A good thrill can come from many different sources. Perhaps your thrill may come from a fast roller coaster or riding horses or, as in my case, a fast car. In fact a fast car can be extra thrilling if it is a car that you have built yourself. In the case of the 240sx, we are often turning a cool looking poser into the capable sports car that many of us feel it should have been in the first place. In the process of making the 240sx faster we often raise the level of performance to the point where further modification to the suspension and brakes are necessary to keep the car safe.

Better brakes and suspension are usually the first modifications most of us make in anticipation of increasing power from under the hood. A fast rear wheel drive car with an overwhelmed suspension and brakes can be a recipe for disaster. Even with stock power, many new comers to the “S” chassis find themselves replacing multi-link suspension components, as their first modification, because they have under steered into a curb or over steered into an embankment.

After the suspension has been modified, more experienced drivers will testify that the stock 240sx brakes are a little undersized for continuous track duty or even spirited driving. Several options for brake upgrades are available for the 240sx, weather it be in the form of OEM products or after market upgrades that can improve brake performance.

Many people may have experienced the thrill of fast acceleration that you get from high horse power cars, but many may be surprised to feel the thrill you can get from extreme brakes. The ability to stop now, at any time from high speeds in surprisingly short distances can be exhilarating; in much the same way as acceleration can be thrilling.

Dave Epstein, a self proclaimed “Z” freak and owner of ArizonaZcar.com, has been involved in Nissan after market performance for more than twenty years, and has built a reputation for making Z cars go faster. Dave made a name for himself selling racing brakes for Z cars to make them more competitive on the track. Fortunately for us, many of the parts made for Z cars can also be used on the 240sx, specifically the brakes.

Upon meeting Dave and several of his close friends, I was promptly escorted to a 1971 240Z that was heavily modified and they all wanted me to feel how good its 13” wilwood brakes worked. We took a trip out to the local meet and left with a group of Corvettes, a Viper, and an R32 skyline. After repeatedly trouncing all comers with his super-fast turbocharged Z, Dave's friend would stab the brakes, from speeds approaching 150mph, with mind altering results. I was immediately sold on these brakes and needed no further convincing.

Dave offers three different brake kits for the 240sx:

Kit # 1 includes:

12.2” rotors with Dave's own aircraft grade billet aluminum rotor centers in both four and five lug patterns, Your choice of either forged or billet aluminum 44mm (for the front kit) or 35mm (for the rear kit) four piston calipers, Aircraft grade billet aluminum mounting brackets, Grade 8 zinc plated fasteners and hardware, Wilwood racing brake pads and stainless steel braided brake lines. This kit is available for either front or rear brake applications.

Cost = $795 per axle

Kit # 2 includes:

13” rotors with Dave's own aircraft grade billet aluminum rotor centers in both four and five lug patterns, Your choice of either forged or billet aluminum 44mm four piston calipers, Aircraft grade billet aluminum mounting brackets, Grade 8 zinc plated fasteners and hardware, Wilwood racing brake pads and stainless steel braided brake lines. This kit is available front brake applications only.

Cost = $1100 per axle

Kit # 3 includes:

13” rotors with Dave's own aircraft grade billet aluminum rotor centers in both four and five lug patterns, billet aluminum 44mm six piston calipers, Aircraft grade billet aluminum mounting brackets, Grade 8 zinc plated fasteners and hardware, Wilwood racing brake pads and stainless steel braided brake lines. This kit is available front brake applications only.

Cost = $1400 per axle

According to Dave these kits have been specifically designed to work with the stock master cylinder and no other modifications are necessary. Furthermore when front and rear brake kits are purchased Arizona Z car will include a brake proportioning valve (for the rear) and a line lock to replace the parking brake which is eliminated by this kit.

I chose to go with kit #1 for the rear and kit #2 for the front. Arizona Z Car stocks all of the kits and usually has them available for immediate shipment. I purchased the kits from Dave and helped him assemble the kits in his warehouse (He doesn't usually do this). For all the Arizona people these kits can usually be picked up the same day from Dave's warehouse in Mesa. Typical ship times are 1-2 weeks if the parts are in stock.

Installation:

I installed this kit on my '89 coupe, but the installation should be roughly the same for S13/S14/Z32/Q45...etc applications. After getting the kit home I first prepped the car for Installation. Since I had already decided to do the rear brakes first (as there is more work involved), I chocked the front wheels, broke the rear lugs loose and lifted the rear of the car at the differential and supported the car with jack stands at the pinch welds in front of the rear wheels. 1. Remove the rear wheels.2. Remove the cotter pin from the axle castle nut and the retaining plate.3. Loosen but do not remove the 36mm axle bolt (It is a pain if you don't do it now).4. Remove the caliper and disconnect the brake line (I used a plastic water bottle to catch the fluid that will drip out) and the parking brake cable.5. Remove the brake rotor and the axle nut.6. Remove the four bolts that hold the hub to the spindle (this is a great time to do a five lug swap), and remove the hub. I did this by disconnecting the upper control arms and pulling the axles out of the spindle, but this is not necessary.



