Aurora40

It proves it has more brake than it has tire.

The OP is saying his car has a hard time stopping. No mention of repeated or high speed use. So it sounds like his car has a problem, or he isn't using enough pedal. Whatever your definition of "under braked", all year C4's should have enough brakes to lock the tires. If your car has properly working stock brakes, and you think the car is "hard to stop", bigger ones will not stop it any faster.

Adam@Amp'dAutosport.com

Try these and some new rotors and fluid

The Carbotech Bobcat 1521™ is our high performance street compound that is our most successful compound. The Bobcat compound is known for its awesome release and modulation, along with unmatched rotor friendliness. Like our AX™ & XP™ line of compounds, Bobcat 1521™ is a Ceramic based friction material offering minimal rotor damage and non corrosive dust. Bobcat 1521™ offers outstanding performance, even when cold, low dusting and low noise with an excellent initial bite. This compound’s virtually perfect linear torque production provides incredible braking force without ABS intervention. Bobcat 1521™ operating range starts out at ambient and goes up to 900°F. Bobcat 1521™ is suitable for ALL street cars, perfect for your tow vehicle, police cruiser, and has won multiple SCCA Solo 2 and Prosolo National Championships. The Bobcat 1521™ compound has been found to last two-three times longer than OE pads you can purchase at a dealership or national retailer. Bobcat 1521™ compound has also been found to extend the life of your rotors 2-3 times. That’s one of the beauties of Carbotech Ceramic brake compounds. Bobcat 1521™ is NOT recommended for any track use.

jhammons01

Now we are posting things that make sense

If your brakes lock up real easy....wouldn't that be a "tire" issue??

Traction has a lot to do with stopping distance does it not??

If I had a bicycle tire on all four corners, wouldn't my stopping distance be calculated with a sundial rather than a stop watch? And since a bicycle tire would lock up real easy, wouldn't the brakes be deemed as "very good"?

so as Aurora points out, how are we defining "good"?

If it were me, I would be worrying how they performed at the track. You run as hard and deep into the corner and then brake hard to bring the cars speed down to a level where you'll make the corner.

Do your pads last long enough to make a track day? Do your calipers heat up and you experience brake fade? Does your Master cylinder heat up and you get blow by??

Since I've not made it to the track....I can't answer these questions....I do no from some azzwipe "brake checking" me on the freeway a few years ago that my car out brakes one of those "M" BMWs with the 11" wide tires......(lol that is a different story) so my $20 Kragen pads seem to be working just fine for the street.

RedLS1GTO

Traction and braking are obviously very closely tied together but locking up brakes doesn't mean it is a tire issue. On my track car I had stock-ish J55 brakes. They were stock calipers with stainless pistons, braided lines, and various pads and rotors. If I tried to brake deep into a corner sometimes I would lock up 1 or more tires. It was unpredictable to say the least. Now I have big 6 piston Wilwoods on the car and it stops exactly the same each and every time. Both sets have enough power to lock up the tires but the bigger (better) brakes let me use them to the fullest potential and have enough control NOT to lock them up when I get hard on them.

Think of it like this. You have a CD and a record spinning at the same RPM and you want to stop them with your finger. Because of the larger diameter you have much more control how quickly you want to stop the record. The larger diameter gives a longer torque arm, therefore you can stop the record with less applied force. When you try to stop the spinning CD you have less control because of the smaller diameter and you have to apply more force because of the resulting smaller torque arm. That may or may not make sense...

Long story short is that bigger brakes are better. If you just want to put the pedal to the floor and bang off of the ABS then you probably won't notice a difference. If you want to get into threshold braking and really use them to their full potential and using them enough to build up heat... you will absolutely notice the difference. You guys keep bringing up the locking up the tires aspect. That is about 1% of it. If your brakes won't lock up the tires there is something wrong with them. Period. I could lock up 315 series Hoosiers with stock J55s.

Forget taking my word for it. Go drive a car with good brakes... a new Porsche, Ferrari, a new Z06 or ZR-1, or even a C4 or C5 with a big brake setup. Once you feel what good brakes feel like, you will understand that the brakes on the C4 are adequate but they are far from being as good as many cars out there.

dclafleur

I don't think any of us are trying to compare twenty year old chevy PBR brakes to a new Porsche or Ferrari but we're saying if he can't lock up his tires it's not that the car was built with inadequate brakes, it's that he has a problem with his braking system.

