1998GsRIntegra

I'll begin with saying that my intent in making this thread is to answer a few questions that I was unable to get answers to before I did this upgrade, and to give my general impressions of the car pre and post brake upgrade. In addition to that, I would also consider this to be a partial how-to guide.

My Parts List:
-Left and right side 1995 Legend GS front brake calipers w/ 28t brackets

-1996 Prelude Vtec Brembo blank rotors

-Stop-tech front stainless steel brakelines for a 1998 Integra gsr

-Hawk HPS Front Brake Pads for a 1995 Legend GS

-1 liter of ATE Superblue DOT 4 brake fluid

-1 G2 black brake caliper paint kit

-2 Improvised 5mm wheel spacers

Indepth explanations of parts:
-Calipers: I decided to go for dual piston calipers over single piston calipers because for me, the pros outweighted the cons. The dual piston calipers are only found on the 1994 and 1995 Acura Legend GS model. I purchased them through rockauto.com for about $50 a piece plus a $10 core charge. They were raybestos re-manufactured units. As of late I have no qualms with them. In short the dual piston calipers will produce more even pad wear over time and they allow for better brake force modulation. The down side is the initial clamping force is less than that of an itr single piston caliper and brake pedal travel is increased slightly because of the increased fluid volume being moved. I also want to note that I did NOT flip the left and right side calipers to place the bleeder screw at the top of the caliper. To me doing that completely defeats the purpose of going to a dual piston caliper because you are reversing the offset of the pistons in the caliper. On the legend dual piston calipers, the leeding piston is larger in diameter than the trailing piston to aid with even pad wear. Many people will say the flipping the calipers from left to right and right to left will not effect pad wear, but if that were true, why did honda offset the piston sizes from the factory? To bleed the calipers as I have them mounted(the correct orientation) simply loosen the top slider bolt and remove the bottom slider bolt. Flip the caliper up and place a piece of wood(with preferrably little to no wiggle room) between the pistons and the outer fingers of the caliper and bleed as per usual. Something else to note is that you will probably have to remove the black shields behind the brake rotors. They got in my way enough to the point that I cut them off. I know some have kept them, but it wasn't worth the hastle to me.

-Rotors: I went with the 1996 Prelude vtec rotors only because they are hubcentirc to 4x100 integra knuckles. This later proved to be useless, but the intent and forethought was there. I found that when using a 28t bracket with the 23mm thick prelude vtec rotor, one will need to space the rotor out 5mm-6mm to center it in the caliper bracket. That ultimately threw the whole hubcentric thing out the window. I'm not thrilled about running a 5mm wheel spacer on stock wheel studs, so I will be picking up a set arp wheel studs to install around the car as I now have an excuse to buy and install them. Please note that regardless of what rotor is used, prelude or legend, it will need to be re-drilled to 4x100. I accomplished this by clamping a 4x100 rotor over top of the prelude rotor and drilling the 4x100 pattern in by hand. I did a few tests on old rotors before moving to the new prelude rotor. I found that the best method for drilling by hand was to start with a 1/2 inch drill bit. It proved to be a better method than starting with a small drill bit and working up. I aligned the center bores of the two rotors with a disposable coffee cup. It proved to work the best. Go figure. Also don't waste your time with working the screws that hold the rotor to the hub into the equation. You do not need them. The rotor can be held to the hub during test-fitting with two lug nuts. I highly recommend a mychrometer for measuring the clearences between the caliper bracket and the rotor. The more centered the rotor is in the caliper bracket the better.

-Brake Lines: Replacing old worn out rubber oem brake lines is something that should be seriously considered while you have everything appart and the braking system open. I chose to replace the oem lines with stop-tech stainless steel braided lines. If you go for stainless steel lines make sure they are teflon coated. New oem rubber lines are perfectly fine if that is your preference. Quality stainless steel lines or new oem rubber lines will be a nice improvement over old worn lines. I went with stainless lines because they don't flex as much under hard braking as an oem rubber lines.

-Brake Pads: Completely personal preference. I wanted a proven performance street pad; that is the sole reason I bought the hawk hps pads. I am extremely happy with them. After burnishing they are awesome on the street. Another companys name I've heard tossed around is Cobalt. They apparently have a nice selection of pads and are happy to talk with people and recommend a pad based on the intended use ie. track, street, autox... AP Racing has a great video on brake pad and rotor burnishing. I highly recommend it if you have any questions about brake burnishing.