7. Using a cutoff wheel, remove the factory caliper mounts from the spindle. The final result should look like this:



8. Remove the factory brake lines after they have stopped leaking and install the braided lines.



9. Reattach the hub, with the supplied fasteners and sandwich the new caliper mounting plate between the hub and spindle:



10. Mount new Rotors to the hub attach the brake lines to the calipers and mount the calipers.



11. Bleed the brakes (I used a $3 brake bleeding tool that I purchased to bleed the brakes I highly recommend them they work great).12. Disconnect the parking brake cable from the cabin and the undercarriage and discard.13. Put the wheels back on and torque them down. Note the 12.2” brakes clear S14 SE Alloys better than 300zx brakes.



At this point you can relax because the hard part is done. To complete the front brakes, break loose the front lugs and jack the car up at the radiator support and place jack stands to either side of the jack at the radiator support.

1. Remove the front wheels.2. Remove the calipers and disconnect the brake lines.3. Remove the rotors4. Attach the “Dog Bone” Mounts to the factory caliper mounts with the supplied hardware, be careful to follow Dave's instructions here, as a misplaced washer will require re-installation.5. Mount the new rotors, attach braided brake lines to the calipers and mount the calipers.



6. Bleed the calipers.7. Mount the wheels, and enjoy.



The results are spectacular. Pedal modulation is very precise. I have not yet installed the proportioning valve yet so the brakes are slightly biased towards the rear, but only lock slightly before the fronts. Threshold braking is easy because of the pedal feel, and repeated stops from high speed have resulted in no fade at all from these brakes.

I have had to be careful while driving on the freeway. Several times I have come up on stopped traffic in the high speed lanes and had to be careful not to out brake the cars behind me. I previously had a S14 with a set of 30mm 300zx brakes with hawk pads, braided brake lines and blue brake fluid and factory rear brakes with braided lines and hawk pads. I used the same tires and tire size as what I am using now (245/45/17 Falken RT-615’s) and there is no comparison in feel and capability. I hear many people say that factory or 300zx brakes is all that is necessary, but there is a reason they use these type of brakes on expensive exotic cars, to have awesome braking feel and ability.

Lastly I stopped by AZhitman’s place shortly after the install. The car was not really running right, but I wanted to show off the new brakes to Greg. I will let him testify to their worth, but while in the car he seemed to be very impressed.

Modified by Fahaka at 7:27 PM 8/28/2006 to fix the pics...
Modified by Fahaka at 11:33 AM 8/29/2006

Sweet writeup man. I have been looking at these brakes for a couple of weeks now. Nicely done.

I just turned this thread into an article. Would you care for a custom title? If so, email what you would like to me. Addy in profile.

Damn nice writeup and I'm jealous of the brakes.

Quote »12. Disconnect the parking brake cable from the cabin and the undercarriage and discard.[/quote]-So no parking brake anymore huh? That would be the only thing keeping me from performing this upgrade.

Ligouri Rd wrote:-So no parking brake anymore huh? That would be the only thing keeping me from performing this upgrade.

Myself... wrote:Furthermore when front and rear brake kits are purchased Arizona Z car will include a brake proportioning valve (for the rear) and a line lock to replace the parking brake which is eliminated by this kit.

also if you wanted a hydraulic parking brake, this is just a simple step away.

awesome!!!

Just wondering.. what kind of master cyl do you have?

ILikeMy240sx wrote:awesome!!!

Just wondering.. what kind of master cyl do you have?

Morrie wrote:According to Dave these kits have been specifically designed to work with the stock master cylinder and no other modifications are necessary.

I use the stock S13 master cylinder, and it works great.

I'll probably go with these on my vert once I do my VG swap. Been waiting for someone to get them. You have to get your brake pads from them or what kind do you use??

Fahaka wrote:
I use the stock S13 master cylinder, and it works great.

Nice writeup but im gonna get some z brakes i dont have 700+ just for brakes... How does the S13 MC keep up with pushing all the extra pistons???

Florida240sx wrote:I'll probably go with these on my vert once I do my VG swap. Been waiting for someone to get them. You have to get your brake pads from them or what kind do you use??

The kits use wilwood pads and I will get replacements from ArizonaZcar.com. The pads are also available through any authorized wilwood distributor, but the kit's are only available through ArizonaZcar.com.

