R32 Brake upgrade

mikey · Post by **mikey** » Wed May 30, 2012 12:06 pm

I think I've almost decided to do the R32 GTR/R33 GTS-T brake upgrade with vented rotors.

I have a set of the caliper brakets I can copy that were used to mount calipers of this ilk on to a 280z. But what calipers do I need exactly? And what rotors? What's the story with top hats?

The more I read the more confused I get!

I've currently got the Toyota 4 pot calipers and solid disks an I'm hoping the above set up would be a good upgrade without breaking the bank.

Has anyone here done the same swap on a 240z?

djz · Post by **djz** » Wed May 30, 2012 1:11 pm

I've never done the swap on a S30 but I can give you a breakdown of the rotors/calipers, this should be reasonably close to correct:

R32 2L turbo are aluminium 4 pot, 280x30mm rotor
R32 GTR non Brembo are ali 4 pot, 296x32mm rotor
R33 2.5 turbo are ali 4 pot, 296x30mm rotor
Z32 turbo are ali 4 pot, 280x30mm rotor
S14 are steel 4 pot, 280x30mm rotor - I think S15 are the same

There are other ones around when you start looking at non turbo Z32 and non turbo S15s, I think they have steel 4 pots with like 280x22mm rotors or something like that, depending on the year some non turbo Z32s have ali calipers as well.

I'm using R33 GTS-25t calipers with R32 GTR rotors on my car.

mikey · Post by **mikey** » Wed May 30, 2012 2:21 pm

Thanks DJZ. Some good info there. I'm thinking of buying some of the calipers you used. I'm pretty sure they'll work with the brackets I have.

Have you taken your car to the track yet? Are you happy with the brakes? If not, I might as well do something else.

I'm just a little confused about the rotor setup with a 240z so hopefully someone will chime in there.

djz · Post by **djz** » Wed May 30, 2012 3:04 pm

I've done one track day in my car, the brakes aren't bad, I didn't have them fade the whole day. They are made for a car probably 400Kgs heavier than mine, and if you ask any S30 owner an S130 is about 6 tons heavier than an S30 so you should be fine

nzeder · Post by **nzeder** » Wed May 30, 2012 4:57 pm

I am looking at do just as you

I have a set of R32 GT-R non Brembo aka Sumitomo 4 pots - these are designed for the 296x32mm rotors as Daniel has already stated. I plan to run a Wilwood 11.75" x 1.25" rotor aka 298x32mm approx and a Wilwood hat to slip over the top of some hubs I have that are designed for slip over rotors. I ordered these hubs from Australia a while ago they are 10mm more inwards than a stock hub to help offset the rotor/hat thickness.

The hat I have ordered from Summit Racing and are a few weeks off as they are blanks and a non stocked item. The hats come with a centre ID a little large for the hubs - but I will get some locating ID/Rings made up to go onto the hub ID and take it out to the rotor hat ID and at the same time match my rim ID. I will then need to have an adaptor made to mount the caliper in the correct location etc. If my calculations are correct the R32 GT-R calipers will have 12mm overhang over the hub mounting face. If I used the stock hubs and used the taller blank from Wilwood I would have 5.8mm overhang but the offset of the front track would be wider by thickness of the hats x 2 aka 0.5" wider over stock track. The front track of a stock S30 is already 0.3" wider front to rear + put on some negative camber up front and you are wider still if you have done that via adjustable lower arms. So I wanted to keep the track closer to stock.

Well that is the plan anyway - will see how it goes.

nzdatman · Post by **nzdatman** » Wed May 30, 2012 10:13 pm

I did this conversion on my s30 280z before I sold it. Used wilwood rotors 1.25" wide I think they were 11.75" od from memory. They were alloy r32 calipers not sure of exact model. Seemed to work well.
http://www.zclub.org.nz/viewtopic.php?p ... ght=#17529

mikey · Post by **mikey** » Thu May 31, 2012 3:16 pm

Hey nzder, after reading more and more about it I'm beginning to think it makes more sense to go with the setup you describe here: http://www.zclub.org.nz/viewtopic.php?t ... rt=0#14816

Wilwood superlites and the BMW rotor slipped over the front of the hub. It requires no bracket, seems very straight forward, and probably doesn't come out that much more expensive.

So why are you doing the R32 calipers instead of the Wilwoods?

Pedey · Post by **Pedey** » Fri Jun 01, 2012 9:59 am

Mikey,

Just for reference, Nzdatman is referring to my car, so you've got the cnc bracket he's talking about.