ok so on my project i'm looking at the braking system, and am wondering what to do, so i will need the opinions, the flames, the advice, etc. of my fellow honda tech peeps.

so i need new steering knuckles on my civic. the passenger side wheel bearing has crazy amounts of play, and the ball joints on the drivers side are all blown up (accept for the upper one, which is dried up. so i'm thinking, ok i'll just do a big brake swap. did some searching, found the thread about being able to have a proper alignment w integra knuckles, and then i ran across this:

which got me thinking, ok, i already have a 4040 prop valve and a rear disk swap, why not just keep the front brakes oem size, upgrade my mc and brake booster (a da setup is what i need right?) and use brembo blanks front and rear w hawk pads and the brake fluid that guy up there reccomended.

so what do you guys think, go big brake or just use QUALITY parts on my oem stuff? either way it's getting all new brake parts (rears too, or atleast a re build). oh i don't have 15's yet, but i have a full set of steely's, three of which have great tread (one tire is a junker).

thanks for you help h-t!

 

well in my opinion you should go back to the drum brakes if you want a less stopping distance since your rear brakes do only 30% of the braking and drums have more surface area to brake on..

people will always disagree only beacuase they chnge to rear disc, change the pads and it works better but why not change the shoes, brake piston, and drum then see how efficient they are..you will probably notice the drums and shoes have never been changed

if you look at the rear disc pads from an integra you will notice they are only about 2 inches, comparing that to the front rotors the pads are significantly smaller and the rotor is the same size. so the weight ratio is way off

remember rear brakes are only 30%

so i would focus on the front rotors and maybe do powerslot frozen rotors and hawk pads

 

drums do work well for that short amount of time that they're actually at 100%. drums are not self adjusting like disc pads are, so after a very short amount of time the drums aren't helping that much anymore. granted the front is the large majority of your braking, but if you don't have properly adjusted rear brakes the pedal will feel like crap.

that being said you'll notice a huge difference putting in new, aftermarket front rotors and pads vs a small difference in going to a rear disc setup. on my old CRX I just used brembo OEM replacement front rotors with VGX pads and left the rear drums alone and that worked pretty well. but it's nothing compared to the setup I have now and I wouldn't trust the old setup on a trip through the Dragon, fade city after a few turns I'm sure.

 

you also forgot to mention that drum don't dissipate heat as well as disc do

as far as setup goes i'd just go with da brakes in the front and rear with autozone lifetime replacement pads and rotors you will never have to pay for pads again and some good brake fluid like superblue

 

yea you're gonna get a lot of different opinions on this one. it also depends on what your setup is gonna be like. for instance yea, the stock brakes will work fine with upgraded rotors and pads with a stock motor but what happens when you swap let say a gsr motor in your car and now you have the added weight of the b series swap. then the stock brakes won't perform as well as a bigger brake setup with upgraded rotors and pads.

anyways, me personally i like my bigger brakes with my b series swap compared to my factory brakes. however it might be overkill if i stuck with a d series. as far as the drum vs disk on the rears, the only real reason is for the ease of changing pads. they are heavier and don't really improve braking distance.

my .02

 

I am sure you know this but I will throw it out there anyways. Having brakes that can stop you in 50 feet do nothing if you have tires that take 100. Make sure you have some quality rubber around your brakes.

 

Depends on your build, purpose, and the power you plan to make.

In stock+I/H/E form the most I would do is rear disc, 15/16 MC, 4040 prop. valve, and overkill with EX knuckles/calipers/10.2" rotors (brembo blanks if u want). No point in upgrading a brake booster unless you have really weak legs.

Regardless if you decide to get the EX knuckles, you'll still have to get new wheel bearings and press them in.

Why are rear drums even being discussed here? he's already got rear disc and 4040 prop. valve and reverting back to drums would be asinine.

 

x 100,002,154,045,787

When I first got my 91 crx si (rear disc) the first thing I did was put new rotors and pads on the car and all I could think of is, this doesn't stop any better the my DX . But when I put on some sticky Falken Azenis RT-615's, then my brakes couldn't stop them fast enough and never once locked them up no matter how hard I stomped on them lol.

 

have there ever been vented drums?

 

I would try to stay away form these. Lifetime pads are a lot harder than other pads and they are very hard on your rotors. You get what you pay for.
Get a set of 4 Brembo slotted rotors with Hawk HPS pads, Goodridge Stainless Steel Brake Lines and AMSOIL DOT3 Brake Fluid and you will have more than enough stopping power. I have had this setup on my CRX for 3 years and the pads still have over half the pad left. Amazing.

 

yes i did not mention the heat disipation on the rotors is better in the looooong run but when your coarse is only 1.8 miles its doesnt really matter. and as gator88 said your brakes only stop as good as your tires, we dont have abs and its not cool to lock up

 

well he doesn't specify weather this is for drag, track, auto x,etc this information could help allot because if he is using this for drag then i'd say stick with the stock setup not because drums are better because their lighter

 

I'm running Da Front knuckles with reman'd NISSIN calipers from acura
Ek Rear trailing arms with the 201mm drums instead of the 189 or whatever efs come with
I think its a pretty decent setup.

 

my van (dd) has ribs on the rear drums for heat dissapation. i have another civic (also an 89 auto dx) that i'm going to actualy leave the drums on it. main reason why i did the rear disc swap was because everything was rusted together and the rear drum setup that came on my shell was destroyed. all parts would've had to have been replaced any ways.

so i've picked up a mc from a teg... i'm pretty sure it's a 15/16th mc. it's HUGE compared to my stock one. but as far as front brakes go i'm going to get some new calipers upfront and rear, and brembo blanks upfront and probably hawk pads, and goodrich ss brake lines (why not since i need to replace my brake lines any ways?) will see if my rear discs are re surfaceable, and if so i'm going to re use them.

might do the same on my dx, it's brakes are messed up from it being in a wreck tho.

if i order ss brake lines for a da, can i use the front ones on my civic brakes? or should i order ss brake lines for a civic si?

thanks for all the info!!!

 

it should say "15/16" on it.

 

i like the sounds of that setup. 201mm you say? how did your braking increase, did you tell a huge difference?