I'd been considering various options for a brake upgrade for a while on my Mk1.5 but the bigger celica upgrade would have meant possibly getting new front wheels as I run 15" at the front and 16" at the back. Then one day on IMOC I saw a Hi-Spec brake kit advertised at a great price and snapped it up, much to the annoyance of a few other guys, hehe. The Hi-Spec kit is very impressive and features 310mm x 28mm rotors on aluminium bells. This along with the lightweight 4-pot calipers means that the whole setup weighs exactly the same as the standard Celica ST162 setup I had fitted previously, winner!

The kit came with Ferodo DS3000 pads, which in comparison to my rear pads and in combination with the now huge front brakes meant locking up was quite easy. It didn't help that I first got them fitted this time last year and we weren't so lucky with the weather. Anyway, more work on those later on as I went on to fit a Hilux 1" master cylinder, gut the bias valve and refurb the rear calipers along with new discs on the back and yellowstuff pads all round. It now stops amazingly well! I need to do a track day to get used to them as there aren't that many opportunities on the road to give them the abuse they deserve and I normally brake far too early for corners. Although I prefer to carry speed through corners rather than braking then accelerating. Anyhow... onwards with the thread:

Old setup:



Dirty arch:



Clean arch:



New setup (I swapped over the discs so they were the correct rotation after this picture):



2-3mm clearance from caliper to the inside of the wheel and a surprisingly large gap to the spokes. Just goes to show what good caliper design can give you.

Cheers,
Tom