Roll yer own bigger brakes (maybe)

[Greg55_99]

OK, so I've got this First Gen Dodge Dakota (87-93) front suspension project and after some good beer searched the internet and came up with a plan for slightly bigger brakes. Goes like this:

Cut down the stock Dakota 5" x 4.5" disk brake rotors to take 98-02 Ford Crown Vic rotors. Use 95-00 Lexus LS400 aluminum four piston calipers and fab a bracket to hold it all together. Easy, yes? Well, not so bad so far. The Crown Vic rotor is 12.43" and 28.1mm wide. Near identical to a Lexus rotor. The whole shootin' match fits inside a 17" Mustang Bullitt wheel. So far I've got:

$120 machine rotors to hubs
$40 Lexus calipers from a boneyard(they are good!)
$100 Ford Crown Vic rotors
$22 Lexus brake pads

Under $300. I've got to fab the bracket still. Probably need a 1" spacer for the wheels because the caliper overhangs the rotor. Not a deal breaker. Can this be done for other setups? Probably, I'm only doing this one for the Dak.

The other part of this may be "can the 13" Mustang rotors also be used"? Answer is Yes, but. Yes, they will also work, but they have "less hat" than the Crown Vic rotors. That moves the caliper farther away from the steering knuckle and requires a thicker wheel spacer. So yeah, it can also work.

So, if you have enough places on your spindle to bolt "stuff", it might be an option.

Greg

 

[jos51700]

At what point are you getting rid of the six lug stuff?

 

[Greg55_99]

87-90 Dakota is five lug. Same as all Mopar and Ford. The Crown Vic rotor looks six lug but it's not. The extra two beveled holes are for locating screws.

 

[Greg55_99]

Hit a snag I should have caught. There's a small lip on the Dakota "hub" (formally rotor) that positions the Mopar wheel. It's larger than the opening on Ford wheels so I'll either take it back to the machinist to mill off ($60 an hour) or do it myself with a Dremel. That lip prevents the hub from fully seating in my Ford sized wheels.

 

[72bluNblu]

Dude I LIKE it. Nice work!

The hub register thing is nothing new, the hub bores on pretty much all the ford wheels are too small to fit over the Mopar hubs. At least any of the 10.98 or 11.75" mopar rotors.

What spindles are you using? And I assume the Dakota wheel bearings fit those?

***edit***

Wait, I think I missed it. This is to put bigger brakes on your Dakota?

 

[Greg55_99]

I'm using a Dakota based front suspension but it's not a Dakota. So spindles are from the Dakota. I'm putting this up to (hopefully) inform. I think with a different fabricated mounting bracket and cutting down an A, B, C, E or FMJ rotor, the same thing can be accomplished with the Lexus caliper for short money.

Goes back to that "Hot Roddin'" thing. I thank you for the info on the bore sizes. I realize I cannot trim the Dakota "step" all the way back to the hub face because the Ford rotor uses that for centering. I can tell you there is ZERO slop with the Ford rotor on the Dakota hub.

 

[72bluNblu]

Ah gotcha, Dakota spindles. Should have read a little more carefully. Still, very nice work.

 

[Greg55_99]

Since I'm on vacation for a while, I thought It'd throw this out there. I've had in my stash a set of cruddy 2002 Toyota Tundra four pot S13WE calipers. Out of curiosity, I tried them on my setup. They fit GREAT! That's a problem.. They fit excellent and are inexpensive. However, they weigh about 14 lbs and are made of cast iron. The Lexus and Dakota calipers both weigh in at 7 lbs. The Tundra calipers are a snap to fabricate a bracket for but the Lexus calipers will take some work.

 

[Greg55_99]

A quick update and maybe you'll see something you didn't know. I picked up a 12" X 24" X 1\2" thick steel plate ($36) to fabricate the caliper mounting brackets. Made a cardboard template, then drew the outline on the steel plate. Dropped off the plate, template and spindles at the machinist. He'll get back to me fairly soon. In the meantime, my curiosity got the best of me about how this setup would work in other sized wheels. I know it works in 17" and 18" wheels, but what about 15" wheels? It so happens I have a set of 15" Mopar Cop Steelies sitting in the rafters so I got one down to check for a fit. Guess what? It sorta fits. Sorta? Well, when the Dakota hub, Crown Vic rotor and Lexus caliper are placed in the Mopar 15" wheel, the tapered portion of the rim fouls the caliper. BUT, if you run a 1\2" or 3\4" spacer, you've got all the clearance you'd need. So, that's the answer to the question nobody asked.

 

[67Dart273]

This is some REALLY interestin info. What is all this about the "Dakota based" suspension and spindles? What is this all going onto?

 

[Greg55_99]

77 F-body with some front suspension changes. Don't tell anybody though...

 

[Jimacuda]

uh oh...I saw that...im tellin

 

[Greg55_99]

Still no caliper brackets from my machinist, so I took a little time to fool around a little more. I have a complete 1977 Volare FMJ front k-member sitting under my car. It's in the way and I haven't gotten rid of it yet. So, I figured I'd try out my combo on that to see if it works. Looks like it will. I pulled off the F-body caliper and rotor and put on the Dakota hub. The Dakota "hub" is not a match for the FMJ spindle because the bearing sizes are not the same so they are not interchangeable. BUT, for mock up purposes, it's close enough. With the Dakota "hub" on and the Crown Vic rotor on that, there's sufficient clearance to mount the Lexus caliper. Once I put the whole shootin' match together, I cycled the steering lock to lock to verify there was no binding to fouling on the knuckles, pitman arms or drag link. Turns clean. It also looks like an easier mount than the Dakota. OK, now you know.

 

[Greg55_99]

So if somebody asks "Can you mount a Lexus 4 piston caliper onto a Mopar passenger car spindle?" The answer looks to me to be "Yes". Of course, the best part is it didn't cost you anything and maybe you learned something. Please don't ask me about master cylinder's and bore sizes. I haven't gotten that far yet. I do know the Lexus master cylinder has a 1" bore size.

 

[Greg55_99]

Still rolling.... $200 more to the machinist. Almost there. Kids, don't try this at home....

 

[Greg55_99]

OK, summer is almost over and the kids are back to school. I did a bit on this setup but this is as far as I'm going for now. Got the caliper mounting brackets finished and after a LOT of grinding on both the spindle AND the caliper (keeping SAFETY in mind), everything fit up quite nicely. Again, this is a Dakota spindle and I don't believe you'll have half the heartburn doing this on an A, B, C, E, F, M and J body. Left to do are new wheel bearings and brake lines. I may rebuild the calipers anyway. Still, the whole shootin' match comes in under budget. I'm keeping my banker happy.

$120 machine rotors to hubs
$40 Lexus calipers from a boneyard
$100 Ford Crown Vic rotors
$22 Lexus brake pads
$36 1/2" thick steel plate
$200 machine brake caliper brackets
$20 new grade 8 bolts
$40 needed to re-machine caliper brackets (tweak)

Figuring this out... Priceless!