Hi guys. I have been out of the country, and or away most of the Summer. I missed you in the rush of travel and summer business. Three weeks ago I hit a ground hog who waddled across the road, and I thought I should have been able to stop. The brakes just didn;t get the job done. I am getting ready to buy the parts for the c-5 upgrade, and am wondering if there are better rotors and or calipers than stock c-5 parts. I have Ed's adapter plates already. I drove a BMW M-3 last week with Brembo brakes, and the car stopped faster than any car I have ever driven. It would put you through the windshield if you didn;t have your seat belt on. I have checked into Brembo, and these parts are too big for the ZR-1 wheels(I hope I have that nomenclature right), which I bought over the Summer, so the Brembo thing is out. But what about the Bear brakes? ARe they any better than stock. Any comment on the drilled, and slotted rotors I see advertized? The magazines are full of ads for brake upgrades for the C-5. Is there a product out there that I should avoid for street use? Will any c-5 rotor bolt onto the c-4 spindels. I called a Corvette shop in Texas who advertized brake upgrades, and he did not know of the c-4 to c-5 upgrade adapters, and was afraid to sell me anything. How about pads. I am not raceing, but want to be able to STOP when the dear start to go crazy this fall. Which of our sponsers should I call. Thanks for the advice. I hope I can stay somewhat involved here this fall.

 

Baer and Wilwood are about equal to Brembo, though Wilwood is a little more accessible. Drilled/slotted is what is used in racing, but on a street car they really won't help, more likely the rotor will eventually crack under extreme use. Any C5 rotor should fit if it fits a C5 with no modification.

 

We should compare all these different upgrades, cost and performance wise.

I saw some Baer rotors next to my Wilwoods for the first time, the Baers are impressive, and cheaper I believe. Not as pretty hats, but who cares about pretty.

I would guess that nascar has the largest brakes in town. Heavy cars, high speeds. They don't use drilled, just gigantic thick rotors at martinsville and other shorttracks. (i think they are slotted). I've never seen drilled used in a racing application, and if it was, it was probably for weight reduction more than for performance.

 

Are you happy with your Willwoods? Did you preceive improved stopping power over the stock parts? Are they the C-5 application, or a c-4 replacement? For some reason Willwood is advertized as racing only in some applications. Is there a good reason for that? The parts they make for old Mopars don;t have dust shields, but my friends use them on the street anyway. Is this true of the Corvette applications as well, and should I care. I don't drive my Corvette often in the rain, but I have, and will again I am sure. I want my Vette to have the same impressive stopping power my friend;s BMW has.

By the way, while I was in Germany in August, I was a passenger in an Audi that the guy drove regularly at 130MPH. He was not showing off. He seemed to be pretty oblivious to the car actually. It was just a way to get from here to there. Those guys really drive fast. It made the exceptional performance of the German cars seem extemely logical and practical, and not excessive they way they are here in the US with the low Us speed limits. They also observed extemely logical, courteous rules of the road, always moving over for the faster car to pass on the left. While I was there I saw only one American car at high speed on the Autobahn, and that was a late model Mustang. I really wished I had my Vette there.

 

Vader86, how are you doing after Katrina? I have a friend from Algiers point in New Orleans who called and asked for a job with me while NO gets dried out. I run a piano shop here in MD, and he had worked for me ten years ago before he moved to NO. Of course I said yes. He is here for the duration while his family is now in Pittsburgh living with his inlaws. Man do I feel sorry for him. We are happy to be able to help him. I hope you are OK. I know the rain didn't hit you guys too hard, but apparently the population shot throught he roof in just about a week.

 

It is if you don't get the right pads. Race pads need to get hot to work, so you need to pick the right set, otherwise you'll run right thru your first redlight or stop sign in the morning.

The crossdrilled I've seen are on LeMans Racecars, of all types.

Katrina didnt do a terrible amount of damage here, just tree limbs and power outages on the eastside. LSU fared well. Problem is the doubled population and roads that couldnt handle traffic in 1950, much less now.

