Stopping a 6k lb 80 on 38's better than our bone stock LX450 with refreshed brakes. F+R "motorsport grade" brake upgrade. (1 Viewer)
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- #22
Is it worth it is up to you! While Im nowhere near having a price range, it's up to you how much you're interested in modernizing your brake system, and what you think that's worth.
We have 2 80's. The green one I've had since New Zealand is my forever car. We also have a completely stock LX450 that mostly my gf drives. The green 80 I'm ok with throwing an absurd amount of money into. The lx450 will also get this brake upgrade despite being stock, but that's because safety for my gf is of high importance!
I want some!!!!
There's a lot of words here and no one taking my money. Damn it. 
Nice work, I will be following along
Been following the project on IG. Great to finally see it come together, great work! How far off are you from starting to offer kits? I have the 5th gen 4Runner front brakes and while it works better than what I had before, it's a bit kludgy as you mentioned and I'm always on the lookout for better options. I'm really interested in the rear brakes as I had to ditch my factory parking brake. Any ideas on where/how you'd mount the electronic parking brake?
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- #27
thanks @jcardona1 Your very detailed post about the t4r upgrade was useful during this whole process. If we go way back I was originally planning a 13.3" kit that could use either the Wilwood calipers or the t4r caliper, since I know many like to keep things all Toyota. I'm a numbers guy, my specialty in VFX is actually simulations, so after a bit of time running the numbers and finding out lots of the Jeep guys are able to run 14" rotors under 17" wheels thought it would be best to pursue something like that with strictly the Wilwoods. @BayArea80 knows how many times I've went over the brake rotor torque figures with so many possible options. 
As for time, I originally had plans to get this on the 80 back in spring, but such is life. I have to make another iteration on the caliper adapters due to interference with the steering arm. When I moved the rotor rings to outboard mounting position I had to extend the offsets on the caliper adapter and completely missed thinking about the steering arm. I'm also not a fan of customers prepaying for s*** especially after my recent experience with Darren at 4xo. So will be raising capital myself for a decent batch of all the machined parts. So I'm hoping late fall/early winter.
Electronic parking brake will be mounted using the same adapter that will mount the Wilwood FNSL calipers(will only have one caliper option for the rear). Just need to get a little creative with the CAD design as I'd like to make it one bracket for both the main caliper and PB.
As for time, I originally had plans to get this on the 80 back in spring, but such is life. I have to make another iteration on the caliper adapters due to interference with the steering arm. When I moved the rotor rings to outboard mounting position I had to extend the offsets on the caliper adapter and completely missed thinking about the steering arm. I'm also not a fan of customers prepaying for s*** especially after my recent experience with Darren at 4xo. So will be raising capital myself for a decent batch of all the machined parts. So I'm hoping late fall/early winter.
Electronic parking brake will be mounted using the same adapter that will mount the Wilwood FNSL calipers(will only have one caliper option for the rear). Just need to get a little creative with the CAD design as I'd like to make it one bracket for both the main caliper and PB.
There's a lot of words here and no one taking my money. Damn it.
ill take some if its burning a hole in your pocket
COYS
SILVER Star
I'm an unabashed brand snob. I just can't do Wilwood. Any plans to make a kit with Brembo or even Alcon with 4 pots up front and 2 pots in the rear that fits 17s? I'm also all for a reliable e-brake option.
Thanks for sharing your progress. I'd love for a reputable vendor to come up with a legit, plug and play, brand attractive brake kit for the FZJ80. Awesome braking is orders of magnitude more important to me than additional hp/tq. Vamos!
Thanks for sharing your progress. I'd love for a reputable vendor to come up with a legit, plug and play, brand attractive brake kit for the FZJ80. Awesome braking is orders of magnitude more important to me than additional hp/tq. Vamos!
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- #30
I'm probably more of a brand snob than others on here. Explains the WedsSport wheels and will be going Recaro Orthopeds over more common Scheelman at twice the price. I'm by no means filthy rich, but do well enough to be able save up for items I'd be more happy with. Many other plans that are just pipe dreams for now. That being said I've been running running Wilwood brake systems for going on 18 years, started building my own kits 10 years ago. Only issue I ever had was when I was new to them and was 100% user error.
Brembo and Stoptech you would need to be a major motorsport team/tuner to get their calipers a la carte. Alcon and AP Racing are an option and so are Endless and Project Mu. None had the right total piston area size I was going after. If you really wanted Brembo or Stoptech they make kits for the GX/T4R that you can retrofit. See jcardona1 thread about fitting the T4R calipers and rotors. Wilwood has hundreds of calipers to choose from, which makes them so popular with the tuner community. You can be as explicit in your requirements as you want.