Morph wrote:

Nice writeup but im gonna get some z brakes i dont have 700+ just for brakes... How does the S13 MC keep up with pushing all the extra pistons???

Morrie wrote:According to Dave these kits have been specifically designed to work with the stock master cylinder and no other modifications are necessary...Pedal modulation is very precise...Threshold braking is easy because of the pedal feel.

The pedal doesn't feel stock, it feels much better.

And bump for fixing the pics...

Im quite surprised that your pedal feel is not mushy..

I imagined that the stock master cyl would have hard time pushing fluid for all those extra pistons.

You know.. similar to going with Z32 brakes and getting mushy pedal feel until you upgrade the matser cyl

Mushy...yeah I have heard that mentioned quite a bit in regards to bigger brakes with stock master cylinders.

The pedal is not mushy, but it travels a little further before the brakes engage. Once the brakes engage the feel is phenominal, much better than stock or 300zx brakes.

I didn't feel that the 300zx brakes were mushy...but simmilar in that the pedal travels a bit further before the pads engage the rotors.

I have never experienced a mushy pedal with either brakes, I would think a mushy pedal would be due to improper bleeding...

Mushy pedal from different calipers is a MYTH.

Regardless of the number of pistons, it's a sealed system, and the S13 OEM master cylinder should NOT feel "mushy" - that's an installation or brake bleeding issue.

As far as these Wiwoods, they're simply terrifying.

Goddam seatbelt was the only thing keeping me off the windshield. Dammit.

Fahaka wrote:I previously had a S14 with a set of 30mm 300zx brakes with hawk pads, braided brake lines and blue brake fluid and factory rear brakes with braided lines and hawk pads. I used the same tires and tire size as what I am using now (245/45/17 Falken RT-615’s) and there is no comparison in feel and capability. I hear many people say that factory or 300zx brakes is all that is necessary, but there is a reason they use these type of brakes on expensive exotic cars, to have awesome braking feel and ability.

more on comparison with z32 all around please

ILikeMy240sx wrote:Im quite surprised that your pedal feel is not mushy..

I imagined that the stock master cyl would have hard time pushing fluid for all those extra pistons.

You know.. similar to going with Z32 brakes and getting mushy pedal feel until you upgrade the matser cyl

Loveless wrote:
more on comparison with z32 all around please

My z32 brakes were the 30mm cast iron callipers, hawk pads and braided lines with fresh rotors. The rears were stockers with hawk pads and braided lines. These brakes were installed on my s14 codename "Oprah"...



This car had the same tires that I am running on my s13 and the same coilovers, apexi N1's, with spl tension/compression rods and cusco rear upper control arms. Both setups were very simmilar as far as components are concerned.

Oprah would stop very well, in fact much better than the stock setup, and I could never get the brakes to fade (Granted this car never saw any track time, but rather spirited driving on bush highway, and canyon lake road).

Having driven both cars (My S14 with z32 fronts, and My S13 with wilwood big brakes) I can say there was a huge difference. The S14 would give less feedback. I can't really say wether the feedback was more through the pedal, chassis, or steering, but when I would attempt threshold braking on the z32 setup the front tires would lock up with little warning and "backing off" the pedal was numb. To me it felt that the pedal needed to be fully released to "unlock" the front wheels, before the brake could be reapplied. I'm sure the pressure didn't need to be fully released, but the motion was numb and it was hart to modulate the pedal at threshold braking because of it.

The S13 with the wilwood brakes is very communicative, I can feel the lock up comming on through the pedal and steering wheel as I approach the threshold. Once I lock up the tires front or rear it is easy to back off to the point where they are not locked but back at the threshold of locking.

I attribute the difference in pedal feel between the two kits to the size of the pistons in the callipers. The larger the piston, the more sensitive the application of pressure would be (I could be wrong, but this seems to make sense to me).

I don't have stopping distances so my comparison is based on my impression and not factual data.

I hope this helps.

Any chance we might be able to get a group buy going? Like maybe $50off, a free set of pads or something lol...

Great writeup Morrie! Really makes me want some wilwoods

-Dan

240sx2nr95 wrote:Great writeup Morrie! Really makes me want some wilwoods

-Dan

Thanks Dan let me know when you are ready

when is dave goin to make some f/r lca for the 240sx? i know he makes it for the s30...

neways the brake setup w/ the 615 is tits except for that linelock. do you now carry the yellow nissan wheel chocks around. haha

sleepyRPS13 wrote:when is dave goin to make some f/r lca for the 240sx? i know he makes it for the s30...