The brakes in the context of the years the cars were built are pretty good, so if he's having issues it's not because of the number of pistons in the calipers or the size of the disks. Now if you're trying to compete against a new Porsche in a 1992 Corvette, then yes you'll probably want to upgrade to bigger brakes but make sure the rest of the system is running well first.

RedLS1GTO

The question I answered wasn't the OPs original one. I was answering the posts that came after it. Like I said... if you can't lock up the brakes if you try, something is wrong and needs to be fixed.

jhammons01

^^ agree'd

desertmike1

My 95 works pretty good too!!

aboatguy

arandy

I recently put Brake Performance slotted and dimpled rotors with Posi/Quiet HP pads on my 95 vert. This thing stops on a dime and gives 9 cents change.
Rotors and pads delivered, about $500 with free shipping.

JrRifleCoach

Jumping off topic for a moment; what IS your definition of a e-brake & parking brake? Just curious...

dogfish246

good question... I never knew the difference. I always thought the parking brake and e-brake were interchangable

Aurora40

If you've ever tried the parking brake on the C4 to slow the car, it would not be much good in an emergency. You don't get nearly the leverage that the hydraulic system gets.

That said, I've never heard anyone distinguish the terms either.

JrRifleCoach

Exactly!

Only one auxiliary brake per car.
You say emergency, I say parking.
Call it whatcha want.......

muzikmanwi

I have always thought the term emergency brake "e-brake" was funny and only the fast and the furious ricers used it lol. I too have always used the term parking brake as that is all it is good for.

Tom400CFI

RICEKILA

What has worked for my "84"

When I install fresh semi metallics from wherever I buy them

I make a few hard stops from 55 & 1/2 MPH ( )

And that usually does it

But ---- After reading a drilled disk brake thread from last week -- I ordered a front pair of these from Summit

http://www.summitracing.com/parts/SUM-DSEP-5555L/

Next month I'll order the rears -- take it all apart again

And flush with new brake fluid

And see if the blue caliper paint I bought last year - is still any good

Toy90

My 12" rotor 94 with the pads that were on it when I bought it were terrible. I could stop faster in a Park Ave. Ultra that weighed much more. I could not lock up the brakes unless it was raining. I put on Hawk HP+ pads, new $35 napa rotors and it could lock up the front BFG z rated tires with 75% of my available leg pressure at just about any speed on dry pavement. On my 96 I put Carbotech XP12's and napa blanks on for the track and I can lock up the tires with 40% leg pressure. Brakes stop your car using friction between the rotor and pad. If you have a pad with low coeffecient of friction then your car won't stop well. Not only do cheap pads not stop well, but they can't handle heat well either. To me a compound like Hawk street or Carbotech's bobcat are perfect for someone who wants their car to stop well during spirited driving, but doesn't want the extra dusty squeaky pads that are more designed for the track. These pads will dust a little and might squeak a little too, but not near what a track pad will. If you don't want any dust or squeak you can likely find a good pad, but I don't have any experience with any because I track my car.

vader86

In my opinion nearly all cars are under braked. 60-0 stats should be as important to people as the 0-60 stats. Congress would do better to scrap CAFE and instill strict braking requirements for safety purposes.

For their time though, your cars brakes were very good. It needs better pads than OE though.

mike100

No telling for sure, but pattern failures that the majority of owners suffer would lead me to believe the vacuum booster has slowly gotten weak over the years. It may have a slow leak in the diaphragm rubber.

It's funny the posts you bring up are mirroring my complaints with mine as I have taken care of a few items on mine to keep it up to decent standards (I have a C6 so it's a tough act to follow).

I did just buy a reman Cardone booster 2 weeks ago and it made it better. It still feels kind of hard, but now that I have driven it a few hundred miles, I can definitely tell that it does indeed heat up the pads more at high speeds and will get that confident grabby feeling. It will also lock 'em up, even though you do have to put some leg in it. I wasn't sure I was even able to do it before.

Lastly, I'm sure mine had a leak because the car ran bad for the first couple of miles while the fuel trims moved across the fuel map after I changed to a booster that didn't leak.

I do have the 13" brakes, but for one or two stops, the standard ones should have a confident feeling as well.

ON EDIT: I'm using the parts store Wagner pads -oem PBR clones that are hard to bed in just like the original ones. You need a few rotor disk rotations before they really grab, but once warmed up they feel better.