So factory brakes on the LS are not so great. Here is what I was thinking, if I have made an error please let me know, im curious what your thoughts are.

Im not particularly certain about rotor diameter, LS rotors are anything between 10.1 x.94, and 10.7 x .94. The SS factory rotors are between 12.4 x 1.02 and 12.7 x 1.02 inches. I cant seem to find a deffinative answer.

Either way this was my idea. The factory SS stops 6feet short of the factory corvette(base model) That is good enough for me. (vette stops from 70 in 166' and the ss balt stops from 70 in 160')

I would suggest that unless you are racing the car or making significantly more hp like in the 400+hp range this should be sufficient.

So If I understand it right the factory front brake calipers are a single piston design, and will bolt directly to the same spindle that the LS uses. So please correct my understanding if I am wrong.

So I would imagine many of you are reading this thinking dosent this noob know that the ss is 5lug not 4lug its going to be too expensive to change to 5lug not worth it just get a bigbrakekit. Well hold it a second, if the factory ss caliper bracket and caliper will bolt up to the spindle on the SS without any change, or even if the SS spindle would bolt onto the factory control arm, and would work with the 4lug hub. Why couldnt I get all the parts from the bone yard or local parts store? then have a machine shop drill the rotors for 4x100? isnt the 5 lug a 5x110? Then when more money came around get the wilwood rotors that are available with a 4x100 hat, or even the 13" kit from fastbrakes.com

Which brings me to another q has anyone tried the kit from fastbrakes to relocate the caliper and use larger rotors. I would imagine they dont fade as fast but the stopping distance probably does not change alot.

Ok so if I get some good feedback I will try this on the front, then I will apply the same premise to the rear brakes as well. But I need to do some more research on the rear brakes the kit offered by ssbc the feaseablility of mounting factory ss brakes and drilling the rotors, and also the issues that will arise from parking brake and brake bias.(I dont have abs, so im guessing a bias valve will be needed.)

Last question,(for the moment) has anyone actually measured the stopping distance before and after with any brake upgrades?

Anywho thanks for your input.

Edit: O i almost forgot the other thing that occured to me is that this type of change may also facilitate a change to the brembo calipers in the future but this is just a shot in the wind as I have not researched this at all.

wow pretty cool only my 2nd big post and you guys are speechless already no comments?

 

will bigger brakes/calipers clear your rims? what size rims do you have.

 

I currently am running 15 steelies, but will be running 17's when I make the change, another q i thought of is does anyone know what kind of clearance is needed for 13in rotors with the factory caliper? the fastbrakes.com kit moves the caliper to accomidate a 13" rotor just curious.

 

I'm running Hawk Pad and Slotted Rotors and I race my car, they stop great. the Main problem with the Cobalt's brakes is the Fluid, Dot3 with a shared reservoir from the clutch and brakes heats up too fast and surpasses the boiling point. Im getting Stainless Lines and DOT4 soon. Your Idea is doable, talk to montecarloman on here cause I believe he is in the process of doing this.

 

not sure about the clearance. I know that stock rotors and calipers BARELY clear my 16" winter wheels. so i would say 13" rotors on 17" wheels will be cutting it VERY close, but should fit. with any bigger calipers i'm going to go ahead and say you'll need bigger wheels.

 

Big brakes don't always mean better stopping too...

...step one to stopping faster is sticky tires...get some wider stickier meats and I bet you'll think your brakes rock

 

Well i need to get my questions about the spindle and actually fitting the factory SS Calipers on the LS before I can tackle that hurdle but thank you for your input.

I appreciate the input, that was helpful, im curious about the stainless lines? what is the cost involved, why bother etc, and now im wondering about the diff between the ss brake lines between caliper and the car. oo and i was also wondering about the master cylinder is it diff from ls lt ltz ss? Thanks Folks I appreciate all the input. If I pull this off I will post lots of pics.

 

Yes you are correct, the factory knuckles are the same on all the cobalts. The caliper mounting brackets may be the only difference up front. There are a few parts guys on here that could do a part number compare to see if the calipers themselves are the same between models.

You should be able to and you wouldn't even need to get a machine shop to do it. I came up with this idea when I was looking at converting my LS rear drums to SS disks. Because GM brakes are a hub centric design the actual stud holes in the rotors just need to be close. Now the only thing I haven't been able to confirm yet is if the rotor centers are the same diameter. Thats the only hurtle at the moment.

I took a look at the website, it seems they have 0 information other than here it is, buy it. I personally wouldn't get bigger fronts without doing something about the rear drums first. I've been considering the SSBC front and rear kits lately but they are so damned expensive.

