wantmorepower

FAST Brake Upgrade kit Review

I have a 93 civic Hatch, and it needed brakes. So I called Fast Brakes and ordered the civic kit (11 inch calipers, adapter kit and Ultimate axis pads). I received everything with in a week. Everything looked great. I tool the kit to World Auto Motor Sport (WAM) (http://www.wamny.com/) this morning hoping that the whole job would only take an hour or two. Well I was wrong!

The kit comes with spacers (moves the caliper a little higher so the 11 inch rotor can fit) and washers to align the spaces so the caliper/brake pad holder would fit properly over the rotor. In my case both washers and the spacers were not the right size causing the inner and two out side edges of the caliper/brake pad holder to grind against the rotor. Now you cannot just go to home depot and get any washer. It has to be hardened steel. The shop (WAM) luckily is close to a machine shop, so they took both of the aluminum spaces there to have them milled 3 thousands of an inch. After that the spacer fit and the inner part of the caliper/brake pad holder was not hitting the rotor however the two outside edges were still hitting the rotor. My mechanic had to grind three parts of the caliper/brake pad holder for it to properly fit over the rotor. The whole job took six hours of labor and agony. I had to pay $360 for the install (it should have been only $80). I paid $635 total, for little more I could have gotten a Wilwod kit (http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eB...tem=1874426565)
for the total amount I paid for the brakes and the install and they would have no problem with their clearance (my friend has one and it fit perfectly).

I just want everyone to know what I went through and make their own decision accordingly (May be there was a flaw with JUST my kit. My luck, ever time I try to modify something it doesnot fit properly). The brakes work fine, I still need to bed them in properly. I will keep you posted.


Cliff notes: Bought Fast Brake kit, did not fit properly, and took six hours to install
“Caveat e-mptor”

2 days later
I have used these brakes for two days now and let me just add that they work great!!! The car stops really well! It is too bad that I had to go through what I did





[Modified by wantmorepower, 10:53 PM 12/14/2002]

Foozball26

man sucks to hear that bro, I was planning on buying that kit in a month or so when I get some cash, but luckily I will install myself, thats the most exspensive part of parts nowadays is labor.

mugen76

i bought their front and rear kit and didn't have any problems. did you order the right kit? chances are you didn't get the right kit for your car. could have called brian and sent it back, save up and get the willwood instead.....


[Modified by mugen76, 3:02 PM 12/13/2002]

wantmorepower

I did get the right kit. The invoice said "civic upgrade kit using stock calipers". The car
does brake better.

kgrcr1

I installed both the front and rear brake kits on my 4dr about a year ago. I never had any problems with the install. The car brakes a hell of a lot better. You should have called Brian and told him of the problem you had with the kit. I know he would have made things right with you. I have never had a problem with the Fastbrake kits or with Brian. When the shop doing the install noticed the problem with the spacers you should have stopped and kept the stock brake setup on until you got with Brian to find out if he had the wrong spacers in the kit. Sorry to hear that you had all that trouble with the install.

b18c5go

I had the fronts installed on my 92 CX without any problems. Brian is a first rate guy. I did have some issues with getting the correct rear stainless lines from him but he was cool with that as well. Just my 2 cents.

vtecvoodoo

All 3 sets I`ve installed fit fine. Brakes are easy, next get a friend and do it yourself.

Ryan

b00stn

I would just install them myself. Brakes and suspension stuff are actually really easy, at least Hondas are.

chad

hey you dont' need to post this crap in 2 different forums...if i find it in other forum i'm going to go to a mod and have you banned!!!!

this is rediculous[

TruePlayaz114

i have the front kit with the willwood calipers on my civic. I do really really love them. The only problem i had was that the rim didn't clear the caliper. The website says that the brakes fit 15in rims. i have the 16in slipstreams and it just banged the caliper, so i had to go through hell and get longer lugs and put a huge spacer to make it work. It was really really a pain in the *** but when everything was done the brakes work really well.

nijia555

cool, thanks for the info. i think wam is expensive for stuff in general. (i live close by)

lucas569

your going to have him banned huh? ya ok you ever think not EVERYONE hits ALL the forums? imo this was great info