ep brakes(updated input welcome for closing)

[Guest Enzo]

Brakes

* hi spec 300mil four pot kit fitted to EP91 Starlet SR behind classic 15 inch speedline safari wheels

Good performing brakes are fundamental to any type of spirited driving, brakes that can perform well time after time will inspire more conifidence when driving at high speed. The braking set up on the ep while good could be alot better, from my own experience the sliding pins are prone to seizing and if used heavily the discs are prone to warping and cracking especially if used in conjunction with a higher friction compound pad.

However, there are improvements that can be made to the standard set up making them a lot more affective at what they do.

Braided lines,

When pressure is applied on the brake pedal the master cylinder pumps fluid through to the slave cylinder, this fluid is then punped at high pressure to the callipers, the rubber lines that transport the fluid can balloon, so in effect you could loose some of that pressure destined for the calliper, this will lesson the responsivness of the brakes especialy if the brake fluid is old.

*Rear braided line on highly modified n/a ep91

*This picture shows the difference between the original rubber hoses and braded items.

Oem ones are fronts and braided ones are rears.

A way to remedy this is with the use of braided brake lines, they stop the ballooning giving you more response over the pedal.

Uprated pads

The standard pads are pretty good as an o/e application but if your into spirited driving like me they soon wilt away to nothing a few miles up my favourite road,

Replacing the o/e items with an uprated friction compound pad will do a lot more to resist brake fade, uprated pads are usually designed to operate at higher tempratures thus doing more to prevent your brakes from overcooking.

*what most japanese consider to be the best suited pad for the standard EP turbo caliper (ones shown are for levin)

Brake fluid

Its more than likely the brake fluid in your current ep might have never been changed so odds on the fluid will be past its best. This fluid is constantly heated up, to boiling point in some cases. A result of the fluid boiling is pockets of air forming within the braking system which causes a softer brake pedal.

Fresh brake fluid at either dot4 or dot5.1 has a higher boiling point threshold.

Master Cylinder Stopper

this is a simple interesting device. it mounts around the drivers side strut top and braces the master cylinder from flexing off the firewall. This results in a stronger feel to the brake pedal

Discs

Ive found the standard discs to be rubbish basically. On the different eps ive had over the years ive had them warp, crack and even snap. The latter was due to some green stuff pads which ive come to find as being way to abrasive for the style of driving Ive adopted over the years.

Uprated discs with grooves are a must. There is only really one option here from a company called 3g, the purpose of the grooves is to stop the pads from glazing where grit and the like can get stuck between the pad and the discs. This will cause pitting on the disc surface of a standard disc.

NA braking set up

early versions of the ep91 na starlet came with the most poverty spec single piston callipers and 238mil discs to fit under the puny 13 steel wheels these brakes are only really suited to the oaps that insist on driving this underated car, this wheel and brake combination is ultimately a death hazard. seriously they are shite.

All NA's came with drums at the back. as an upgrade rear gt turbo discs and calipers bolt up.

* rear reconditioned GT turbo brake assembly with braded brake hoses and Tein Ha coilovers on NA Sr.

available upgrade braking components

fitting most of the items mentioned above will give you a much better performing braking set that should fulfil most peoples needs.

however there are a host of toyota items that can be used to upgrade your braking system.

its worth noting that early pre 92 ep82 gt turbos and na ep91s have a center bore of 54.1 where as the newer 82 turbos and Glanza V have a center bore of 55. this plays an important factor when deciding which brake conversion to choose.

Starlet mounting holes are 131mm apart, same as the AW11 MR2 and most celica's.

this means the twin piston calipers from The AE101 Levin SuperStrut, and GTZ. The AE111 SuperStrut. ST185 GT4 and the JX100 MarkII are available for fitment

this also means that the four pot brakes from the st205 celica should fit along with the 315 x 32 mil discs. obviusly milled down and centered with some sort of spacer if any.

braking terms

PCD = PCD, or Pitch Circle Diameter, is the diameter of an imaginary circle drawn through the fixing holes of a disc.

Centre Bore = the diamiter of the inside hole on a disc. neeeds to be exact as it fits over the hub.

brake upgrades

ae101/111 single piston calipers

Especaily for you NA guys with 238mm discs If you are after a straight swap you need to hunt out some callipers from an early ae101/111 corrolla Levin, these callipers utilise the same piston as the glanza which within itself is essentially a good working piece of kit, the only difference being are these callipers can accommodate a thicker disc. using a thicker vented disc will promote better heat dissapation. The disc in question needed for this conversion can be found under the arm of mazda. From the jap import mazda 323 gtx turbo, they share the same pcd and center bore.

Mazda 323 GTx discs 257 x 22 pcd 4x100 centre bore 55

these are urated mazda 323 gtx discs by DBA

normal oe gtx discs work fine

the calipers single piston of the same design but the actual caliper body is bigger to acomodate the bigger discs,

standard glanza gt turbo caliper on Left. thicker Levin caliper on Right.

the 323 gtx pcd offset are the same as the EP, it is a generic mazda disc meaning that other mazdas like the mx3 v6 and a few others used the same disc.

you will need to shave 1-2 mil off the hub to make the disc a snug fit

its an easy upgrade in the fact that you just unbolt the old braking components and fit the new

before

after

Levin super strut conversion(courtisy of si)

There are a few things u definitely need for this conversion, the first being the twin pot Levin callipers themselves, u also need the Levin discs, available from Toyota and pads, the discs from the UK AE111 will not fit they're too narrow. You will also definitely need longer wheel studs (M12 1.5 x 63mm length). You will also need a set of small spacers that fit between the hub and disc to move the disc into the middle of the caliper. While doing the conversion i would also suggest using braided lines and 5.1 fluid.

