Write-Up: F-Body Brake Mod

OK I'm kind of stuck.

I ordered the banjo bolts for the F-body calipers from WBS on 10/7/08. I emailed to see If they had gone out about a week later. Mike replied telling me that they had gone out of stock on them and had to switch suppliers and that he would get them shipped out to me immediately. About a week ago, now, I emailed back asking about the status of the order and Mike replied telling me that the order went out a couple weeks ago...
Still no bolts or messages... Still have brakes on the car that are turning my wheels black and noise thats compteting with my exhaust for being louder and I'll now be doing this in 30F snowing weather. Not happy.

Any ideas? I can't find these bolts anywhere else!

I just got some from ZZP. They had them in stock and i had a pair in two days time. Email zoomer and he will sell them separately as opposed to the whole Kit.

Surprising to hear that from Mike. I'd tell him you've waited long enough, and now it's time for a refund.

"I'm not sure what to do and unfortunately we're out of stock now. I'm happy to have ZZP fulfill this order for you (we work with them on certain items). If that's acceptable please let me know and we'll get it done.

Mike Kopstain"

If I were Mike, I probably would have tried doing this a couple weeks ago but we'll see what happens. If he does what he says, I should have these bolts in 1-3 days easy. ZZP usually gets my order to me next day or maybe the following.

I see all you riv guys posting up about yur Ls1 Brake Swaps, Well Im swapping to Ls1 brakes too, on my Firebird.

My firebird a 94 formula, and it has 10.9" Rotors with cast single piston calipers.
I just bought the entire brake and spindle setup locally for a mere 100$!
For the f-body lt1 to ls1 brake swap you need to swap to the newer spindles....

I have the pads, rotors, hubs, spindles, brake lines, sensors, ETC.
he even took it apart as one peice so that I dont have to assemble it all.
the LS1 brakes have aluminum calipers, with dual pistons (I think) and a 12" rotor.

After I get this brake setup on my car the plan to swap out these calipers for the corvette calipers, and then buy the 1" larger rotors, and the Swap brackets they sell for 150$. Then ill be running 13" rotors and they require 17" wheels (Luckily I bought my 18's last summer)

the brakes are sitting in the riviera's trunk until I have time to do what I gotta do.

also, I can sell the LT1 brakes for over half the price that I paid for the Ls1 brakes, I sure lucked out.

so I could potentially have a corvette brake setup for 2-300$, or just ls1 brakes for almost free!

pics soon

if you happen upon another set let me know
the 95 and 96 rivs have to change out spindles too. (and i believe we need to swap struts out too, which mean changing upper and lower spring seats, and strut mounts...kinda sucks, but it would be well worth it IMO.
defiantly on my x-mis list. ("#2- new front end" -$900 )

did you know, the calipers on the Lt1 fbody's are the same as the Riviera 95/96....

interesting factoid....

Why did my own personal thread get merged into this thread? I was about to post up progress pics and what not of my own personal situation?

the work was being done to a firebird, not to a riviera... therefore it belongs in the everything else section  

vendetta wrote:

did you know, the calipers on the Lt1 fbody's are the same as the Riviera 95/96....

interesting factoid....

What size rotors do the LT1s have? Aren't they 2 piston calipers too?

TonySmooth89 wrote:

vendetta wrote:

did you know, the calipers on the Lt1 fbody's are the same as the Riviera 95/96....

interesting factoid....

What size rotors do the LT1s have? Aren't they 2 piston calipers too?

they are single piston and 10.9" rotors I beleive.... and its a steel caliper, ls1's have aluminum calipers

http://www.autozone.com/images/cds/gif/large/0900823d801cfc38.gif

^ Single piston

"V8-powered F-bodies had marginal 10.9-inch diameter rotors up front, and they were clamped by over-worked single-piston calipers made of cast iron. It wasn't until the LS1-powered cars were introduced in 1998 that GM wised up and increased the front brake rotor diameter to 12 inches. On those earlier LT1 cars, however, you could find yourself in trouble really quick if you had to slow down in a hurry from a buck twenty!"

Quote :

Why did my own personal thread get merged into this thread? I was about to post up progress pics and what not of my own personal situation?

the work was being done to a firebird, not to a riviera... therefore it belongs in the everything else section

I'll try to explain this the best I can. I know it's not easy to digest, considering how some other forums operate, but please hear me out.

At our board, when it comes to tech issues, the threads are primarily for the benefit of every member here, so the pride of ownership (being "your" thread) takes a back seat. Anything tech-related, it may be merged to a similar thread so that we have more info focused in a one area. Please don't take it personal, it applies to everyone, myself included. This way, we don't have 3 dozen F-body brake threads scattered randomly around the board.