In order to mount Stock SS rear disks you need to get a whole new rear trailing arm. The drum trailing arm doesn't have provisions for mounting calipers. I'm not sure how the SSBC rear conversion kit does it but stock parts will need the new arm which is about $800 new if not more. Then you'd have to get the calipers, brackets, hoses, and bolts. When you look at the price difference between the SSBC kit which gives you everything you need and 12" rotors I just cant figure spending the money on stock stuff.

I know for a fact that the master cylinders are different between automatic and manual trans cars. The clutch master cylinder pulls brake fluid from the reservoir like YellowLT said. The automatics well don't have a clutch so theres no port in the reservoir. I can only assume that the disk cars have a different master cylinder from the drum cars just from my knowledge of braking systems. Now thats not to say GM didn't design the master cylinder so operate both designs. We'd need a parts guy to do a number compare to get a definitive answer.

On a side note about the fluid heating up, this is also another modification I thought of after talking with YellowLT one day. He has actually raced his car and told me that during the day his clutch would stop working because of the amount of heat in the braking system(damned shared system). I know cavaliers have separate reservoir for there clutch master cylinders so I was figuring on changing out my manual master cylinder for one off an auto. Then plumbing the cavalier reservoir in line with my clutch master cylinder. No more heat transfer issues. Also I have looked at different fluids and the highest temperature fluid I have found thats still affordable is Wilwood Hi-Temp 570 Degree Racing fluid. Its DOT-3 with a dry boiling point of 570 degrees F. Unfortunately they don't list a wet boiling point which is extremely important for a daily driver/toy. The Wilwood EXP 600 Plus Super High-Temp Fluid is DOT-4 and has a dry boiling point of 626 degrees F and a wet boiling point of 417 degrees F. This is WAY beyond anything our cars should be able to generate even when racing. The Wilwood DOT-3 is $7.99 a bottle, $39.99 for a case of 6. While the DOT-4 is $18.95 a bottle, $110.95 a case.

 

I misunderstood YellowLT's comment, I must have been really tired I thought you were changing the hardlines in the car from steel to stainless steel. I somehow didnt realize that you were adding steel braided lines between the body and caliper. My bad.


montecarloman you mentioned that you still had some hurdles about the rotor hat sizes diameters etc. I took a look at some in a parts store granted they were wearever advance auto brand rotors but they are for sure a little different. I also took a look at the pads as they didnt have any calipers in stock, the pads are a different size. Once I can get a few pictures of the rotors I will post em and let you see what I found.

 

I had the opportunity to take a look at my friends front brakes on his SS. They are different from a regular LS/LT. You'd need the mounting brackets, calipers, rotors and various assorted bolts. Also as fortune would have it somebody screwed up last weekend and wrecked their SS. Killed the pass side front suspension so I'm going to "borrow" the old hub for reference measurements.

 

I looked at an ls and an ss rotor side by side, and the ss had looked plenty larger, the hole in the center of the hat was a bit larger, looked like a 1/4 inch, the hat itself was shaped a bit different. the ss hat had a bevel next to the outside rotor face. Where as the ls rotor is square where the rotor meets the hat on the outside. There is also a bevel on the inside of the ss hat. between the contact surface and the side of the rotor hat. Although the od of the ls hat and the ss hat are different, the id of both look close to the same because of the bevel on the inside of the ss rotor. The ss rotor contact surface is much larger for sure.

Im not sure if montecarloman would you be better to answer this or YellowLT, two things, have either of you guys tried to make air ducts to the brakes? I was pondering a few ideas on that and thinking of taking the car apart a bit to see how to plumb them etc. and on the issue of fluid heating up wouldnt a combination of things help the fluid problems, Like changing the fluid as montecarloman mentioned, but what about plumbing an over flow in the reservoir? or a cooler even. Ive never heard of anyone doing this but if you could create a reservoir that is plumbed to the primary then take it to a brake shop and have it pressure bled you would have a system free of air. This is all under the premise that the primary fluid reservoir is much lower pressure than the rest of the system. Although montecarloman your idea of highertemp fluid sounds alot safer. The other idea is to somehow isolate the fluid for the clutch but im not sure how as i dont know much about it. Im just brainstorming and looking for feedback.

 

The best way I have theorized would be to run ducting from the lower grill corners along the inside of the front bumper to the subframe where you could then turn the ducting outward to the rotor. Depending on how detailed you want to get you could bolt the ducting to the actual knuckle guaranteeing that the air hits the rotor.

A cooler wouldnt do you any good unless you get some sort of flow. Stockcar Products has a fluid recirculator, I'm not entirely sure how it works but from the what I can gather it uses the bleeder valve and a check valves to return the fluid to the master cylinder. Heres a link http://www.stockcarproducts.com/recirc.htm

I know cavaliers have separate reservoir for there clutch master cylinders so I was figuring on changing out my manual master cylinder for one off an auto. Then plumbing the cavalier reservoir in line with my clutch master cylinder. No more heat transfer issues.

 

I would start with better tires, mine stops just fine.