My experience with camaro Brembo brake install and stock wheels

Suspension, brake, and hydraulic/electric steering discussion.
Ilikemtb999
Posts: 220
Joined: Wed Feb 06, 2019 11:49 pm

My experience with camaro Brembo brake install and stock wheels

Post by Ilikemtb999 »

The information to install camaro brembos is here but it’s all over the place and couldn’t find 100% if they would fit behind stock wheels so I figured I’d post up my experience with installing them. Yes they clear stock wheels front and rear.
Parts used:

2010-2015 camaro take off brembos, front camaro rotors and 2015+ Chevy ss rear rotors. I ordered pads without weights (seems to be common for camaros).

Stock fronts: single piston cast iron with 345mm x 30mm rotors
Brembos: 4 piston aluminum fixed caliper with 355mm x 32mm rotors

Stock rears: single piston Aluminum caliper with 325mm x 22mm rotors
Brembos: 4 piston aluminum fixed caliper with 360mm x 28mm rotor


Fronts are a direct bolt on. You have to use the brembo banjo bolts as they’re a different thread. I used the stock lines.


The rears required different thread pitch bolts (12mm x 1.5mm) and I reused the stock banjo bolt and line since the end is shallower than the brembo one. I just hacked off the flange of the dust shield and they fit.


Front pics:
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Last edited by Ilikemtb999 on Thu Mar 07, 2019 9:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Ilikemtb999
Posts: 220
Joined: Wed Feb 06, 2019 11:49 pm

Re: My experience with Brembo brake install

Post by Ilikemtb999 »

Rears:
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A46E7BAF-0D78-4898-9974-EAB5C4FC27D9.jpeg (4.13 MiB) Viewed 17048 times
Lentzjj
Posts: 16
Joined: Sun Dec 16, 2018 12:17 pm

Re: My experience with camaro Brembo brake install and stock wheels

Post by Lentzjj »

Did you have to use the caliper brackets from the camaro aswell? I havent seen anywhere where someone has mentioned that.
Ilikemtb999
Posts: 220
Joined: Wed Feb 06, 2019 11:49 pm

Re: My experience with camaro Brembo brake install and stock wheels

Post by Ilikemtb999 »

Lentzjj wrote: Wed Apr 10, 2019 10:47 am Did you have to use the caliper brackets from the camaro aswell? I havent seen anywhere where someone has mentioned that.
There is no separate caliper bracket, it’s part of the caliper itself since it’s a fixed caliper.
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Mooseman
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Re: My experience with camaro Brembo brake install and stock wheels

Post by Mooseman »

Have you found a real braking improvement over the stock calipers? I'm debating doing this mod if along with the looks, it also gives improved braking.
2011 Caprice PPV, former RCMP test vehicle, never put into service
Build Thread: http://www.newcaprice.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2419
Ilikemtb999
Posts: 220
Joined: Wed Feb 06, 2019 11:49 pm

Re: My experience with camaro Brembo brake install and stock wheels

Post by Ilikemtb999 »

Mooseman wrote: Wed Apr 10, 2019 7:01 pm Have you found a real braking improvement over the stock calipers? I'm debating doing this mod if along with the looks, it also gives improved braking.
I need to get proper summer tires to really actually notice a difference other than when I bought the car it needed pads and rotors. I’m still on snow tires for a few weeks till we’re in the clear here.
Navy Lifer
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Re: My experience with camaro Brembo brake install and stock wheels

Post by Navy Lifer »

Mooseman wrote: Wed Apr 10, 2019 7:01 pm Have you found a real braking improvement over the stock calipers? I'm debating doing this mod if along with the looks, it also gives improved braking.
I realize you're asking the OP--I've had this brake setup on my PPV since 2017, and offer a response as a point of reference.

By itself, the Brembo brakes offer some perceived "advantages" over the production PPV brakes.

A fixed caliper system generally will provide a better/firmer pedal feel, BUT that is more dependent on the pad choice--quite often, Brembo conversions by PPV owners do not use equivalent (to PPV OE) pads, which the PPV uses a quite aggressive friction material, as does the OE pad used by CTS-V, Camaro SS, and SS sedan. These pads are Ferodo HP1000 material, and tend toward being dusty, noisy, and resulting in relatively high wear rate of the rotors--and, on the plus side, very effective braking.

Pad replacement, if that is all that is necessary, is much simpler with the Brembo setup, however it's not always as simple as changing pads to conduct a proper brake service and restore "as new" performance.

