I am in the process of making my car safer, after almost getting in a wreck the other day on the highway. I was thinking i would need new brakes and a rollbar.

First question: Who makes some good brakes for a good price. I dont want to spend a whole lot on brakes and i want good stopping power

Second question: I changed my front pads about 5000 miles ago so i dont think they need to be changed. with new rotors is it recommended to change all of the pads too? (47,000 on the rears)

Third question: What is a good vert rollbar for daily driving that wont interfere too much with getting in and out of the car? Looks would also be a plus. I dont think i need more than a 4 point, i just want it to protect me if something would happen that the car would flip over.

 

imo a roll bar that bolts in probably wont protect much in a high speed roll over....plus you have to remove some interior to put it in or take it out....just something to think about....
my plans are a wolfe 6 point welded, i believe that would provide some protection. its a scary thought being a vert rollover aint it?
i wish mine was a coupe

 

i was thinking about a welded one as well

 

I went with the Wolfe 6-point bolt-in with driver's swingout. Looks great in the car and you can pull the swingout bar off when you're not at the track and its pie getting in and out. The bolt-in is strong as hell and since we're in unibody cars, you would be welding to sheet metal anyway... The nice thing about the bolt-in is that when you decide to sell, you pull it out and sell it and the car.

I swapped to the LS1 front brakes and removed the ABS and It's MUCH better than before. Great brakes now.

 

Rollcages in a street car is phenomenally dangerous.

One impact from the side or a roll over, and you'll bang your head off it (even with pads), and its night-night for you.

Same goes for 5 point harnesses in cars. Body flex is a good thing, in a crash.

The roll bar on the street thing HAS caused deaths before. The car wasn't squished though!

 

FWIW... My head doesn't come close to the roll bar. I'd more likely bang it on the window or windshield. Backseat passengers are a different matter. Just reserve that seat for your in-laws...


I would guess that if you rolled a Z-vert you'd probably do better with a roll bar. They also stiffen the car A LOT. If you think SFCs helped, the roll bar really puts it on rails.

 

so is it safer or more dangerous? need a third or 4th opinion.

should i go ls1 brake conversion or just get some baer slotted rotors and new rear brake pads? ive heard bad things about drilled rotors. i dont like when i slam on the brakes and my WW air dam scrapes because it does a nosedive

 

This is my experience.

Drilled rotors DO NOT provide a significant effect in cooling the rotor. The fin design in the vented rotor does. This is especially important, that you purchase non-white-box (read: cheap) rotors, that have a generic vent design. Any OEM or performance rotor will have a specific vent design.

Drilled rotors make the rotor inheriently weaker, and prone to cracking, as well as risking a drilled hole hitting a vent vane inside.

The only time rotors are effective with these holes is when they're cast in (read: expensive Porsche or Ferrari rotors).

Slotted rotors on the other hand allow gasses to escape, and the pad to be cleaned. Remember, that the vanes, caliper and rotor are all heat transfer devices, and you shouldn't necessarily need the holes if all is setup properly.

 

How good are the powerslot rotors? i was thinking about getting the brake upgrade combo from thunderracing.

anybody else on the rollbar issue?

 

Any effective roll bar, will have a bar just above your head to the left. If you get hit, your head will hit it.

End of story....

 

Bullsnot... Here's a pic of the wolfe in mine. The seat is all the way back pressed against the cross bar and you'd still have to be an NBA forward to hit your head on it. If the seat snapped off you could hit it, but I think you'd be in trouble anyway if that happened. The padding is also over an inch thick. I've pulled the padding off and I'll take more pics later to post. I'm pretty conservative with my brainpan, and as a real owner/operator of a z with a roll bar, I can assure you I feel safer with it in than I did before I got it. Here's the pic:

http://www.webpeak.com/~tony/bluez/rollbar2.jpg

 

that looks... uncomfortable and hard to get around... i usually have people in the back seat so is there a better one that wouldnt get in the way like that one does.
too bad a light bar doesnt provide structural support or i would get that.
maybe some place could custom fab a light bar and weld it across the top just to have a little protection in a crash. anybody ever heard of this?

 

In my opinion, the roll bar renders the back seat useless for passengers that don't fit in a baby carseat. A light bar is just for looks. As I said in the first post, if you remove the swingout bar, it's no more difficult to get in and out that stock. On www.chirpthird.com in the 'vert section, there's a guy that's trying to come up with just what you're looking for- a simple, removable bar that holds a windscreen, as well. check it out.

 

LS1 brakes here...
Much better than the LT1 brakes. Pads are the best bet to making the LT1 brakes work better but still not good enough imo.

Get a 32mm-35mm sway bar too... Eliminate body roll so u can get out of the way of whatevers about to wreck you.

Those 2 mods are among my favorite mods.

 

The 32mm 1LE sway bar was one of the best mods.

You are VERY right!