upgraded stock brakes vs q45 upgrade

[madd ocx]

first of all yes i did search, but i would like some recent opinions. i told a friend of mines that i was going to get the q45 brake upgrade for my s14. he told me not to waste the money because my car is mainly a daily driver and stock brakes with good slotted rotors, ss brake lines and hawk pads will do the job. i'm going ka-t planning to make about 280hp or so. so what do you guys think? my car will just be a street car but i think q45 brakes will be a good idea if your making more power to stop faster. but if a good stock setup will do the job just as well i would reconsider.

[Captain_Ron80]

You'd be amazed what a difference upgraded stockers like you described will make. I've never experienced q45 brakes but there is a big difference between "stock," and upgraded "stock."

[JoeC1982]

i'm very pleased with my brembo blanks and hawk performance ceramics, i'll probably upgrade one day when i get more power but as is they are fine.

[rb25_s13*CHUKI]

Stock brakes fail hard! Even upgraded stock brakes Wont't be able to stock u quick enough.. What kinda of drving are u planning on doing? A really nice brake upgrade is sti(subaru) rotors and calipers.:bigok:

[madd ocx]

i'm very pleased with my brembo blanks and hawk performance ceramics, i'll probably upgrade one day when i get more power but as is they are fine.is your stock, or are you boosting?

[stupid nissan]

i think the z32 brakes are a good upgrade that wont rape your bank but then again you have to take in effect brake balance if your brake balance is to front biased your stopping distaces will increase but you wont have as much brake fade because of heat

[ALEXTHESUS*PECT]

here you go. all you need to know is here!


http://www.ka24development.com/brake_upgrades.html


i do run q45 brakes upfront, and stock calipers in the rear with s14 rototrs! i love my setup!

[JoeC1982]

is your stock, or are you boosting?
stock for now but i will say that if you never plan on tracking your car they would be fine, better brakes won't make you a better driver....

[ALEXTHESUS*PECT]

, better brakes won't make you a better driver....

true, but they will make a bad driver stop faster!:bite:

[S13Leprechaun]

depends yuor budget... try both... i personally, if i was your, just get slotted rotors all around, (not drilled and slotted).... and get new, better, softer pads all around.. might wear quicker, but youll stop quicker!

[Automato]

i have an sr with 277whp, 269wtq. i run stock brembo blanks and hawk hp plus pads. i can stop fine. that was a big improvement over the oem gear that i used to have on there. i also run 225 tires. let me tell you this, for a daily driver, the wheels will lock and skid before the brakes would fail. this means that with this combo on regular road use, it'd probably be more beneficial to upgrade to wider/stickier tires before needing to upgrade the brakes. even in autocross i don't have issues. now if your car is a track car or going to be tracked frequently, then upgraded brakes would fight against brake overheating issues. i would recommend the z32 brake upgrade though and also just blank rotors. slotted/crossdrilled really serve no purpose anymore except to look good.

[S13Leprechaun]

actually slotted rotors help alot... its drilled that is lame... drilled holds in gases which causes worse braking, and cracking on some and blah blah...

[Automato]

actually slotted rotors help alot... its drilled that is lame... drilled holds in gases which causes worse braking, and cracking on some and blah blah...

we'll i'd have to agree with having some advantages, but i think in the end, it doesn't justify the price difference slotted and blanks. also the bottom line is that you will be sacrificing surface area with the slotted rotors. imo, the blanks would be the better bang for the buck for regular road use.

[S13Leprechaun]

defin... the drilled thing doesnt make sense... slotted does tho... although im still not too sure what it does... lol... besides cooling.

[SilviaBricks]

Get the brembo blanks for 30 bucks a piece and some decent pads and you're good to go. Everyone around here seems to like hawk hp pads, I usually go with axxis metal master because I get them for $40 bucks. Worry about the front first, it takes most of the stopping load.

[madd ocx]

well I'm not planning on any motorsports anytime soon just a nice street car with some umphh! I liked the idea of q45 brakes but if an upgraded stock setup will do the job then that's good too. I just don't big hp and I'm flying down the belt pkwy and can't stop the beast, lol.. so that's why I wanted some opinions that were recent because some searches are years old.

[Forge_55b]

daily = not too much brake fatigue so don't worry about it unless you have had problems with braking......i personally have faded by stock brakes daily driving before so I tried J30 brakes and so far they seem ok, you could probably upgrade to a better brake pad compound and be done without really upgrading anything else......

it all just really depends on your budget

[MikeisNissan]

i heard spec-v and altima rotors would work with Q45 front calipers? Is this true?