The other part of the pad situation is that using the 355mm front brake setup with stock 18" steel PPV wheels requires using the pads spec'd for CTS-V or G8 GXP, which do not have the pad damper as found on Camaro SS or SS sedan--FMSI pad spec D1001 has no dampers, and FMSI pad spec D1474 does have pad dampers. The option here, if D1474 pads are being used, is to trim the damper(s) to clear the wheel.

The Brembo 355/360 rotors (as found on SS sedan) will offer greater overall thermal stability in extended braking situations--braking over a long period down a mountain grade, or in a HPDE/track environment, especially the improved REAR brakes, offering much more rotor mass (vs stock PPV 324mm rear rotors).

The interesting situation with front rotors is that the stock PPV rotors are only slightly smaller (10mm in diameter) and thinner (2mm less), BUT total rotor weight/mass of the PPV 345 rotor is actually greater than the 355 SS rotor.

The "bling" factor does favor the Brembo option, obviously, and total system weight is probably about the same, overall. The stock PPV front caliper & rotor is heavier than the Brembo/355 setup, but the PPV rear caliper & rotor are lighter than the Brembo/360 setup--just a guess on my part, and I have not actually weighed the components.

In the end, if comparing performance with a stock PPV, with the HP1000 pad friction material, a Brembo conversion will perform at least as well as the production PPV setup. If less aggressive pads are used, in an effort to save money, cut down on noise/dust/rotor wear, etc., the braking performance may NOT equal that of a stock PPV.

Any properly performed "brake job", with new parts, in most cases, offers a perception of dramatically improved braking, once the pads & rotors are seasoned/burnished/bedded in. The difference in the production PPV & a Brembo conversion is mainly about the pad choice--the PPV brakes were selected based on maintenance costs, overall, as well as meeting a minimum performance criteria in US police vehicle performance testing, typically based on or performed by the Michigan State Police.

If a less-agressive pad could have been used, no doubt that would have been an option. Before the Brembo conversion on my car, the stock PPV brakes got a front pad change to the Camaro V6 OE pads, which provided satisfactory, but less-aggressive braking, with greatly improved dust, noise and rotor wear rate.

Details of this found here: viewtopic.php?f=18&t=280
CrashTestDummy
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Re: My experience with camaro Brembo brake install and stock wheels

Post by CrashTestDummy »

The other aspect is unsprung weight. Bill do you have weights comparing the calipers between the PPV and Camaro/SS? I'd expect the aluminum calipers to be lighter, but since they are larger overall, I do not know.
Gene Beaird,
Pearland, Texas
2012 Caprice 9C1
1992 B4C 1LE Camaro
2018 Tahoe PPV (her car)
1995 DGGM Impala SS
1985 Firebird - 310 LS1 C Prepared autocross car.
1980 Bluebird Wanderlodge
And some others
Do YOU have my SPID?
Navy Lifer
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Re: My experience with camaro Brembo brake install and stock wheels

Post by Navy Lifer »

Gene, I do believe the front 355 Brembo (aluminum caliper) weight is less overall--the stock front caliper is cast iron, and the abutment bracket is also cast iron and VERY robust. I have some calipers here that I could weigh to confirm this.

The stock 324 rear weight is much less than the 360 rotor--and the caliper is also aluminum, although it uses a cast iron abutment--I doubt that the rear Brembo caliper weighs as much as the stock PPV rear caliper, and the rotor weight difference more than makes up for any caliper weight differences.

viewtopic.php?f=18&t=2778&start=10#p22239

https://www.g8board.com/forums/3630721-post14.html

Rear rotors:
324mm rotor - 18.2#
https://www.rockauto.com/en/moreinfo.ph ... 73&jsn=450

360mm rotor - 24.85#
https://www.rockauto.com/en/moreinfo.ph ... 65&jsn=588
CrashTestDummy
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Location: Pearland, Texas

Re: My experience with camaro Brembo brake install and stock wheels

Post by CrashTestDummy »

Man, this is tempting since it appears to be more of a bolt-on option as opposed to the CTS-V setup.

I gotta get the car to quit randomly turning on the dash lights first :-/
Gene Beaird,
Pearland, Texas
2012 Caprice 9C1
1992 B4C 1LE Camaro
2018 Tahoe PPV (her car)
1995 DGGM Impala SS
1985 Firebird - 310 LS1 C Prepared autocross car.
1980 Bluebird Wanderlodge
And some others
Do YOU have my SPID?
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