Levin Disc sizes: 275 x 25 pcd 4x100 centre bore 55

To put that in perspective

Here's the rest of the kit

First things first take off your alloys and drain your brake fluid, now remove your exisiting callipers using a 14mm socket on the bolt for the brake line and to remove the calliper, and a 17mm socket on the fixing that links the calliper to the body. The disc will just slide off.

Next step, you need longer wheel studs (M12 x 1.5, 63mm length). You will not be able to change these yourself as you need the hub removed and you need a pneumatic ram to do this. After theyr removed you will have 20mm extra length and it will look like this.

As you can see i also test fitted and decided for a flush fit i will have to remove the guard behind the disc, as seen in this pic but not in the one above.

You will also probably need to reset the pistons in the callipers, do this by removing the nipple at the back (as when bleeding) and compress with a G clamp.

Here is the full kit finished.

Im sure now you will be eager to fit the kit, but you must ensure first that you have the discs skimmed down to 260mm and i took the opportunity to have the discs grooved too.

As you can see above i have also fitted the spacers in the back of the discs.

Now you may begin lol. Start by fitting the discs (with spacers) to the hubs.

Next fit the body of the calliper in the existing holes using a size 17mm socket, shown at top and bottom of picture, i found i needed a 2.25mm washer to go between the hub and the calliper body to push the disc further into the centre of the calliper.

Next fit your brake pads, i am running these discs in with standard pads, although i have a set of Endless pads to add at a later date. Ensure you fit the retainer clips on the top of the pads.

Lastly fit the calliper piston housing over the top of the pads and fix to the body sing 14mm socket, replace the brake line (regular or braided) on the back using the same, dont forget the copper washer.

Your work is done, bleed the system ensure there is no air in the pipes and enjoy being able to stop properly.

st185 Celica twin piston conversion by Ted.

st185 discs: 256mm x 25mm five stud pcd 5x100 centre bore 54.1

you will need a 3mil spacer to complete this conversion.

for people with 92> gt turbos and glanzas the prius/new shape corolla dsic works 256 x 22 four stud pcd 4x100 centre bore 55

st185 caliper, visually the biggest in design to all the twin pistons but still shares the same large pad 127x53.omm

and disc. 25mm versus 18mm . girth is everything so the girls say.

discs needed drilled to take 4 stud pattern. placed old disc on new one and marked holes. drilled with 14mm bit.

afterwards the disc should look like this

you need to use a 3mm spacer behind disc to centre it with caliper. put disc on. caliper bolts straight on.

thats it. 2 hours work

st205 Celica 4 piston calliper and disc conversion.

st205 discs: 315 x 32 five stud pcd 5 x 100 center bore 55

pad size 119 x 82.2mm

i will attempt this conversion on my EP soon, theoretically it should fit. i have seen it done on an aw11 MR2 so should fit mine without many issues.

on instructions from the the conversion. There is a little job to do, on a GT4 the hub has threads in its holes to bolt the caliper too, a MK1 does not as its threads are in the caliper, so an M14 tap must be used to tap some threads into the MK1 hub holes and pop a 14mm drill through the caliper holes so the bigger M14 bolts pass through, also when fitting the caliper place a 2mm washer between the caliper and hub on each bolt, this centers the caliper on the disc, that is all the modification the caliper needs to fit

the celica disc will need to be redrilled using your current disc as a guide and a 14mil bit.

check how thick the new disc is.

old starlet 238 mil disc against bigger 300 mill disc and finished conversion

aftermarket conversions.

Zep racing manufacture sell an r32 skyline 4pot conversion. failing that.

if you are after abit of bling to see behind your wheels. there are breaking kits available from

• endless (4 & 6pot)
  
• Wilwood (4 pot)
  
• HI-Spec (4 pot)
  
• D2 (8 pot)
  

[Guest Enzo]

noted mate sound thanx graeme

[SiCaln]

hey man nice work, hope u dont mind i went through and removed the typos i saw (sorry spell checker by name...)

[Guest Enzo]

updated, still need to spell check again and proof read, but thats the jist of this article

if anyone has any critisims on the article just say and ill amend

[Jozinobi]

Fantastic bossman.

Could get the cusco bmcs in there too as its relevant and defo an extra braking option.

Joz

[Guest Enzo]

minted mate thats the exact imput im looking for

totaly forgot about that. i will incorperate it in the now thanx

[Jozinobi]

Soundo Geo.

This is how I had mine

I didnt use the red circular piece at first, so u can see the bolt has extra contact with the brake master cylinder head, to me this gave an even harder braking feel.

I have the red piece back in place now. Just a bit of input and creative variation for you.

Joz

[Guest Enzo]

thanx mate that pic will come in handy saves me having to take a pic of mine, will update shortly

[Jozinobi]

Also G I swear brake fluid is just DOT 4, not DOT 4.1

This brake guide is mouthwatering mate

Joz

[Guest Enzo]

thanx mate

[SiCaln]

if u want me to spellcheck again before u finish up let me know

[Guest Enzo]

ok bro thanx

[SiCaln]

done man all good now, but those endless pads of mine are for the levin, but gna look similar

[Shah]

for the two pots on ep82 what the thickness of the spacer

[russ78]

wow way to bump a super old thread from a man we no longer name on ukso haha.

but good find never seen this before and think ull find its 3mm