 

What pads do you recommend for street use? STock GM would seem safe, but maybe there is a better street use pad out there.

 

I wonder how true that really is. Race pads are dusty, and noisy especially when cold, but does that mean they won't bite? What do these graphs look like if you go down to 50F I wonder.

 

I had a set of race pads on one of my Darts once that almost got my wife killed. She was turning the car around in the driveway, and could NOT stop the car at the end of the drive way. There was nothing "wrong" with the brakes. She just could not muster the pedal pressure to stop the car when it was cold. She has refused to ever drive it again after that. I would like to hear from others as to what type of brake pads they are using and what type of driving they are doing, and how they like them. How are they behaving, considering noise, pedal feel, and stopping, or gripping power?

 

After tuning the bias I was able to get my 60-0 times down to 116 feet, without ABS, without rear lockup, and on an almost empty gas tank. I don't know how leaving the bias alone will affect ABS, probably will cause it to kick in very soon in front. FWIW, using the stock bias, the wilwoods were worthless at 140+ feet stopping distance.

I made brackets similar to the electrodynamics adapters and bolted up a C5 front Wilwood kit to em. The Calipers don't have dust boots, which are desireable for street use.

I think the main problem with Corvette brakes, is not heat capacity, but rather, they simply can't get enough force to the pads, whether it's due to weak vacuum assist, crappy pedal ratio, or wussy drivers that want the brakes to feel like a minivan, I don't know. Stickier pads will help turn this lower force into more brake torque. Upgrading to larger rotors does the same thing, increases the torque for a given pad force. I think upgrading rotors is the lazy expensive way to increase that torque. If you don't drive on the autobahn or race your vette, you don't need the extra heat capacity.

 

CentralCoaster, what kind of brake pads are you using? Are they Wilwood pads? Is there a c-5 equivalent for the pad material? I ordered all stock Corvette (GM) c-5 stuff today, except for the pads. I figured I wanted to get some opinions before buying the pads.

 

My "other car" is an Audi, and its stock brakes are absolutely superior the the vette brakes, and that's with a bias spring installed. I'm looking to upgrade when I can afford it. I kind of think the problem is with the boost unit.

 

I have had the c-5 upgrade on my 92 for about 3 months now. GM dura-stop cross drilled and slotted rotors, ceramic pads. I like it, for the money its a very good deal. I also considered the Baer system but in the end the C-5 conversion won out, after I test drove cars with each set up. Not due to performance, bc honestly I couldn't tell much if any difference on the street other than they were both way superior to my stock 92 brakes, but bc C-5 replacement stuff is cheap. I mean really cheap and the way I was burning up and cracking stock replacement rotors it made a lot of sense for me.

what I like: 1)big upgrade from stock on my car. 2)parts cost and replacement cost. 3)ceramic pads leave very little dust on wheels 4)cross drilled rotors look good.

what I don't like: The ceramic pads took along time to bed in and the cross drilled rotors hot spot easily. I had to buff the rotors off and re-do the entire process bc the damn rotors kept getting hot spots right behind the holes drilled in them and then it acted like the rotors were warped. If you want the best performance out of the C-5 set up I definatly reccomend you get non drilled rotors and some other kind of brake pads.

The GM dura-stop stuff is ok for a daily driven street car that you don't want to wash the wheels on every day, but I doubt it'll hold up to any real track abuse. That said, I have been unable to crack one of the rotors (like every one says they will) YET, and I've done some pretty crazy braking stunts with it. So it'll withstand a lot of use but nothing like a repeated thrashing on a road course IMO.

If your close by me, your welcome to come and see for your self what my set up is like.
Will

 

Have you actually measured the stopping distances? The 88-96 vettes apparently have very poor pedal feedback, that isn't confidence inspiring, but that's not to say they aren't stopping the car quickly. Your brakes should be more capable then the day they were new with a bias spring, better tires than stock, and performance pads. And I can almost guarantee your vette has better stopping distances from the factory than that Audi.