Hi guys, just bought my first Camaro last week. It's a '94 with a 3.4. Yeah, I know it's not a v8, but the performance is more than satisfactory for my needs.

Anyway, I ran a quick search and didn't see any information on brake upgrades. What's the most cost effective, bang for the buck upgrade on the brake system? The stock brakes are stopping me ok, but they're not up to my expectations.

Are slotted rotors worth much extra stopping power? How about ceramic pads? How many of you have upgraded brakes? Keep in mind that I'm a broke grad student.

 

you wont see an increase in stopping power with slots and drills unless you are exceeding their current capability. i doubt you are currently.

they have a rear disk upgrade you can do. that will do wonders since you arent working with those BS drums anymore.

sorry I cant be alot of help. people think because I staff this place I know the v6 angle and im just not too well read on it but someone will be around shortly to help out.

and welcome to the forum, from a broke undergrad to a broke grad

 

Thanks specter.

Actually, some new stock pads and rotors would probably help. The car stops ok, but I was testing the brakes on a steep grade yesterday, and I smashed them nearly as hard as I could. It didn't seem to slow down nearly as fast as it should. I was wondering if the antilock brakes were engaging, but it wasn't even close to locking up, so I doubt it. The second time I tried it, it stopped much faster.

Then again, it was pretty low on brake fluid when I got it. I wouldn't be surprised if I have some air in the lines.

The reason I mentioned drilled and slotted rotors and ceramic pads is because I can get a set for about $150, and if they actually added performance that would seem to be a fair price.

I would like to put disks on the back, but in my experience the front brakes do so much of your stopping and the rear ones wear so slowly that I'm not sure it's worth it, especially considering the price of the kits. I will have to look into that though.

 

Is there a lot of play in the pedal, or area before you feel the brakes engaging where nothing is there?

 

Drilled and slotted rotors are really only good on a track application where you're doing a ton of stopping and really heating the brakes up (or when you're driving down from the mountains on fun curvy roads) and you have a tendency to experience brake fade. Ceramic pads actually don't have as good of stopping power as a regular high performance pad, the benefit of the ceramic pads is they take longer to wear out and they don't produce that annoying black brake dust that makes your wheels look like crap. If you wanted a cheap upgrade you could try and find some front and rear hubs and a portioning valve from a 98-02 Z28/SS, they had bigger rotors and calipers.

 

These are what I got. They are very good and very cheap. I have been riding on them for about half a year now and needed to brake hard at times and it did the job. So far no problems. They aren't warped or anything. Very good IMO:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Chevy...mZ220346015106

 

Personally I used to own a speed shop back in chicago and the best pads/rotors for the money were EBC greenstuff pads and powerstop drilled rotors. Keep in mind those pads had ZERO dust and that was on a 2001 1.8t VW jetta that was heavily modded for daily driving but autocrossing on the weekends. I did try out the redstuff pads but they didnt have enough initial bite during daily driving.