[stupid nissan]

if you can lock up your tires with the brakes you have them you have plenty of breaking power the only reason to up grade would be if you get heat fade rather quickly or if you want to have cool looking breaks

[madd ocx]

I heard the bmc on an auto ka would work better than a 5speed for a q45 upgrade, is this true? and I have a base model s14. but I think the q45 brakes might be good to try out. can't hurt to see right? so far most people think q45 calipers are a good street upgrade over stock.

[eek]

good tires help you stop as well, q45 brakes are great for those on a budget and want to keep low key and have better rim clearence than the z32.. I have z32 all around w/ the bmc and it has never failed me.

[Neejay]

I say if you can get them for cheap, go for it. I got both calipers from a q45 in the junk yard for $20.

At that point, you can just run some regular blank rotors and still stop just fine without needing slotted.

[madd ocx]

I'm gonna try the q45s out. if I font like em I could always go back to stock with little effort. but does anyone know the size of the auto s14 bmc. cause I hear it would work better for the q45 upgrade?

[bo2o]

i just know it has a bigger booster auto s14.
bigger is always better. might as well get a 300zx mc too

[ALEXTHESUS*PECT]

I'm gonna try the q45s out. if I font like em I could always go back to stock with little effort. but does anyone know the size of the auto s14 bmc. cause I hear it would work better for the q45 upgrade?

save your $$$$ cuz stock works prefectly!

[Irukandji]

q45 calipers are like $40-50 at the yards. Cheap kragen pads and blank rotors = better stopping than most "performance" pads for tiny ass stock brakes

[Neejay]

q45 calipers are like $40-50 at the yards. Cheap kragen pads and blank rotors = better stopping than most "performance" pads for tiny ass stock brakes

+1 That was my point as well.

[slownslurious]

Infiniti M30 brakes are almost as big as q45, bigger than stock s13.. and they are 4 lug too. I ran those for a while on my hatch. nice cause they dont mess up your brake balance.

Sure upgrading your stock brakes will make a big difference... just depends on what you want to do with it. if you want to pound canyons, or do track days, or even if youre just hard on it (or make a lot of power, or run really sticky tires), you will find the limitations of your stock brakes, and there is only so much you can do. but if you shop around you'll find you can get 2 piece stock replacement rotors, race pads, and stainless lines for your stock stuff, and then bleed all your brakes with racing fluid (or dot 5). It will be a huge upgrade on canyon runs. the race pads will probably bite hard into the expensive 2 piece rotors, squeal a lot, have a short life span, make lots of dust, and require some feathering to keep them warm enough for normal street use.
Or you could switch to larger front brakes with a milder street oriented setup, get similar gains in performance without the dust, noise, expensive maintainence, and with improved streetability.

oh and they will totally look cooler behind 17's too.

I mean I ran 245 RT 615's on all 4 corners, and I had aluminum Z32 brakes on all 4 corners with slotted rotors, and I had the SPL parts Z33 track front rotor kit, and Z32 master cyl, all stainless lines. my brakes were awesome, total overkill for just about anything, but it sure was nice to never have to worry about fade or reduced performance. They looked friggin awesome too. You probably don't need to go that far. But with big sticky tires and aggressive driving you will probably need something beyond the stock setup.

There is a balance somewhere....

[slownslurious]

i just know it has a bigger booster auto s14.
bigger is always better. might as well get a 300zx mc too

bigger is not always better...
a bigger mc won't make the car stop any better, it will just reduce the pedal travel... I mean obviously if you go with an mc too small to fully extend the pistons in the calipers, then going to a larger one will increase performance, but the stock S13 mc is large enough to work 4 wheel Z32 brakes. It just goes down further than it did stock (and further than it should for heel toe blah blah). On the other hand if you go with a massive mc you will go from feathering the brakes to full lock up with 1/16" of pedal travel, and it will make the pedal very firm and the brakes hard to modulate.

As for the brake booster, I ran an S14 auto booster on my s13 once as a temp. fix, it made the brakes a lot grabbier and IMO harder to manipulate. I did not consider it an improvement.
I switched back to an S13 as soon as I could.

[madd ocx]

well my car is auto, so if the auto bmc is better then it just works out.. but it seems that with the q45 upgrade the s14 bmc will do with no problems (from what i've read anyway) like i said this is for a street car that wont see no track time (that i know of , lol).

[xturboexpress]

..........

[slownslurious]

The Z32's are painfully beautiful perched atop Z33 slotted track rotors though.
and they even say "nissan."

I say to use any other caliper shall be blasphemy.

And if its for a street car that won't see any track.. I recommend putting track brakes on it and taking it to the track. its more fun there.