-Brake Fluid: No reason for going with the ATE Blue fluid other than personal preference and it is a reasonably priced DOT 4 performance brake fluid. One liter is also enough fluid to bleed the entire braking system.

-G2 Paint Kit: I highly recommend the g2 kit over any other method aside from powder coating to protect your calipers. It is extremely good looking after it dries and it reminds me of powder coat. It is really tuff paint. I believe most spray on kits are rated at 500 degrees while the g2 brush on kit is rated somewhere around 900 degrees. Its pricey considering its just caliper paint, but its well worth it. The quality speaks for itself.

-Improvised Spacers: I'm not going to get into them because it is completely the wrong way to go about spacing out the rotor. I just had to get the job done in a day. Needless to say, 5mm spacers were not factored into the original plan because I was under the impression that I would have to space the caliper bracket, not space the rotor, or take material off of the caliper bracket.


My Impressions: Pre-upgrade the car had stock calipers, oem rotors, and oem pads all around. I never felt that the car stopped all that great. I basically skipped upgrading the pads, fluid, and lines and went straight for the complete upgrade because I felt that money would be better spend once rather than twice if you know what I mean. Post upgrade the pedal travel was increased a bit, but the pads grab much harder and the car stops much harder. I know that I now have enough brake because I can lock up a wheel if I really get on the brakes hard. I couldn't come close to doing that before. I'm considering throwing a more aggressive pad on the rear to some what counter act the upgrade in the front. Ultimately I'll be upgrading the rear's to nsx rear calipers, but that isn't in the near future. In total I spent about $450 and I feel that it was money well spent. I'm happy with the new system and would recommend it to someone considering doing it. I'll gladly answer any questions I can. Feel free to reply to the thread or pm me.

nospoolDC2

good write up

There is not nearly enough write ups on OEM brake upgrade options. We need more threads like this.

00IntegrAllmotoR

iTrader: (1)

Did u look into the mini cooper rotors?? 4x100 and 11.1 or something, hub centric also.

Im also thinking of doing the itr caliper's with bigger rotors, just not sure yet. My current set-up works great at the track even in 100F weather.
I was looking into all the different upgrades just the other day, there's so many oem BBK combination's its crazy. ITR,Prelude,NSX,RSX,LEGEND........

1998GsRIntegra

Yes, I did look into the mini rotors. If memory serves me right they were a bit thinner than the 23mm thick prelude rotor and the wheel stud holes were noticeably larger than those on your average honda rotor. That's really the only thing that turned me off to them. My thought was that because of the larger wheel stud holes the rotors would have a tendency to move and possibly eat away at the wheel studs. I know of a few people that have used the mini rotors with no problem at all. It was just another personal preference thing when it came down to it. It also seemed to be a bit sacreligous to put something that was engineered in Britian on a Honda.

I'll admit that my head was also spinning when I started looking into all of the possible oem brake upgrades. I can't speak on the prelude or rsx possibilities, but I've come to view the Itr, accord wagon, and several others as the same thing because they utilize the same front brake caliper. Likewise I consider the pre and post 1996 nsx calipers and legend gs calipers to be the same. The only difference between them being the pistons in the legend calipers are slightly bigger. When you get right down to it, its just single piston versus dual piston. There is a host of other vehicles that the itr caliper is found on, the accord wagon is just the only one that rings a bell at the moment.

There is also the 4 piston acura rl caliper, but I feel that is a bit beyond most of us. I considered it, but the reality of needing to run 17" wheels quickly turned me off to the idea. Custom mounting brackets would also need to be made. It could definitly be made to work, but lots of work would have to be put into it.

1998GsRIntegra

Thank you. I may be doing this same upgrade again in the future to an '89 crx with integra front knuckles. If I end up moving foreward with that I'll try to make a step by step detailed write up with pictures. The only reason I didn't do that this time was because I was strapped for time.

Decatur Racer

iTrader: (1)

Quick question so you threw the 5mm spacer in between the rotor and hub to space it out enough so you didnt have to shave the inner side of the caliper bracket?

1998GsRIntegra

Yes, you are correct. Sorry for the delay. I was away most of the weekend and just got a chance to hop on HT today.