Project: 2000-2005 Celica DIY Big Brake Kit (Part 3)

Recap:

I left off in part two machining a 5×100 bolt pattern in the Durango rotor, machining a small portion off the caliper ears, and 3D printing and fabricating a bracket to mount the two together. If you’ve landed on this post, and haven’t read parts one and two, take a second to skim through those posts to see what I’ve done so far. The decision path that I laid out at the end of the last part was a choice of three options:

• Machine the ATS Caliper to fit the larger rotor
• Use another factory-equipped (lug-mounted) Brembo caliper
• Order an aftermarket caliper that is radially mounted that simplifies the mounting options

Survey says…

Part 3 is going to be about using another lug-mounted factory Brembo caliper. I went on Amazon and found a driver’s side and passenger side caliper from a CTS-V. These calipers are designed for 355mm (14″) rotors which are slightly larger than the planned 350mm (13.78″) rotors I have modified to run in this setup. The reason I was okay with these being designed for a larger rotor is that this caliper should help me avoid running into the clearance issue I had with the ATS caliper. So, I ordered them up and got to test fitting the new CTS-V calipers.

Test Fitting

The first thing I noticed when I tried to fit them together was that the mounting ears on the caliper and hub ran into each other when I tried to pair them up with the Durango rotor. The first obvious solution was to try a different rotor with a shorter overall height (measured from the back rotor face to the outer hub mounting face). I’ve been hinting at this in parts one and two because I’m not entirely happy with the ball joint/rotor clearance with the Durango rotor. However, I picked the Durango rotor because it was less expensive and the rotor height was pretty close to the Subaru rotor that I had borrowed (which was known to fit). Regardless, the solution was the shorter height rotor from an Evo X (350mm x 32mm):

Evo X Rotor

The shorter rotor height did the trick. I was able to bolt the rotor to the hub and there was just enough clearance to put the caliper ears on the other side of the hub mounting points. If this setup was going to work in the long term, there would still need to be a small shim under the rotor (~2mm) in order to give full clearance and adjustability between the two mounting systems.

Now, before looking at these pictures, I would like you to get as frustrated as I was at this point. I put the caliper and rotor in the right position and THIS is how close we were to having everything bolt straight up using this setup with the factory mounting points:

Honestly, I wasn’t expecting to bolt this straight through the mounting ears, because I already knew the spacing for the ATS Caliper is ~15.0″ whereas the hub mounting is ~15.1″. But imagine a world where the car manufacturers agreed on a standard mounting pattern for their calipers. We could interchange calipers like legos and create braking systems that fit our needs. I digress.

The Evo X rotor/CTS-V combination could be resolved with some caliper machining. I’m pretty sure that the webbing and the mounting ears are all superficial, so the whole area could be milled flat and new holes could be drilled and tapped, but I’m looking for a cleaner solution to this problem, for now. If nothing else works, I’ll look closely at modifying the calipers.

Outro:

Moving forward, I have two other caliper options that should be here this week that I will be able to assess and see if I can get working. Meanwhile, part four of this series will be dedicated to the OEM F/R bias and how I plan to go about fixing it (spoiler alert: I’m going to be attempting a rear big brake kit upgrade, as well, using OEM parts). Stay tuned for more.