1bdbrd

iTrader: (12)

I have 17 inch torque thrusts on my car and want to upgrade from my stock crappy lt1 brake setup to something much more suited to a street car thats driven hard. It doesn't need to be anything extremely good but something that will do the job no problem. I was going to do the C5 upgrade but I know they wont fit without spacers and I dont want to use them. How should I do this?

chicane

How about just changing to a better pad first ?? Its much cheaper and it provides much, much more over that of the stock pads alone.

Unfortunately, the TTII's are your limiting factor in any brake upgrades, because of the lack of spoke clearence. Pads, stainless steel brake lines and a flud change will do wonders... without braking the bank on hard parts.

02TransAm/Batmobile

iTrader: (32)

I agree with Chicane. First upgrade using better pads, a stainless-steel brake line and bleed the brakes with ATE SuperBlue. If you like it, then you're done. If you don't and would like even greater stopping force. Purchase the bigger caliper bracket from UMI and purchase the Corvette Rotor.

I also agree with the Torq Thrust's spoke design being a problem. Maybe with the correct spacer though.

waldershrek

iTrader: (1)

How many miles are on your brakes now?

Blakbird24

iTrader: (24)

If you don't want to run spacers, it sounds like you are limited to doing pads lines and rotors. If you get yourself a different wheel or bring yourself to use spacers, using some good searching on this site and the internet in general will get you a great deal on C5 Z06 brakes.

1bdbrd

iTrader: (12)

Right now they have 163k miles on them. Thats one reason i want to upgrade them but the car will be MUCH faster than stock as it sits plus I have a few things going on later this summer and I won't really feel comfortable with the stock small LT1 brakes.

So there are absolutely NO brake upgrades other than to LS1 fbody brakes or just using better lines and pads with what I have? How big of a spacer is needed to run C5 brakes? If it's only a couple mm, couldnt the caliper be clearenced for that? What is it exactly that causes problems with the torq thrusts? Someone said it was caliper clearance, can anyone go into detail on that?

subtlez28

iTrader: (15)

What's the hang up w spacers? You only need a thin one, right?
The C5 upgrade is a bargin.

02Z28LS1

iTrader: (2)

the hang-up with spacers is that once you go over a certain thickness, you need to also upgrade the length of the wheel studs so that there's enough "bite" on the lugs to keep the wheels on the car where they belong.

if i remember correctly, on the rear hubs, that is not exactly an easy thing to do...i think i remember reading that you have to completely remove the rear axles to do it, which is not exactly a simple, quick job (someone feel free to correct me if i'm wrong on this).

i'm not sure what the threshold on the thickness of the spacer is, but it would suck hardcore to put them in and find out the hard way that it's too thick

in the end, this is the exact reason i will not be getting TTII's, because i eventually wanna upgrade to the corvette brakes/rotors

Blakbird24

iTrader: (24)

There are tons of brake upgrades for LT1 and LS1 f-bodies. The sticker is that if the C5 calipers aren't going to fit, then there's no way in hell anything else will. Also, the C5 upgrade idea is thrown around on here alot because it is by a long shot the cheapest option. Thanks to the internet, the fronts can be done for around $400 and the rears are even cheaper. Good luck finding any other brake upgrade (Even an OEM type swap on another car) that you can do that cheaply.

I don't have (or know anybody who has) TTIIs so I can't say how close it is, but I can't see that the C5 caliper requires much more clearance than the f-body caliper, so i'd bet that you'd need no more than a 1/4" spacer. I know from experience that you can run a 5/8" spacer safely on stock studs...at least on LS1 cars (I don't see why LT1's would be different there). So my suggestion is just go the spacer route and get the C5 brakes. It'll be well worth it.

FWIW, I'm in the process of collecting the parts for C6 Z06 brakes on my car and I will be using 1/4" spacers on my C5 Z06 wheels. Spacers aren't a big deal as long as they are very small.

1bdbrd

iTrader: (12)

The C5 upgrade was what I was originally going to go with as I feel its a great budget minded setup. Then I found out they don't fit my wheels and I wondered if there was any sort of aftermarket setup I could run.

I was trying to stay away from spacers because my old trans am had spacers on it so it would fit Porsche spec wheels and it had some crazy *** lugnuts that no one had ever seen before. However if I could get away with very small spacers and the same lugnuts i have now I wouldn't have a problem upgrading.

What about for the rears, do people use the C5 brakes in the rear as well? Through all the reading I've done I have never seen it said one way or the other.

DuronClocker

iTrader: (25)

There are VERY few differences between the C5 and LS1 rear brakes. Might just be the design of the mounting.

Blakbird24

iTrader: (24)

Honestly it's a waste of time and money to do anything with the rear. I'm doing the rears on my swap simply for consistency (fixed calipers instead of floaters), but since the C5/Z06 setup uses floaters anyway, you might as well save the money and just do the fronts. If you do want to do the rears, I'm pretty sure Kore3 is the only company that has the rear brackets. For the fronts you can choose from UMI's CNC style or the stamped Kore3 style. That's your choice.

1bdbrd

iTrader: (12)

Remember though that my brakes all the way around are smaller than LS1 or C5 brakes. So I might just upgrade to stock rear LS1 brakes and do the C5's up front.

Does anyone know exactly how thick of a spacer i would need for the front?

And are there aftermarket calipers for C5s that I could use that would be even better?

michaelg589

iTrader: (1)

I agree with Chicane 100%. Also, the maximum spacer you can run on stock studs is 5/16". But even that is pushin it. 1/4" would be safest. I would do some slotted rotors, a high-end pad, brake lines and fluid. I have done the first two, I would like to do the lines and fluid but havnt found the time.

DuronClocker

iTrader: (25)

Don't bother swapping to LS1 rear brakes. The LT1 style is not any smaller (same diameter rotor...or within a couple tenths of an inch), and I was comparing my buddy's '97 brakes to my '98 the other day, and it looks like the LT1 style actually has more pad contact surface on the rotor than the LS1 style. Not to mention, rear LS1 calipers, rotors, and parking shoes are insanely expensive (compared to LT1 stuff) and usually need to be ordered at the parts stores. I don't remember if the LS1 rotors are maybe a tad bit thicker than the LT1 rotors, but either way, there isn't enough of a difference to warrant the "upgrade" in my opinion.

1bdbrd

iTrader: (12)

Good, that means it will be cheaper for the entire package.

Are there any sort of aftermarket C5 calipers that I could get that would help braking even more?

DuronClocker

iTrader: (25)

Possibly something like a Wilwood SL6 or something along those lines (not sure how big those are compared to C5 calipers or whatnot).

You've got a PM by the way.

lo_jack

iTrader: (27)

You will probably not see much of a difference from good pads and fluid on comparable rotors from LS1 to C5 given your needs, and since space and clearance are a concern for you, I would just do LS1 upgrade and get good pads. You can even grind down the LS1 calipers like some people do for drag wheels.

I did the c5 conversion from LS1 brakes, and I am very happy with it, but I understand LT1 to LS1 is a bigger jump in terms of both hardware differences and preformance, and doesn't require cutting if you just grab some spindles.

Negative on aftermarket C5 calipers. It's C5s, big brake kit or something completely wacky like JasonWW has been looking into along the lines of CTS-V and so on. But thats bleeding edge and a lot of trouble. Search it up if you are curious though.

1bdbrd

iTrader: (12)

So something like the SSBC C6 setup wouldnt be worth the money then?

The reason I dont want to do the LS1 setup is from what Ive seen you can get slightly better looks and performance from the C5 setup for not much more money invested.