Dave has plans for front and rear lca's & all other control arms, plus he is talking about making a completely new rear subframe...he just hasn't had enough requests for it...

sleepyRPS13 wrote:neways the brake setup w/ the 615 is tits except for that linelock. do you now carry the yellow nissan wheel chocks around. haha

The line lock isn't bad, for drifters though I would reccomend the other setup, which is a seperate m/c with a lever for the parking brake/hand brake...Dave can get those as well (I think).

thanks for the feedback. I have a question though: when you had you z32 caliper, were they new/rebuilt or just straight from a wrecked z32? maybe the old seal/piston and all that had some negative contribution to the feeling.

I actually been looking at willwood for a while before my z32 brake upgrade. However I am not ready to put all my stopping power in the front, leaving stockers in the rear. that's what? like 90%/10% braking power.

Right now I still didn't get z32 brake installed due to being lazy and lacking of tools. I have kumho esta mx tires 225 in the front and 245 in the rear. When I brake hard it has a bad feeling. It feels like the front is stopping fine but the back of the car wants to break loose; almost like the car wants to play catch with itself. I believe this is due to insufficient braking in the back.

I am assuming you did not upgrade the rear, do you feel the same way too?

Other than this issue, I really like the feeling of my z32 brake over q45 and stockers.

Great write up for some great brakes. Wish I could afford them.

Newb question about the parking brake: how does the line lock and proportioning valve act as a parking brake? I'm just not getting this part...EDIT: Doh, just found the answer by searching...
Modified by IWannaS15 at 4:18 PM 8/31/2006

Loveless wrote:when you had you z32 caliper, were they new/rebuilt or just straight from a wrecked z32? maybe the old seal/piston and all that had some negative contribution to the feeling.

I had the 30mm cast iron calipers, they were autozone rebuilds, and after I purchased them, I rebuilt them with new seals and o-rings because they were leaking. They felt much better than stock, but they aren't as good as the wilwoods.

Loveless wrote:I actually been looking at willwood for a while before my z32 brake upgrade. However I am not ready to put all my stopping power in the front, leaving stockers in the rear. that's what? like 90%/10% braking power.

I think it would be fine, but I don't know what the front rear split would be...

Loveless wrote:Right now I still didn't get z32 brake installed due to being lazy and lacking of tools.

It isn't hard, especially if you have the 300zx braided lines, the hardest part is removing the backing plate/dust sheild. Just knock off the hub and remove it. Cutting it off takes longer.

Loveless wrote:...I have kumho esta mx tires 225 in the front and 245 in the rear. When I brake hard it has a bad feeling. It feels like the front is stopping fine but the back of the car wants to break loose; almost like the car wants to play catch with itself. I believe this is due to insufficient braking in the back.

This is one of the reasons I don't stagger a 240sx, the stock proportioning isn't biased towards the rear enough to effectively threshold brake with a staggered setup. My car locks in the rear first because I haven't installed the proportioning valve yet, but not before tremendous stopping power is applied to the fronts...see my threshold discussion above.

Loveless wrote:I am assuming you did not upgrade the rear, do you feel the same way too?

I have both front and rear.

Fronts: 13" rotors 4 piston 44mm forged dynalite calipers

Rears: 12.2" rotors 4 piston 35mm forged dynalite calipers

AZhitman wrote:Mushy pedal from different calipers is a MYTH.

Regardless of the number of pistons, it's a sealed system, and the S13 OEM master cylinder should NOT feel "mushy" - that's an installation or brake bleeding issue.

As far as these Wiwoods, they're simply terrifying.

Goddam seatbelt was the only thing keeping me off the windshield. Dammit.

it's not really a myth, it's just that some people have different preferences. there is an extra amount of pedal travel required to engage the pads to the rotors... that's what people consider "mushy". it's not like the pedal goes straight to the floor.

crzycav86 wrote:it's not really a myth, it's just that some people have different preferences. there is an extra amount of pedal travel required to engage the pads to the rotors... that's what people consider "mushy". it's not like the pedal goes straight to the floor.

Really it is the terminology that I have a problem with.

People who have never done the 300zx or a big brake swap say that they have heard the "Pedal gets mushy," when it really isn't. In reality there is just more pedal travel, but the end result is that the brakes are firmer once the brakes bite.

Nice write up.

I need to pick up the kit he made for the front of the S12

looks like a great kit. If anything ever happens to my 30mm aluminum z32 calipers I would either have to get the wilwoods or the Brembo Grand Turismo package

oldschoolsilvia wrote:Nice write up.

I need to pick up the kit he made for the front of the S12

Yes I saw these a few days ago, I'm not sure about the specs, but he does have them for the s12 too.