Eastbaked

I'm about to do a good amount of maintenance on my car (2011 GT/CS) pretty soon (changing front LCA, suspension and brakes), and figured doing this during around the holidays might be a good excuse to get some upgrades along the way.

I'm looking at both lowering my car and improving the brakes.

For braking, I found a nice kit that replaces the stock calipers with a brembo 4 piston and adds 14in rotors to replace the stock GT ones. There's a similar kit for the rear (I believe these kits are actually gt500 equipment if I'm not mistaken), but to use the stock calipers you need to switch the plate they mount to, which requires pulling the axle. I just changed my rear diff, and definitely don't want to mess with pulling axles just for a rear brake upgrade.

I saw online some using a machined adapter (looks closer to what is used on bikes disc brakes mounts) that just bolts on without the added drama of axle pulling.

Have some people around here used it ? Does it hold up without problem ?

Also, would I run into any issues if I ran the larger rotors in front and the small stock in the back ? I saw that you want to be careful when breaking in these new rotor/pads not to lock up the rear, but was wondering if the brake balance would remain correct after that.

Any advice/feedback on this would be appreciated, thanks for your help !

Bert

I have that bracket that the guy sells on e-bay and it has worked fine for me. I do road track my car so it has seen some fairly heavy abuse. Also I know a guy who is a lot faster than me on the track who has them with no problems. I'd say that is the way to go, because like you say you don't have to pull the axle (again).

There is no real "problem" with the stock rotors on the rear and the Brembos on the front. Many guys run their cars like this on the track. The reason I upsized my rears, as do many folks who road track their cars, is that the rear brakes were overheating on the track.

Also no problem with bedding in new front brake pads with old ones on the back. Just follow the procedure that hopefully comes with the pads, or look it up on line.

The 14" Brembos are a nice upgrade, and hopefully you are talking about the kit that also includes the stainless steel brake lines, those improve pedal feel quite a bit. Even on the road track there really is no need for the bigger 15" rotors.

There are some threads on here and other forums about buying the Brembo parts instead of the kit to save some money. I always thought that was a little sketchy but you can save a couple hundred bucks going that route.

Siber Express

I am running those brackets on the rear brakes also as well as buying the Brembo Parts separately for the front. $2000 kit from Ford was $550 my way

Eastbaked

Sweet, glad to hear you're using the adapter on the track without issues, seems like it should be fine for street use then !

As for the kit, yeah I'm talking about the Ford performance one that comes with SS lines for front and rear, as well as the front calipers/rotors/pads/dust shield, and rear pads. All of it for ~1100$, which doesn't seem too bad. I'll look into piece mealing it, but not sure how worth it that'd be with shipping from different vendors, and I'm willing to pay a little more to make sure I'm not halfway through with parts hanging left and right when I realise I'm missing a stupid bolt that's on a 3 weeks backorder.

Anything special to keep in mind to install this, or pretty much like a pad/rotor swap with the caliper install and system bleed in the middle ?

Thanks for the feedback, much appreciated !

Bert

That is the same kit that I put on my car, and I thought it was pretty reasonable for $1,100 ; no reason to spend $2,000 or more. it is convenient because it includes everything you need, including the dust shields, pads for front and back, stainless lines for front and back.

Siber would know the details about buying the parts. I have read a few threads about that and it was always a little unclear whether the calipers were the "real normal" Brembo calipers, or some kind of knock-off or remanufactured stuff. All of that might be just fine and worth the savings; I didn't feel too bad about paying a bit more for the convenience and confidence that I was getting "genuine" Ford SVT / Brembo parts.

The installation is pretty straightforward. One thing to think of: it would be good to have some plugs or some way to cap off the brake lines while you have them open, so the fluid doesn't drip out and air doesn't get into the lines. I didn't have anything good for that when I did mine and I made a big mess and had to do a real good fluid bleed and flush afterward. I wanted to change my fluid to Motul 600 anyway so it wasn't really a problem. Motive pressure bleeder comes in real handy for the fluid flush/bleed.

Also I think you will need an 18mm socket which is not included in most "standard" socket sets so you might want to get one ahead of time.

EF1

There is no issue running the 4 piston Brembos with the stock rear brakes. Ford used this set up on the GT500, Boss 302 and GT's with the Brembo/performance pack. Either method of upgrading the rear rotors works well. It all comes down to preference. My 2011 GT came from the factory with the 4 piston Brembo brakes on the front. I ran it with stock rear rotors for a few rears without issue on the street and track. I upgraded the rear after I started running in to temperatures issues at the track using the factory Ford parts from the 2013 Shelby GT 500. It was time for a rear diff fluid change so it wasn't that much more work to pull the axles. I also like being able to use any rotor that fits the 2013 Shelby. Some of the bolt on adapters use a slightly different size rotor and you are more limited in what will fit.