big brakes for my 04 GTO

**mark21742** · 06-21-2011, 03:35 AM

I started my big brake conversion on the goat this weekend.

2011 Camaro ss rotor 14" front and rear
Moving the front twin piston calipers to the rear
04 CTS V 4 piston calipers going up front

Here are some teaser pics to start with

Stock rear brakes

New 14" rotor and front calipers mounted on the rear

It was a tight fit even with 18" wheels, so here is a before and after pic of the calipers stock and one trimmed to clear and painted

Lots more to come!

**JAX04** · 06-21-2011, 04:19 AM

Very nice. I've been wanting to do this for some time since the car is getting faster and faster. Just to busy with the 4l80 conversion at the moment.

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**mark21742** · 06-21-2011, 04:34 AM

The Camaro rotor are a lot more shallow than our stock rotors which puts the braking surface of the rotor and the caliper A LOT closer to the face of the wheel. I Unbolt the backing plate, got longer bolts and spaced it out 1" to get the parking brake drum/ shoe to line up, plus running a 1" spacer. I still had to do a lot of grinding to get the caliper to clear

**cammed goat** · 06-21-2011, 06:57 AM

Something tells me you are going to have to go easy on that "woah" pedal once all is done.

**mark21742** · 06-21-2011, 07:40 AM

Originally Posted by cammed goat

Something tells me you are going to have to go easy on that "woah" pedal once all is done.

You know me, building a max effort daily driver

Said right now its still manual brakes, after all these upgrades I'll decide if I want to go back to the booster or not....hoping to get the pedal effort way down while still keeping the manual brakes though.

I did beat a crotch rocket last weekend lol don't know who was more surprised, him or me lol operations off of it when i had over10 car lengths on him....full a good but of brake pressure to get back down to sane speeds

**cammed goat** · 06-21-2011, 07:46 AM

Yep...definately a street-driven GTO-R.

**Texas Jack** · 06-21-2011, 12:48 PM

Originally Posted by mark21742

I started my big brake conversion on the goat this weekend.

2011 Camaro ss rotor 14" front and rear
Moving the front twin piston calipers to the rear
04 CTS V 4 piston calipers going up front

Here are some teaser pics to start with

Stock rear brakes

It was a tight fit even with 18" wheels, so here is a before and after pic of the calipers stock and one trimmed to clear and painted

Lots more to come!

New 14" rotor and front calipers mounted on the rear

Mark thats unreal, what a difference. You drive the shit out of your rides, those rotors look close

Hope your going to do a full writeup, sure be cool if you did, thanks in advance.

**mark21742** · 06-21-2011, 03:55 PM

Lol Jack they were more than close....it took lots of "trimming" on the calipers, but now I have over an 1/8" air gap

**c5z28** · 06-21-2011, 04:34 PM

Sweet! Stomping on manual brakes must be fun

**mark21742** · 06-22-2011, 02:27 AM

Originally Posted by c5z28

Sweet! Stomping on manual brakes must be fun

You get used to it...and I did lock them up once when a woman tried to pull out into me lol

**mark21742** · 06-24-2011, 10:16 PM

14" rotors all around, 4 piston CTS V calipers up front, GTO 2 piston front calipers in the rear!
Just need to tighten the lug nuts and take her for a test run in the morning!
Front....done!

Back....done!

**cammed goat** · 06-25-2011, 10:42 AM

Lookin good, Mark. I just ordered some replacement rotors for mine, not the same size, but drilled/slotted like yours. I now know what my car will look like.

**transamtom** · 06-25-2011, 11:16 AM

Very nice

**mark21742** · 06-26-2011, 04:36 AM

Well id be doing the full write up today for the swap, but the water pump went out on my dads dodge ram Thursday (of course this is what I was driving while I had my car tore apart in the garage), so after adding 10 or more gallons of water to it over the past few days so I could keep driving it lol I'm finally swapping waterpumps on it today

I took the goat for a few test drives, had some rubbing issues (easy fix) popped the back wheels off and had to do alittle more grinding on the calipers. Third test was a great success, no rubbing and incredible brake response.....the pedal effort with the manual brake dropped an extreme amount and almost has the feel of power brakes.....so I am VERY happy with this mod

**mark21742** · 06-26-2011, 04:48 AM

ffrom what I learned on this job I can recommend that anyone with some tools can do the front swap with the 04 CTS V 4 piston calipers and 14" Camaro front rotors (just need to fab up a 4 bolt hole dog bone which I have pics and measurements of)

but even with my 18" wheels on the back I had to do an incredible snout of grinding and an overly annoying amount of test fits/ more grinding that I would not recommend doing the rear swap (taking the stock GTO 2 piston calipers from the front and moving them to the rear) to just anybody, but leave this rear swap to either a professional, or someone that is VERY patient and has the time to get the rear setup right. I'll still post all the pics of, and explain what I did to the rear for those who want to try.....a better option for the might be a second set of the CTS V front calipers.(the stock GTO calipers are made for the 11.6" front rotors and have a lot more curve to them which makes the need for all the grinding)

**SSG Duncan** · 07-08-2011, 03:43 AM

Do you have a Price est? It looks freaking sweet!!!!!! great job!

**SSNAKEATER23** · 07-08-2011, 05:31 AM

did you spray your caliper w a candy paint? It looks great!!

**mark21742** · 07-08-2011, 06:14 AM

Originally Posted by SSG Duncan

Do you have a Price est? It looks freaking sweet!!!!!! great job!

Off eBay through R1 concepts I got the 4 14" drilled and slotted rotors for $230
Auto salvage 04 CTS V 4 piston front calipers for $140 each
I made my needed brackets out of 1.5" x 2" square tube steel I had laying in the corner of the garage so that was free (probably used about 2 foot of it to cut all the brackets out of)
I'll say $15 in hardened bolts and washers

I planned on doing a full writeup already (I have lots of good pics), but my moms car has an antifreeze leak and my dads truck blew a head gasket, cracked head and doing a 220,000 mile teardown/ rebuild on it so I've been insanely busy lol

The full writeup will be coming!

**mark21742** · 07-08-2011, 06:17 AM

Originally Posted by SSNAKEATER23

did you spray your caliper w a candy paint? It looks great!!

I did at first, but had to go back and do more grinding on the rear calipers so in the end I went with (what I like to call) 1980's shore red lipstick lol