SRT10 Brake upgrade

Started by PCH VIPER, December 23, 2006, 11:12:14 PM

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PCH VIPER

I finally had some free time to do my brake upgrade.
After doing some research and talking with many people, I decided to go with the SRT10 Brembo calipers front and rear. I bought the entire package from Dave's Big Brakes.

Shown above are all the parts: 
14" slotted and dimpled EBC rotors
SRT10 calipers custom powdercoated blue
Dave's big brake brackets
Stainless steel brake lines
14" emergency brake
EBC red pads
Brake fluid

I was originally planning on doing the upgrade in my garage at home,
but decided to do it at my shop since I recently put in a 2 post lift.
The lift made the upgrade soooooo much easier and in the end saved me a whole lot of time.

Once the car was up on the lift, I pulled the wheels off.

This is the stock rear brake with integral E-brake.

Stock front brake.

Both the front and rear calipers are bolted on with just 2 bolts.

Rather than trying to drain all the brake fluid out and removing all the old brake lines and caliper first, I decided to just unbolt all 4 calipers and hang them off the spring coils till I was ready to pull them off.  This allowed me to pull off the stock rotors and do all the prep work with out having any residual brake fluid dripping all over the place from the open brake lines.

Shown above is the rear hub with the ears for the original calipers.

These ears need to be cut off and ground back in order for the rear brackets to be installed properly

I made the first cut using a sawzall with a Bi-Metal blade. It worked fine, but decided to finish cutting the rest of the ears off using a Porta-Band bandsaw which was really easy to control and quicker.


After cutting off the ears, I used a disc grinder to clean up the cut.

Once this was done, I pulled the 2 bolts which hold the bearing housing and positioned the rear caliper bracket.  There is a small flashing spot that needs to be ground off the back side of the hub in order for the new bracket to sit flush. 

Using the grade 8 bolts supplied, I torqued them down to secure the rear brackets.

The front spindles do not require any cutting, other than grinding the small flashing on the backside of the hub in order for the bracket to sit flush against the backside.  The front brackets use 4 grade 8 bolts in the existing holes to secure them to the hub.

Once I had all 4 brackets mounted and torqued down, I installed the new rotors and slipped on the calipers.  Since the SRT10 calipers do not have an integral E brake, a new E-brake had to be installed. It comes preassembled and was an easy bolt on item to add in.


Once I was sure that everything was fitted correctly, I pulled off the caliper and secured the steel braided lines and fittings.  Once the new caliper was bolted in, I was ready to disconnect the old brake caliper and line.  As soon as the old brake line was disconnected, I was able to connect the new steel braided line and had minimal dripping of brake fluid.

The fronts were done in the same fashion.

Special care must be taken to route and secure the E-brake line, Steel braided line and the Anti-Lock brake wiring.  I found that after I had installed the wheels that the lines were rubbing against the inner rim of the wheel, so I had to go back and secure the lines so that they would not rub.



This is the backside of the front calipers.

Again special care must be taken when routing and securing the lines.

I used zip ties to secure the brake line and ABS wire to the A arm

Everything was going smoothly till I discovered that one of the calipers had a stripped out hole.

My only real option was to repair the threading, so I drilled out the hole.

Tapped it to fit a special metric Heli-coil.

I carefully installed the Heli-coil, and machined the fitting face to be perpendicular to the threads of the heli-coil.  It was a time consuming, but relatively easy fix.
Once all the calipers were installed, I flushed out all the old brake fluid and bled the brakes 2 times.  Then I checked every connection for leaks and tightened any that showed signs of fluid.

I put on the wheels and checked to make sure I had enough clearance

The fronts caliper retaining nuts were extremely close to the inside of the wheel, so I filed them back to ensure that they would not rub.


The entire project took about 6 hours, (not counting the time to fix the stripped caliper).
It was a lot of fun to work on...and was very easy to do utilizing the car lift.

After every thing was all done, another member from the VCA pointed out the fact that I had criss crossed 2 of the EBC rotors.  The rotors ARE directional so I had to switch 2 of the rotors around.  After pulling the front wheel, I removed the 2 nuts that hold on the caliper and slid it back.  The rotor slid right off.  VERY EASY to do.


I put the correct rotor on and slid the caliper back in place and torqued down the nuts.


Finished product

Before

After
www.kouchicentral.com  for more viper pictures

racecars

 8)

Looking good Dude 8)

Merry Xmas

Dave

ViperX

Hey Lance,

Bummer on the caliper.  Glad you were able to repair it.

Anxious to see your car with the new brakes and wheels.

Dan