I know it seems that a write-up on a Fire-bird would belong in the "Everything Else" forum, but we don't put any tech posts there because Everything Else is one of our Discussion forums. Your write-up goes in the General Tech section, under Brakes & Suspension, and it fits right in with our F-body thread, which several members have contributed to, including yourself.

I'd suggest posting whatever you have in this thread. Your info might teach us more about the F-body brakes. If it starts looking like your posts need to have their own thread, I'll split the topic and move them back. If you have any other questions, please feel free to PM. Thx.

Pointless....

how are Fbody pics going to help you guys out at all?

here is my photobucket account link....

https://s5.photobucket.com/albums/y159/9StreetGhost0/

I took detailed pics of all the components and measure out the rotors and what not....

next Im going to finish cleaning and then paint the calipers and paint the rest of the parts nice glossy black

Yesterday I cleaned and Painted Everything, Hunter Green (Racing Green HiTemp) for the calipers to match my Polo Green Metallic Firebird.  and Gloss Black for the spindles to hide behind my nice black wheels.

Finally got the banjo bolts on Wed. so I've started getting those calipers put on. Everything up until now went very smoothely. I just did the right side and everything is bolted up but I can't get pedal pressure back. I bled it by myself by hooking a catch bottle up to the opened bleeder and pumped it. I filled the bottle about half way with old fluid and then refilled the master cylinder with new fluid. Now, with the bleeder shut, I've been pumpinghte pedal for a while and pressure is not coming back and fluid level at the master cylinder doesn't change.

I'm about to go to work and grab a vacuum pump and rebleed it and see what happens. Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated.

Vacuum pump worked fine.





I never thought to get bracket bolts until I tried to put the new bracket on. I took a trip to Ace and got 4 grade 10.9 oversized head bolts (12mm x 1.75pitch). I'm kind of proud of those..



brake sandwich



ceramic pads with the two grooves in the lining



grease



calipers bolted up







clearance with s/c wheels is A-ok

Nice job! I think it was mentioned early in this thread, pumping the brakes to bleed lines is not recommended with ABS systems, and can actually damage parts of the system. I use a vac pump - makes it so much faster and easier, imo.

DAM! that looks NICE! wonder if i could ever find somethign like that one day from here :/

Nicely done! Those are some big pads!

Thanks for sharing. Looks really nice.

Turtleman,
Did you use Caliper paint or plain high heat paint?

Just curious as I'm doing a couple of set's now, myself. Have bead blasted, cleaned, rebuilt and prepped for paint.
Will have a completely rebuilt set up for sale soon.

Rickw wrote:

Turtleman,
Did you use Caliper paint or plain high heat paint?

Just curious as I'm doing a couple of set's now, myself. Have bead blasted, cleaned, rebuilt and prepped for paint.
Will have a completely rebuilt set up for sale soon.

rattle can caliper paint
I tried using the brush on caliper paint on a test caliper and FAIL (at least for me)

I used duplicolor brake caliper spray, still holding up after 6 months +.

Thanks for the input.
The reason i asked was that Duplicolor also makes a High Heat Paint that has the exact spec's, 500* Ceramic, as the paint marked specifically for calipers.
I thought I would save some money and buy the high heat stuff but I don't want skimp on this project now and chance early failure of the paint.

did sum researching and it appears that inorder for this mod to work on my 96 i will a 97 or newer steering knuckle, lower control arm, hub bearing assembly, strut assembly, and maybe outer tie rods. good news is i have located a 97 riv with all of this on there. i just have to make it over now to get the parts....but its tooooooo damn cold -5 wind chill is not fun weather.

Reese,
When your ready, I still have one pair of rebuilt F-Body LS1 dual piston caliper kits for sale if your interested.
Check the "For Sale" section on this site.
Rick

'96reese wrote:

did sum researching and it appears that inorder for this mod to work on my 96 i will a 97 or newer steering knuckle, lower control arm, hub bearing assembly, strut assembly, and maybe outer tie rods. good news is i have located a 97 riv with all of this on there. i just have to make it over now to get the parts....but its tooooooo damn cold -5 wind chill is not fun weather.

97 steering knuckle & strut and spring assembly. I didn't change the control arms when I did it.

is this all i need for the lower part of the swap on a 96?
**see #10 below**

it show the knuckle being 10.40. that's seems too cheap. the 96's hub,LCA,and everything (except for the strut) will bolt up allowing the f-body caliper brackets to work right?

Don't know what your looking at, but the Steering Knuckles on that site are priced $188.45 for left and $201.82 for right side.
I looked up 1997 Suspension Components.

#10 is called steering knuckle right for $10.40
your price sounds about right though

after looking some more, it seems the #10 is just the bolt for the knuckle :/
boo
the actual knuckles price seems to be $278.72 each.