There's also PowerBrake and Tarrox front kits for the 80, but none of these(including a retrofitted GX Stoptech/Brembo) will ever come close to the F+R setup I've designed. I'll put HUGE money on that.
If you have your heart set on a subjectively better name brand, I'll design one with a caliper of your choice if you're willing to pay. I'm already 6-7k deep in this one off kit to give you a relative price range for something bespoke
I'll take a set of endless calipers to go under my advans please!!!!!I'm probably more of a brand snob than others on here. Explains the WedsSport wheels and will be going Recaro Orthopeds over more common Scheelman at twice the price. I'm by no means filthy rich, but do well enough to be able save up for items I'd be more happy with. Many other plans that are just pipe dreams for now. That being said I've been running running Wilwood brake systems for going on 18 years, started building my own kits 10 years ago. Only issue I ever had was when I was new to them and was 100% user error.
Brembo and Stoptech you would need to be a major motorsport team/tuner to get their calipers a la carte. Alcon and AP Racing are an option and so are Endless and Project Mu. None had the right total piston area size I was going after. If you really wanted Brembo or Stoptech they make kits for the GX/T4R that you can retrofit. See jcardona1 thread about fitting the T4R calipers and rotors. Wilwood has hundreds of calipers to choose from, which makes them so popular with the tuner community. You can be as explicit in your requirements as you want.
There's also PowerBrake and Tarrox front kits for the 80, but none of these(including a retrofitted GX Stoptech/Brembo) will ever come close to the F+R setup I've designed. I'll put HUGE money on that.
If you have your heart set on a subjectively better name brand, I'll design one with a caliper of your choice if you're willing to pay. I'm already 6-7k deep in this one off kit to give you a relative price range for something bespoke
- Thread starter
- #32
You finance, I'll build. I'm dead seriousI'll take a set of endless calipers to go under my advans please!!!!!
I'll build an adapter to work with my rotors. Always wanted to build an Endless kit. 
- Thread starter
- #33
INITIAL PERFORMANCE REVIEW
So now that I've fully bedded in the pads and have had some time to put plenty of miles in, drive the vehicle in various conditions such as around town, highway speeds, and stop and go traffic, thought I'd share my initial impressions.
First off it's important to immediately bed the pads in after install. Until this is done, brake pedal will feel like there's excess travel and very mushy. Good to only drive on roads that you're completely familiar with and know where risk areas might be, so you can avoid any emergency maneuvers and more specifically emergency braking.
After bedding in the pads the first evening I drove the 80 around, my initial impression was that this stops better than our completely stock LX450 that had all it's brakes refreshed; new pads, rotors, new calipers, and complete brake fluid flush. This is comparing our 6k+ lb 80 on heavy 38's, so right off the bat I felt like I accomplished my mission with the matched front and rear kit. This is of course not a back to back comparison though, so take from it what you will at this point.
This weekend I drove 100km(200km round trip) to Cruiser Days here in Lower Mainland BC and got to reveal the brakes in person. Also been driving around town, and all in I probably put around 600km by now, so still early on. I'm impressed with the high speed stopping of this thing. On the open highway I went through several tests to scrub speed from 80-90kmh down to 30-40kmh, and the brakes did so effortlessly and confidently. The brakes can drop speed without continuing to increase the pedal pressure further, like I previously had to. On the previous setup I could put moderate pressure on the brakes and rate of deceleration would drop the longer you would hold your brakes. IE dropping from 80-60 would take x amount of pedal input, but 60-40 would require double that, and 40-20 double that again, almost like it lightly overheats during a single high speed scrub. But with the new setup braking effort is completely linear. You hold the pedal down and you get x amount of braking power no matter how long you hold it down.
At this point if you saw my story on IG I upgraded my claim that it stops "better than completely stock LX450 with refreshed brakes" to... This thing stops like a modern vehicle and not something 3 decades old! The system is nicely balanced front and rear, one of my major objectives! Not too front biased, not too rear biased. Just feels right.
One not so apparent thing I noticed that most may never will. I previously upgraded all my lines to braided stainless, but always felt there was still some flex somewhere in the braking system, and I believed it to be in the cast iron calipers. Upgrading to the much larger and forged Wilwood Aero caliper that sensation is completely gone. So definitely was the front calipers. Might even be more responsive/firmer when we ditch the floating rear. If we opt for the WW Superlite caliper which is smaller compared to the Aero, but still also forged, I think it will still provide a significant upgrade to caliper stiffness from stock.
Some nuances...
