C5 medium brake kit

[mrr23]

seeing as a big brake kit costs upward of 3000.00 and moving to c6 z06 brakes is about 1200.00, i decided to go with the, what i dub, the medium brake kit. others have done this. you take front brake calipers and rotors and install on the rear. you do lose the ebrake with this. most threads i have read on this have been outdated and most pictures lost in the process.

so here's my documentation. lucky for me, i still have my rear c5 suspension parts laying around. first thing i read was the bracket will hit the ebrake backing plate. it does by about 1/4". so you can grind the bracket down to clear it, or just push it into place, slightly bending the backing plate. here are pictures of that.

in the third picture, you can see there is plenty of room to grind the bracket down without interfering with the bolt depth.

 

[mrr23]

now, for those wanting to keep the ebrake, you can use rear rotors and front brackets from a c6 z51. there is a little work needing to be done. with the thinner rotor of the z51, you have to do a couple things to prevent the inner pad from slipping out of the bracket.

https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums/c5-tech/2891980-c5-front-caliper-in-rear-10.html#post1585471818

SacCityCorvette

I use C6 z51 rear rotors to retain the E Brake. Because the rotors are thinner compared to the front C5 rotors, I had to add a piece of .250" plate to the bracket. See pics. If you don't, when the pad gets about halfway worn down it will slip between the rotor and bracket. NOT GOOD! And DANGEROUS!

 

[mrr23]

My brake rotors and pads arrived today. Power stop. So far I'm about 225.00 into this.

 

[mrr23]

mock up of the rotor and caliper. tiny scrub noise coming from the backing plate without the caliper bracket on. very minor due to the angle of the rotor center section.

 

[mrr23]

calipers painted and cleared by my friend at law dawg restorations

 

[Rich Z]

Looking good! :thumbsup:

 

[mrr23]

Swapped out the front calipers today. Get those painted and install them on the rear.

 

[Rich Z]

You know, I often look at the rear wheels and think those brake rotors sure should be larger in diameter to fill up all that empty space you can see between the wheel spokes. But those rotors and pads I put on the C5Z seem to be holding up very well, and I can't see me changing them out any time soon. Especially with the weather keeping me from driving the car much lately. And since I get nearly no brake dust whatsoever, I just can't bring myself to pull that stuff out without a real good reason.

 

[mrr23]

The good reason would be even better braking.

 

[Rich Z]

To be perfectly honest, the only times I can ever remember wishing I could stop better than I was presently doing was once when I was driving in rain that turned to freezing rain and coated the road immediately with ice. The second time was when I was coming down a hill on a road when it just started raining, and I realized what a bad idea using "cheater" slicks was on the street. I don't think in either case larger brakes would have made a bit of difference. :hehehe:

 

[mrr23]

in preparation for the hurricane, i finally put the brakes on.

i already had braided brake lines. i knew ahead of time, they might be short. one person bought 2" longer stock rubber lines from NAPA. i relocated the mount down a couple inches and fixed the length/suspension travel issue. also have stock brake picture.

 

[mrr23]

some pictures of the rotor differences