QUOTE from another board
DO NOT RUN WILWOOD BRAKES ON A STREET CAR!!! They are meant for track cars only. There is a reason they are priced FAR cheaper than Baer or SSB, its because they are missing crucial things....for example they do not have any seals, so dirt, dust or other debris can work its way into the piston chamber and damage a piston resulting in brake FAILURE!!! They are not rebuildable either, try ordering individual parts from Wilwood and see what they tell you. Time for a whole new caliper! If this was strictly a track car, i would say go for it, but if you drive this on the street spend the $$ and either go with Baer, LS1(fbody) or C5 brakes. The latter can be had for less than a Wilwood kit.

unquote

I've also heard from someone that Baer brakes was not happy with the amount of money coming in, so they started lowering the quality of the base materials used in constructing the brakes.


Baer has the more popular, better looking kits. But if there is a chance they switched to cheap materials, i'm not going to take a chance with brakes that could fail.

Wilwood is renouned (spelling?) for high qualitiy and high performance, and less expensive than Baer. But see the negatives in the quote above.

So what do you guys think. I want to get one of these kits in the future (cuz i want a complete big brake upgrade kit front and rear, and they both have them for less than......well.....Brembo), not just nice rotors. Any opinions? Is the info off base or what?

 

Tis true about the willwoods, not ment for a street car unless you clean them all the time.


The Liability on baers part would be HUGE if they failed cause of "cheaping out" and I have never heard any reports to the like of them lowering quality....
I have seen a kit in person about a week ago, it was a brand new just got in part and it was exceptional from what I could tell.

 

from what I've heard, the Baer cheapening stuff is fairly recent.

 

I just phoned the shop, and they havent heard anything about this. and the brakes they ordered jsut came in cause they were on back order.

 

The Baer stuff is good quality. I don't know anything about the newer stuff being cheaper. My kit is several years old and is holding up well. But, recently i called them about replacing my front rotor. (I just have the sport kit, which is a 12" front rotor and the 2 piston caliper). The rotors were like $155 each and with the zinc washing was $175. Way overpriced for a rotor. The rear rotor i have is a stock one.
The brakes work good, but i think either the LS1s or C5s would be just as good, but you could get the parts cheaper than the Baer stuff when you need it in the future. My .02

 

I think there is or just was a group purchase for c-5 brake adpters from Bob Bishop I have the kit on my 96 so far the best mod I've done and less $ than "brand names"!

 

GoFast908Z:

I'm not sure about their "street stuff" but there are 5 places here that sell rebuild parts from racing Wilwoods. Do a google search for Heintz Performance, Hutcherson-Pagan, BSR. they all have tons of stuff in stock..............

DV

 

I've been running Wilwoods on the front of my street car for 2 years without problems. I don't recommend using the pads they send with the kit on the street but other then that I have no complaints. They do work really well. As far as I know they are rebuildable and quite easily at that. I would either get the C5 brakes or the Wilwood kit, everything else is WAY up there in price.

 

Im running the wilwood for about 6 month and love them

About the dust seals
I called wilwood about this and they said that their brake kit is maybe for really really high temps. these twmp would melt any dust seal. he insured me that there would be no problem as long as i take normal car of them

Just for regular maintance my wheels are off every couple months or so... I just spray thenm down with some brake cleaner, but really, they look very very clean with out doing that...

i also sencond not using the "E" or "D" pads, i special orders mine with the "Q" pads
"Q" pads are ceramic, are better for medium heat (witch you will have on the street) and are a no dust, no noise pad.
I love these and the literally produce alomst no dust

Strongly recomend wilwood kit with the "q" pads

 

Dust boots are pointless if you do any serious track time. Every car I've ever run on a roadcourse with race pads, I have melted the dust boots on the first day. This is even true with street/race combo pads like the PFC Z rated pads. I just end up peeling them off and running without them for street and track and have never had any problems. As was mentioned above though, I do spray them down every few months with brake cleaner to get any junk off the pistons. I am very happy with my upgrade to the LS1 brakes, and with a race pad (Carbotech XPs), I have plenty of stopping power for track use. The only reason that I'm considering even going to C5 rotors is just to have more heat sink capacity in the rotor.

Personally, if you are truly interested in performance, I would tell you to keep your stock LS1 brakes and just get some good pads on them. If you want the big brake kit for looks, then buy the LG adaptors that let you run C5 rotors, and put some Baer Eradispeeds on.

 

i made my own kit using a pair of porsche 4 piston calipers and vette rotors under 750.00 total

 

Hey Shox, do you have any details on your bake kit you would like to share, or maybe some pics?
Did you just upgrade the fronts, or did you do the rears also?

 

Here is a pic of my Wilwoods installed and well used.
http://www.fyrelight.org/dl/transam/...d%20Brakes.jpg

 

Love my Wilwood kit. The D/E pads are noisy, I'm going to try the Q pads next. Priced a replacement caliper: about 80 - 100 bucks.

 

are the holes cast in on the wilwoods?