Them's the brakes! After my last autocross, my brake pedal felt spongy and almost scary on the last run of the day. on the way home and on two subsequent beach drives, the brake light came on and i had to pump my brakes to get the pressure back up. Definately not the right caliber brakes for autocrossing, time trials, track days, hell..even for normal street driving!

An all too familiar site, my Z on stands and dissassembled in my garage.

My goodies, Hawk brake pads, MSA SS brake lines all the way around, brake fade stop kit (basically a nickel plated heat sink that attaches to each of the calipers), powerslot vented rotors, and carbon fiber shoes.

A front brake "before" shot.

My baby has new shoes! But the drum wont fit over them. Probably a parking brake adjustment or a wheel cylinder adjustment (according to MSA and reserch on zcar.com).

While attempting to loosen a bleeder valve on the RR wheel cylinder it broke off in my wrench. Then, when trying to remove the wheel cyliner from the hub, both bolts broke (righty-tighty Little Bro!), so I ended up with new wheel cylinders. Here is new VS old.

And a picture of all the new pieces in and together.

Since I am going to run 3 or 4 inch brake ducts from the front cowl to the back of the rotors I used my trusty grinder to grind the heads off the stripped screws.

And a view of the axel all cleaned up. I used brake cleaner and a wire brush to scour the parts, then I hit it with a couple coats of Rustoleum Primer.

The new rotors are on! Assembling the rotor and axel was easy, used lots of anti-seize and grease.

I also cleaned up the front brake calipers with a wire brush and brake cleaner. Then I used red caliper paint from Autozone and gave each one three coats. They look nice and cheesey - like the big brakes on a Porsche - only cooler beacuse they are on my Z. The Brake Fade Stop Kit from MSA are two nickel plated heat sinks per caliper that fit between the brake pad and the piston. Having trouble getting them to fit, but they will go in there eventually...

The front brakes are complete except for bleeding. The Brake Fade Stop Kit just BARELY has clearance on my 15x7 Konig Rewinds. I hope there is no play/flex in the wheels or the calipers or they are going to hit.

After bleeding the brakes and the old master cylinder, we were still getting bubbles in the reserviour, so I pulled it and found that it looked pretty rough with a seal in bad shape. I think it had been slowly leaking brake fluif into my booster - so that will probably have to be replaced in the future. I ordered a new one from blackdragonauto for about $100, installed it, and re-bled the system twice. No bubbles.

During the test drive, I followed the break-in procedures from Hawk and Powerslot which were basically the same. My Z will stop on a dime and give you a nickel change! I still need to add brake ducts for the Brake Fade Stop Kits to work at their maximum efficiency but this project took 2 and 1/2 months and I am ready to do some weekend cruising and some autocrossing!