I have heard from several people that if you are planning making performance mods you should first upgrade the breaks, then suspension, and finally the HP. My question is for all of you who have the upgraded 18" chrome bullitt wheels that come from Ford (not aftermarket wheels). For those of you who have them, have you upgraded your breaks, and if so, did the breaks fit right or did you have to buy after market rims to fit the new breaks?

I hope that question makes sense. Thanks.

 

Are you planning on going to bigger rotors or different calipers? 14" rotors might fit, larger calipers probably won't. If you're not running your car on the track, I'd suggest just replacing the pads front and rear, installing stainless steel lines, and removing the front dust shields. Then you can use your factory wheels with no problems.

So a search for "brake upgrade" and you'll find lots of information.

 

I think that the 13in kit from SSBC fits to stock 18s, check their site

 

Thanks a lot. I'll be sure to check those out.

 

IMO before even thinking about brakes, you should determine the goals for you car. Roadcourse, strip, daily driver, a bit of all? What you do with the car will help you determine the brakes you need. For me, it's a daily driver and strip car, so I don't need big brakes. A set of Hawk HPS or EBC pads and stainless steel lines did it for me. No more brake fade and I can't feel the ABS on the brake pedal unless I'm going 60-0. Car stops a hell of a lot better with just that simple application ($250). Same size rotors are mainly a cosmetic mod although can help a bit. For me I just don't see the use of spending a lot of money on brakes when they're not going to be used to their full potential.

 

i have the BAER front and brake GT plus & eradispeed kit with my 18" bullits. minor modifications needed to be made in order to fit with the 18's. required getting 1 inch wheel spacers and grinding down the top of the caliper.

 

Yea if you look at the buillitts they progressively get further in as it gets closer to the rim. Fanblades have even clearance to the rim

 

With moving the wheel weights inboard, trimming a bit off of the tips off of the stock wheel studs, and using german 1" spacers, 14" Brembo's from the GT500 just fit with the 18" factory bullitts, and work remarkably better than stock.

But, you have to be willing to live with the spacers. Everyone will have an opinion about them. Personally, I have used H&R spacers before with no issues, they work great, fit well, and are TUV approved. I retorque them twice a year when I do the summer/winter tire switch.

 

Nice! How much did the Brembos cost?

 

I plan on taking my car to the track, and here's the setup I'm going with:

14" Baer blank rotors in front (not slotted or drilled)
Stock rotors in rear
Stock calipers with Hawk HPS pads
Stainless steel lines
Quantum Motorsports brake cooling kit
DOT 4 brake fluid

I got a great deal on the rotors from a forum member who bought them and never installed them, or I would probably just stay with the stock rotors in front, at least until I tried them on the track. I think and hope, based on all my research, that this will be a good setup.

It's interesting that on their website, Baer says that slotted and drilled rotors do NOT contribute to better braking:

Will slotting or cross-drilling my stock rotors improve my car's stopping performance?

DEFINITELY NOT! Cross-drilled or slotted rotors do produce a strong visual appeal behind a modern open wheel, and they do have a performance edge when pad outgassing occurs. Outgassing occurs at extreme temperatures when the bonding agents that hold the pad material together break down into a gas form. This gas creates a pneumatic barrier between the rotor and the pad, reducing friction. Cross-drilling or slotting creates a path for the outgassing that occurs during extreme braking conditions. However, these conditions can virtually never be reached on the street! Short of a complete system, performance brake pads, a proper Teflon lined braided stainless steel hose set and quality brake fluids are the only direct replacement upgrades that can be combined to deliver measurable stopping improvements in the context of direct replacement components on the OE brake system.

 

Right now the kit is avail through FRPP for about 1200-1300 I think with braided lines, but the stock lines are the same for the gt500 and GT, so they can be reused if you wanted. Maybe a tad cheaper through the right vender. The part number is on the FRPP site. Still a bargin considering it is nearly identical to the one piece Brembo kit from Brembo, which is 2K bucks. Or the stoptech 14" kit which is 2100 for two piece rotors.

I picked up the parts before the kit came out, right through the parts dept and got the calipers through KC since they were backordered 12 months or something like that. The whole setup with the back pads ran me 650-700 jobbers back then I believe. Considering that the Brembo F40 calipers usually run around 400 a piece from most companys, at 140 a caliper I could not pass it up.

Spacers were another addl 260 for four.

 

just took my car to the track thursday and this car needs better brakes.