# Front Brake Upgrade (very. very long post)



## EvilPotato (Sep 6, 2005)

we all know the brakes on the b14 aren't great, mine are stamped 22v and utilize 9.13" (232mm) diameter .71" (18mm) thick rotors, they've always been sufficient and was never a cause of concern... until last night! i was going 68-70ish mph down a steep downhill grade when i had to stomp on the brakes to avoid hitting what appeared to be a wheelchair that had fallen from the back of the car ahead of me. i managed to slow down enough to maneuver around it, with my heart racing and adrenaline pumping, i quickly (or should i say slowly? darn ga16de) got back to highway speed and just as soon i did that, the car ahead of me, the same car that the wheelchair flew off from slams on his brakes, probably realizing he'd lost the wheelchair. i go hard on the brakes again, pedal is firm but this time the car barely slows down, i had to plow through the loose gravel on the unpaved shoulder. at this point i realized the brakes are in trouble so when i got back on the highway i stayed around 55 mph to avoid using the brakes and maybe give it time to recover. i took my exit about 2 miles later thinking the brakes have had time to cool off, WRONG. i tried pumping it, using both feet to step on it, pedal was still firm but she just wasn't slowing down. end result was me doing some scary front wheel drifting on the off ramp and was just lucky there were no other cars around... the brakes worked fine when i drove the car home an hour after this incident.

soo... where's the upgrade that you stated in title of your post!?

so this morning i headed over to my local pick n pull where they have a pair of b13 SE-r, so i thought at the very least i'd get ad18v, and if i was really lucky, one of them will be japan made and have ad22vf. i located both cars and, viola! both of them were stripped bare. one of them only had the washer fluid reservoir left in the engine compartment. bummed and disappointed and not wanting to come away with nothing, i took the brand new front calipers, pads and rotors off the altima i saw on the way out of the yard. cost $68 altogether. so when i got to work this morning, i proceeded to make an adapter to mount the altima brake brackets to the b14's knuckle, drilled 4x100 bolt pattern on the rotors, made hub centric rings because the altima rotors had slightly bigger inner bore, i knew there wasn't enough axial clearance between the new calipers and the spokes but held off on making the spacers because i wanted to make them as thin as i can get away with. so after a whole morning of work, i got everything bolted up and tried to fit the wheels to see just how thick the spacers would need to be. the problem turned out to be much worse than the caliper brackets hitting the spokes. there was no radial clearance! the 15" rims simply weren't big enough, i would have get bigger rims with tires for the setup to work, or take the tires off and turn the inside diameter of the rims, which is more work and potentially dangerous. so after cursing loudly while throwing random tools against the wall for 5 minutes (another hour to pick them all back up) i decided to put the stock setup together and live with the weak stock brakes. then a light bulb came on! what if i use the stock brake calipers with the 11" (280mm) rotors! since it's already on there nice and snug.

since you probably scrolled down through the text and straight to the pics, here they are.

you can probably tell which rotor is which

















yes it looks kinda like a bone. aluminum centering ring for the rotor on top










i wanted to machine it out of a solid steel bar but i used all we had for the altima adapter  i did weld this together but had no time to take pics, had to do work stuff in between all this










the idea is to push stock caliper bracket 1.04" (26.5mm) up and 2mm in to compensate for the difference in diameter and thickness of the new rotor










my only concern is the stock caliper bracket itself. the thing looks and feels so flimsy and might tweak now that it has to do more work. the outside is not braced together like most caliper brackets. i might beef that up when i do get some time tomorrow









no i didn't paint it, autozone had re-manufactured ones in red for only $5 more each! 

i actually have the driver side working with the prototype bracket adapter made of aluminum, didn't have time to take it off, ran out of daylight. i already noticed major improvement in braking power, it pulls hard to the left when you tap the brake at low speed, i guess the bigger rotor has much more initial bite, or just made of better material, or the cool looking slots making it work better, whatever it is, i like it 

i'll put them on the car tomorrow and will try to take pics while on the car


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## EvilPotato (Sep 6, 2005)

got everything up and running today.

i used the existing bolt to mount the bracket onto the knuckle from the opposite side. the dust shield was removed when i replaced my wheel bearings a while back. it probably would have gotten in the way of the bigger rotor.


























new rotor is a LOT thicker than stock, as you can see it barely clears the gap on the caliper bracket. and i do mean barely, maybe 1mm on either side. 









the cute little brake pads only grab the top part of the rotors. the altima pads were not only taller, but also a lot longer, goes almost a quarter of the way around the rotor









it almost didn't clear the radius of the inner part of the rims again, i would have gone ape$#!+









i inspected my old rotor for warping and it was actually flat, straight and true. and it was still .71" same as it was when i put it in 190k miles ago. most of those were highway miles and not a lot of braking but still you'd think it would have some wear on it. my theory is that even though the material is harder/tougher and longer lasting, it is very prone to glazing and such and might have well been the culprit of the severe bake fade i experienced. the old rotor was reybestos according to my maintenance logs so stay away from that  . the new rotor has ATE PremiumOne engraved on it. i'm not familiar with ATE rotors but i use their super blue brake fluid, convenient because you can tell when new fluid starts bleeding out. 

all in all i think it was well worth the work. i did a lot of consecutive 60 to 0mph braking on the backroads and didn't feel any brake fade and it can actually lock up the wheels! with very little effort! i couldn't do that before. i'll abuse the brakes some more this weekend and inspect it before i call the mod a success.

notes: 
the new rotor understandably outweighs the old one by plenty. add another 1 lb for the bracket adapter and you have a lot of added unsprung weight. i didn't notice any change in ride (dis)comfort. probably because i have ES polyurethane control arm bushings so how worse can it get?


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## IanH (Feb 11, 2003)

Wow !!!
Well that should fix the problem. More heat capacity and more cooling.
my ad22vf's cost me about $220 when I brought them maybe 6 yrs ago.


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