Rear Disc Conversion

[Bubs360]

I hate drum brakes with a passion.

Has anybody converted their Versa to a four-wheel disc setup? I remember hearing about some company working on a kit but I have yet to see it available.

Rear discs are available on the late model Sentra, presumably? It would be possible to grab the hardware out of one of those from a junkyard...

[blindsnyper]

explain your hatred a little.

[Bubs360]

This is my own personal opinion based on my own personal experiences. If anyone does not agree, I'm sorry.

Drum brakes are simply outdated. For normal applications, they have absolutely no advantages over disc brakes.
They are more unreliable than disc brakes.
They have more parts that can fail.
They are not as effective at, you know, braking.
Something as simple as removing the brake drum can be an enormous PITA if you live in the salt belt.
Problems with drum brakes are harder to diagnose.

Most brake pads can be changed in fifteen minutes. Servicing any of the drum brake hardware involves taking the whole assembly apart. Putting it back together is like trying to install a jigsaw puzzle that could explode in your face at any moment.
If you are the type to take your car to a mechanic for repairs, it is a lot more likely that a mistake will be made in a drum brake service than a disc brake service. It would be very easy for anyone to accidentally install a return spring backwards or otherwise forget how a component went together.

The whole industry should have phased out drum brakes by 1985, and yet they are still here. All of the advances that have been made in automotive technology mean that drum brakes have been obsolete since, or possibly before, that time. The only real advantage to drum brakes that I have found is that they work better as parking brakes. That's about it. Companies that have wanted the parking brake advantage of a drum brake with the not-sucking advantages of disc brakes have incorporated the "drum-in-hat" rear brake design. This combines the advantages of disc brakes with the advantage of drum brakes.

[Promise Land]

The only set-up I have seen is on Bob's from Versaspeed. He did the proto kit and said it was too expensive to mass produce the kit, so he didn't make any more. He had to use pieces from different cars to make it work. Sentra pieces don't just "bolt-on".

[Bubs360]

Didn't think they would, but one can dream...

[NODES]

I hate drums as well....we are in 2010 and still use drums....

[Promise Land]

I peeked at the Leaf yesterday. 5-lug and rear disc. Hmm... Maybe another conversion source?

[Bubs360]

Haha, anything is possible with enough time and money, but for someone like me (or the average person for that matter) I don't see that as feasible. I wouldn't really like having to get five-lug wheels for my Versa either - especially just the back.

[lain]

havnt been here in a while...maybe next year i will convert my drum breaks to disk...just cant stand the drum breaks. they just look plain ugly. the would be my only reason to do the conversion. and it wont have to be a 5 lug...someone else already did it using a 4 lug. one day...one day....even tho the versa is a econ car...i see it as much more then just that. I HAVE DREAMS!!!!!!

[vtyde]

Just for the sake of devil's advocacy, isn't the parking brake the primary reason for using rear drum brakes on economy cars? There's a bit of engineering that has to go into putting a parking brake in the disk assembly and while drums are more difficult to service, they're cheaper to produce, allowing a lower price point at the dealer.

[led hed]

i'm happy with drums in the back of my versa, my spec-v had discs in ther back and they seized and didn't wear evenly, got full of crap and plane pissed me off.