill in the holes later.
Old 9.4" rear setup.
Old 9.4" rear vs. new 10.2" rear. This is a rear rotor from a 2002-2003 civic si/ep3. It was 4 lug, exact same hub bore as the stocker. It literally fits right on. These go for $13.50 each at my local auto parts store. These are "Wearever" brand which is made by bendix.
I'm using stainless lines. These are Technafit lines sold by king motorsports. They are quality lines, but I don't know that I would buy them again. I may have been better off if I had bought ITR brake lines as they may have been a bit longer to give me more slack. However the lines are not tight or binding, so Im' not worried about them.
Old rear pad vs. new rear pad. EP3/RSX uses the same rear pad as the Prelude and ITR.
Rear end disassembled. Notice the mounting location for the bracket. If you look closely, you can see where I trimmed the lip off on the heat shield. This interfered when I tried to mount the new braket for the ep3/rsx rear caliper. A minute with the dremel and a cutting disk made quick work of this.
Close up
EP3/RSX base calipers.
Rotor and bracket in place.
Ok, now when I go to put the caliper on, I hear a big *CLINK*... Thats when I find out, the left caliper doesn't fit. The caliper body slams into a flange on the trailing arm... Luckily, you can swap the calipers left to right. So the right side caliper fits right in. The good thing about this is the EP3/RSX calipers have the e-brake mechanism mounted on the bottom, by swapping L to R, the e-brake mechanism is now moved to the top, so you can easily maintain your ebrake. The bad thing is, now your bleeder screw is on the bottom side of the caliper. So you must remove the caliper to bleed it properly. Not a big deal since I already have to remove the caliper to swap brake pads for track events.
So, I put the line on the caliper and swap calipers, and guess what... Clink... Brake line is hitting the same flange on the trailing arm. I started to cut the flange on the arm off, but it has a weld, so it helps hold the arm together. Then I notice, the 2 nubs that help to hold the brake line in place on the caliper. If I could rotate the line more, it would clear the flange on the TA.
Cutting off one nub gave me enough room to rotate the line more clear the flange. This *MAY* not be a problem with other brands of lines, or even if I was using ITR lines. I was using lines for a 99-00SI.
Rears with the wheels on. These are 15" wheels. I also had to swap the e-brake bracket from the old rear calipers to the new ones, and swap the e-brake lever as well as they are different. Its very easy and takes all of 5 minutes. However I have a fully functioning e-brake.
Front rotors. The fronts are 96 prelude vtec rotors that were redrilled from 4x114 to 4x100. Best to use 4-lug rotors for redrilling instead of 5-lug. Problem with 5-lug is that you end up with at least one of the new holes overlapping one of the old. I'd rather not have that.
You can see in the picture that the ITR caliper bracket has been machined. Look at the shiny parts where the bracket connects to the spindle. Its mounting flange has been machined to remove about 5mm of material to prevent the rotor from interfering with the bracket when assembled.
Notice the rotor is big enough that you don't see the heatshield behind it. No pics of disassembly and install here because nothing special had to happen, just remove old, install new...
A shot of my ghetto brake bleeding mechanism. I went the easy route when bleeding by pouring fluid directly into the caliper body, installing new line, then pushing caliper piston in until fluid came out the other end of the line. This way when I installed it, I could minimize the amount of air introduced into the system. Notice how bright red the pads are? My track pads were the same way and I burnt it all off.
Another shot of the setup.
Pic with the wheel on. The rotor/caliper actually fills up the entire wheel
Now, time to bench bleed the master cylinder. When you bench bleed, you actually fill the mc with fluid and bleed it *BEFORE* you ever install it in the car. If you put an empty mc in a car and attempt to bleed the normal way, you will never get all of the air out of the system. I had a piece of clutch fluid hard line left over from my old motor. I snipped it to get those two little fittings/stubs you see installed in the mc. I'm going to connect some tube so I can see air bubbles when I bleed it.
This is a 1" mc from the 98-01 Integra. Direct bolt-in for the 7/8" MC that comes in my car.
Lines hooked up and full of fluid. On the backside of the mc where it attached to the booster, there is a piston. You have to pump it slowly to bleed the mc. Take your time and keep an eye on the air bubles.
All bled with fittings back in place. Need to move quickly so this thing doesn't leak all over my countertop.
Car is all done. Take it for a test drive. I make it 20ft out of my driveway and hear this *HORRIBLE* screeching noise. I thought I had bent the dust/heat shields back far enough to clear the calipers, but apparently not. These things don't just come off, you either have to pull the spindle to get access to the screws or just cut it off. I chose to cut if off. I broke out the metal snips and made quick work of them. I needed to do this anyways as this provides more ventilation to the brakes, which is probably a big part of the problem that I had on the track.
Great work man.
