05 GT Brake upgrade

[tacoflavour]

Hey All,
Just wondering what is the easiest path to upgrade an 05 liberty gt's brakes.

They are normally fine, but on Saturday drove down the cylde, and once they had heated up, the feedback shakes, were unbarable (guessing disks are warped)

Unable normal conditions they are fine, lacking but ok.

So now i need to upgrade these,
Not looking for some racing spec setup, just an upgrade that can handle the punishment of the cylde.

I checked on fleabay, do the yanks 05 gt brakes fit ours ? i know they are using the 2.5i turbo, where we have the 2.0tt.

Cheers in Advance

[dr20t]

Same brakes 2.0 and 2.5 t

Go for Dixcel discs and pads, with a power bleed of your brake fluid upgraded to dot 5.1 - great upgrade that you will feel the difference with

[tacoflavour]

Thanks heaps, looking into them now =D

[seanmau5]

FYI short of a BBK upgrade (Brembos etc) the current hardware is about as good as you'll get.

[HyRax]

Pads and discs are definitely the first path for upgrades. If you are a regular downhill driver (eg: mountain drives), then good discs are an absolute must to reduce the chance of warping. Personally I use DBA HD-series discs (which are derived from the slotted 4000 high-temp series popular as track discs, just without the slots).

As a test, when you think your brakes are running out, find a piece of straight road and deliberately jump hard on the anchors in an effort to invoke the ABS. If ABS does NOT engage or only engages very slightly, then your pads are simply too hot and cannot bite the disc properly - get pads with a higher temp tolerance. If the ABS kicks in too quickly and easily yet you're not really stopping as well as you were 20 minutes ago, then it's not your brakes that are the issue, it's your tyres - they've gotten too hot and have run out of grip. When you run out of grip, the wheel slips and ABS tries to compensate.

Other things you can look at (these do not preclude better discs, pads and tyres):

• Upgrade your Master Brake Cylinder and Brake Booster to a wrecked Impreza WRX STi unit - one of the simplest and cheapest bang-for-buck mods you can do to pump no less than 13% more fluid to your calipers for the same amount of pedal pressure.
• Braided brake lines - reduce flex in the brake line hose, resulting in more pedal force transferred to the calipers instead of flexing hoses. As a result, gives a firmer brake pedal, increasing confidence.
• Master Brake Cylinder brace - reduces flex in the firewall when pressing on the brake pedal hard, resulting in moire pedal force transferred to the calipers instead of flexing the firewall. As a result, gives a firmer brake pedal, increasing confidence.

Finally, if after all that you still need more braking power, then you can consider a BBK upgrade. Don't waste time and money importing a newer set of GT brakes - just go Brembo or similar. I personally upgraded my 2.5i's brakes to Brembo's (from a wrecked MY02 Impreza WRX STi in NZ) , braided lines, STi MBC and BB (from a wrecked MY05 WRX STi), Dot4 fluid, DBA HD discs and Hawke Ceramic pads, and my braking performance has improved substantially (the 2.5i's brakes are smaller than your GT's factory brakes of course, so the difference was a bit larger for me). My setup would require some minor changes to pads and tyres to be effective to abuse on the track, but for street, my setup is near-perfect for cold and hot braking.

[dr20t]

Great post hyrax

[tacoflavour]

Yeah awesome post
Checking into options now,

Not used to such weak breaks, came from a 5 series, older but came with 324mm front disks,

What size front disks does the 05 gt come with ?

So far it has been the only disappointing thing about this car,

Going to go get some prices now,

[seanmau5]

316x30 front
290x18 rear

With the right pads, discs, braided lines and fluids you'll pull up nicely. In saying that, a lot of braking performance comes from decent tyres too.

[tacoflavour]

I am now seeking some further upgrade parts, but the disc's need to be replaced now, once they are slightly heated I am getting noticeable feedback,

Here is my quick cheap upgrade, whilst I find some second hand sti parts,

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/DRILL-SLOTTE ... 1c3a0f942c
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/DRILL-SLOTED ... 1c3a0f93d5
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/BENDIX-GCT-R ... 2c7569f481
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/BENDIX-GCT-F ... 2a287bd0e0

+ Braided brake lines