ok i have a idea on a way to make a rear disc conversion for us guys with the rear drums. i just need some advice on doin it. my idea is to use the factory stuff from the ss but modify it a lil. heres where is gets tricky. i would either need to get the hole in the ss rotors weldin up and redrilled to the 4 lug pattern or find a company that would sell blank rotors that are the same spec as the ss rotors.

now would havin the holes welded up in the rotors cause problems or would it work?
is there any companies that would sell me rotors that are the same spec as ss rotors without any of the holes in em so i could take them to a machine shop to have them all drilled out?

tell me what you think about it. i figure since most of us dont want to do or dont want to pay for the big brake upgrades this would be a nice fix. either way its just an idea that i came up with and thought i would share.

 

why not just get the whole rear disc from the SS and have 4 lug up front and 5 in back

 

saw that on a neon once.

 

lol i just cant see myself doin somethin like that.. that would be..... ricey.

 

i have a 5 lug 2.2

i've never thought about upgrading my brakes but after reading this i'm just curious, could i just get the rear disc assembly from an ss and put it on my car?

 

yea but you'd have to upgrade the front to so the sizes would be right. if the rear is to big compared to the front they will over power the front causin the rear to want to lock up before the front can grab.

 

just convert to to 5 lug front and rear and your done

 

my only problem with that is i wont have wheels to do that and the cost of havin to get the new wheels for the 5 lug pattern would come close to doin the big brake conversion. i think it would be cheaper to do the idea i had being i know people at several machine shops that would do the weldin and redrillin for me fairly cheap.
and its just an idea for now anyways since i dont have the spare cash to get the parts and get it done.

 

i dont know about having the rotors welded up, but a machine shop can re-drill rotors, had it done for the big brake kit thats going on my friends 90 sunbird (13" mustang cobra brakes up front and vette 12" rears). however thats 5 lug and rotors were 5 lug, so there is even space between the holes, not sure how drilling 4 holes into a 5 lug rotor would work. all you can do is find a machine shop and take them a rotor and see what they can do.

 

You need either an SS rear axle or custom brackets to mount calipers on an LS axle

Youll need two more brake hoses

You can redrill SS rotors, but youll also need to get rotor centering rings made since SS hubs have a larger center bore.

There isnt an aftermarket rotors the fits on the balt 4 lug hub and will work with the SS brakes in the stock position(custom brackets will be required to be made to match the offset and diameter of the rotor you chose.)

If youve got nonABS brakes youll have to get two aftermarket proportioning valves and plumb them in and then set your own rear proportioning levels by trial and error. Theres one other way but requires even MORE money and a complete redesign of the hydraulic, balance and wheel brake systems of the car)

If youve got ABS you can rely on your ABS to provide modulated proportiong for the brakes, but youll get more BAS activation than youre used to and its not really the best way to do it. You should really switch to an SS car BPMV which is about a $300 part, AND upgrade to the larger 54mm caliper and 296mm rotor of the SS up front as well.(or use the 2009 G5 GT BPMV with your stock fronts and SS rears)

Brake upgrades arent something you should just piece together willynilly.

Ill tell you right now that unless youve got over 200hp and you ROAD RACE your Balt the rear drums are a great system, and with a simple shoe upgrade theyll NEVER let you down as far as stopping power goes.
A front upgrade is much easier.

 

now you're the main persons opinion i wanted. as far as doin the front with the ss rotors that was part of the plain but i dont think i mentioned that in my op. i was wantin to have the same thing done for the front as well. the part about the centerin rings is why i was wonderin if rotors with no pre drilled holes could be bought. what i meant is no holes for the hub or lugs. but basically this was an idea simular to the one you had for makin the front a +1 bigger and a upgrade for the back as well. the more i really think about it the more work and money it actually seems like it will be.

 

To my knowledge you cant get rotors without a centerbore drilled in them, they have to have a hole for the finishing processes. I wasnt able to locate anyone that would sell me rotors(ss) with only partial machining done. IE I wanted to buy SS rotors but with an LS centerbore and no lugs....no one would do it.
I found a place that would make me any rotor I wanted(and they make pretty nice stuff) but there was a roughly $40,000 minimum purchase.

