mfi

My 92 is the only car I have ever owned that the brake booster blew...piece of plastic crap. And my brakes..new pads, hoses, rotors. booster,aren't that great...they work though, but my jeep's are better.

JrRifleCoach

My big gripe is all these guys worried about what oil and filter for their engine and when they post an engine compartment pic,
the brake fluid is black as night!

mfi

Cause its a sucky job to change it.

socalman

The 12" system sucks, period. Nevermind, "they're ok for their age". I had a 96 Beamer and a 92 Vette, the Vette just doesn't like to stop with those tiny calipers and rotors. I also had a 92 jeep and a 90 cherokee that stopped better. My sons have 93 Honda, 94 Mits and 95 Mustang. All stopped better.

In short, the standard brakes are undersized, even in the 15 year old C4s.

I did he C5 upgrade, world of difference. Stops like its suppose to.

Tom400CFI

You know that by '96, the Corvette's brakes were SUBSTANTIALLY better too...right?

As for the rest of those clunks...take them and a stock brakes '92 to the track and see which one still has brakes after three laps. "Stopped better" is all about the type of pads used. A track tests the whole braking system.

The '92 12" system is ABOUT as good as other sports cars' brakes from '92 reletive to it's weight.

Kubs

From someone who tracks a near stock C4 the C4s are waaayyy underbraked. I have a '90 and with the J55 13" brakes at stock weight, the brakes were fading after only a few laps at a track with not a whole lot of braking. Changing pads, like mentioned, did help but the brakes were still not up to par. Everything was new (seals, pins, grease, etc) and and in working order and they were still not good.

I now have C5 brakes in the front with a C6 caliper (stronger design) and a 4th gen Fbody master cylinder. The larger bore MC and the better calipers make the car stop so much better than before!! It is night and day, even with the small 12.89" rotor. Stopping is more consistant all day with the thicker rotors, and pedal feel is indescribable.

This picture shows how usable the new setup is. If you look close you can see some orange on the rotor and I never had brake fade all day.



This is just my opinion, but I dont think the stock brakes are any good.

ps374

I think the 84s brakes are average. I dont think that when they designed the first C4s that they put as much affort in the brake system as they did the rest of the car. I would say the C4 stops as well as any four wheel disc brake car of that Era. But i dont think they were on the level of Porsche or other more expensive sports cars of that time.

Tom400CFI

I don't think anyone will disagree w/any of that. I don't. But no other car in the 'Vettes price range, was meaningfully better, in 1992. For example we used to have a '92 Stealth RT/TT. It comes w/nice big front, four piston calipers on a relatively thick rotor. I'd boil RBF 600 in 5 laps at Miller. Same as my '92 'Vette.

Lemme

I have just had my 87s front brakes upgraded to the 2 piston 13 inch rotors of the later c4s as I wasn't satisfied with the braking performance (especially when compard with modern cars). I can't say I am overly impressed with the result. Brake technology has come along way with all the modern cars.

Still, its better than what I had so I will have to be happy with it.

RWDsmoke

My 86 always had lousy brakes even after replacing everything. After I did the c5 upgrade and still lousy brakes, In desperation, I pulled the abs fuse and with both feet i put all 190# on the brake pedal at 40 mph. (don't try this with old rubber brake hoses) After the smoke cleared I reinstalled the fuse and now I have great brakes! My guess is something was sticking in the abs.

jan-erik

Hi I have an 85 and I must say I got sweat on my upper lip first time I had to really use the brakes. It was so bad in relation to the european cars.
I investigated much both in USA and else here in europe with brake specialists which said that the C4s with one piston calipers as the 84, 85, 85 and think 87 were bad with stock rotors and pads.
I tried first the brake booster and checked that which was 100% ok. Then with stainless brake hoses. The pedal became harder end better feeling.
Then I change a lot of pad (semi metallic and kevlar etc), but not good. Then changed to Power Slot rotors and Hawk HPS pads which was the best till then ,but not good enough. Then changed to Hawk HP plus pads and WOW what a difference. Now the brakes really perfom more than expected and feels very good. Good initial bite and really gets better with hard braking. The only drawack is they squeek now and then and makes dust. That I can accept with that good brakes on my 85. The Hawk HPS do not squeekand make very little dust but is outperformed with hi scores by the Hawk HP plus