Honestly I have come to the conclusion that on all the but the absolute meanest or thoroughly road raced 2.2 car there is no point in upgrading to rear discs for performance reasons Our drum system is of the ALT(advanced leading-trailing) design and its very effective, has minimal parts, weighs very little and de-energizes very quickly, making modulation of braking force easy(older school duo-servo systems cant have the same said) Yeah discs look badass.....but its really a pretty big undertaking, even beyond just getting the calipers mounted and rotors in place.

I think I have the 11" front brake upgrade pretty much squared away. I just have to talk to some people over the next week about sourcing the rotors so I can do a test fit. they are top quality rotors.

If I ever get this f'n project done Ill post all the part numbers needed, so I can move the f on to Brembos.

 

i had a feelin this would be harder than the idea i had on it. as for not bein able to get the rotors with out the center bore and holes for lugs, you pretty much ended my idea with the fact that they cant be bought like that. if they could it would make my idea on this alot easier and make the project you're workin on pretty easy as well. that 40k minimum sure does suck major ass cuz if they can make any rotor you wanted it would make all this a lot simplier. o well.

i do have one other thought on this idea thou. someone had posted it before, but on one of the saturn sites, a guy had used rear disc brakes off of an older saturn car that had the 4 lug pattern. im sure tryin to use the stuff from the older saturns would take a lot of work but then again it could be a close fit. if i knew what car to get the stuff from and could get it cheap enough i would actually try it.

 

Youll still need custom brackets and proportiong work. S series rotors are 245mm, and have iirc the same pattern as we do. Then youve got to deal with park brake cables, at least with the SS parts you can get the cables easy, and they are direct fit, the saturn stuff would be rube goldberg at best.

 

that was my thinkin on it too. custom brackets i can do with no problem. im a welder and can get most anythin for material to make stuff with. i think my idea has taken a big **** on me now anyways. i just dont seem logical or price efficent to try and make it work. it started off as a decent idea in my head. lol i think most all idea seem that way to begin with thou.

 

Can you get me some 1/4" plates of unobtanium 6953 T-6?

 

lol thats gotta be a joke cuz i've never heard of that.

 

montecarloman and I had been working on this a while back, I have a design for the rear mounting bracket for the caliper too, i was going to use wilwood proportioning valve. the inside hub diameter is about 5mm diff from the ls to ss braking system but you can get the ss/sc rotors from about anywhere they came on several platforms including the malibu. Wilwood will also custom make the rotor hat on three piece rotors but I dont remember how much they wanted. I think it depends on if you went with the solid mounted iron rotor with aluminium hat or the floating system that they have. I have a set of stock ss/sc rotors i got some ss/sc calipers the whole deal i was working on a kit to offer that bracket to the 4lug drum guys on here till my wife decided on a unique birthday gift. What was that unique birthday gift you ask... Divorce papers. Ive been thru the ringer since last october but your idea has me thinking again I may try to tackle this soon.

 

Wilwood hats run about $125/each and youll either need to get a blank one completely machined or an Acura one machined to fit out hub bore, either way your limited when it comes to offsets, which inst a big deal becasue you just work it into your bracket, the problem beyond that is twofold, with low offset comes low wheel clearance, the caliper will be much farther towards wheel(by an INCH or more is possible) causing fitment issues inside the wheel, second is that Wilwood to my knowledge doesnt offer a rotor in the proper thickness range for SS/SC rear calipers. Theyve got 8-9mm thich stuff and then 18+mm thick stuff, that wont work with SC caliper.

 

good point i had noticed that on the wilwood rotor thickness, the offset can be accounted for either with a custom hat or like you had mentioned with the bracket. Right now all of that drives up the cost, i need to pay off debts and lawyer fees. So I am going to stick with my original idea of using factory ss rotors cut for the 4x100 pattern and have the center shimmed to the correct diameter.