Performance tuned brake systems are always about sacrificing some things to pursue more consistent, reliable, and more powerful braking performance. In this case we do sacrifice a bit of NVH. Due to the high friction pads in the rear, rotor wear and dust will be increased. One of the reasons a high carbon rotor is desired for it's higher durability. More rotor wear due to the higher friction pads mean more dust. Dust is corrosive, and of course therefore harmful for the environment, so there's that. If you have expensive wheels, wash them regularly, or ceramic coat them like I did. The front rotors should not dust as much due to using a much milder pad in the form of Wilwood BP-20. Front rotors should also last noticeably longer. This of course should be reserved for long term driving impressions, so update on rotor wear and dust will come once I've developed longer term opinions.
Another that has to do with NVH, due to higher clamping forces, friction, and increased braking leverage, (this is consistent throughout the board in most high performance braking applications) I notice on instances in normal day to day driving where I come to a complete stop, the last 15-0kmh I notice a slight bit of high friction noise, some minor sacrifice in harmonics, and not as smooth as something where comfort is higher prioritized. Think like you're sliding two pieces of rock with each other at higher pressures... This is pretty nominal though as you have to feel and listen for it. The momentum from 15-0kmh is not high enough to overcome the high friction levels. This might be attributed to a more linear brake feel as I mentioned earlier. A simple solution is to just lightly let off the pedal to decrease the clamping force when you reach these low speeds. Honestly might just all be muscle memory from not trusting the previous brakes, and might just have to get used to having something more modern...
High friction, high heat range pads typically come at the cost of low cold performance. Modern technology does allow some pads in this category, like the EBC Bluestuff, and Hawk HP+, to have noticeably improved cold performance. While still higher friction that stock, there is still some minor sacrifices. Braking isn't as consistent as it is after a few stops(4-5) around town. I would say while the temperatures of this system at cold temperatures is still far superior to stock, it's just something to be aware of. Once the full rear kit is developed we can definitely drop down to a milder rear pad and get more consistent braking throughout the entirety of your drive. This to me is the only real downside of the Stage 2-Lite. While it will be significantly more cost effective, you are in turn running a true high performance rear setup given the limitations of stock rotor and caliper.
Some things for me to continue testing...
The benefit of running a motorsport caliper is the vast list of pad options to your disposal. We're very much limited to a handful of pads on the stock 80 calipers. But with Wilwood almost all other brake pad manufacturers have a number of options at different performance levels. I have a couple different options for front pads on hand, and may pick up another that I think might be best suited for the current setup. Not sure how frequently I'll change them, would like to have more long term feel for the current setup, but I like tinkering with things... Not much I could do to the rear beside adjust the lspv or go with a manual prop valve. (This is not compatible with LSPV delete without a proportioning valve to tune the rear bias.)
One of the main reasons for me to develop this kit is how quickly the stock system, even with performance pads, overheat. When pads overheat the coefficient of friction can drop to half, sacrificing a lot of braking performance. Interior mountains of BC are a good test. You can be in mountain passes for hours. So hopefully I can test the thermal capacity of this system at some point in the near future.
If anyone's in the Squamish area or in the Lower Mainland, BC and want to get a feel for the system, shoot me a message. More than glad to take people out.
So now that I've fully bedded in the pads and have had some time to put plenty of miles in, drive the vehicle in various conditions such as around town, highway speeds, and stop and go traffic, thought I'd share my initial impressions.
First off it's important to immediately bed the pads in after install. Until this is done, brake pedal will feel like there's excess travel and very mushy. Good to only drive on roads that you're completely familiar with and know where risk areas might be, so you can avoid any emergency maneuvers and more specifically emergency braking.
After bedding in the pads the first evening I drove the 80 around, my initial impression was that this stops better than our completely stock LX450 that had all it's brakes refreshed; new pads, rotors, new calipers, and complete brake fluid flush. This is comparing our 6k+ lb 80 on heavy 38's, so right off the bat I felt like I accomplished my mission with the matched front and rear kit. This is of course not a back to back comparison though, so take from it what you will at this point.
This weekend I drove 100km(200km round trip) to Cruiser Days here in Lower Mainland BC and got to reveal the brakes in person. Also been driving around town, and all in I probably put around 600km by now, so still early on. I'm impressed with the high speed stopping of this thing. On the open highway I went through several tests to scrub speed from 80-90kmh down to 30-40kmh, and the brakes did so effortlessly and confidently. The brakes can drop speed without continuing to increase the pedal pressure further, like I previously had to. On the previous setup I could put moderate pressure on the brakes and rate of deceleration would drop the longer you would hold your brakes. IE dropping from 80-60 would take x amount of pedal input, but 60-40 would require double that, and 40-20 double that again, almost like it lightly overheats during a single high speed scrub. But with the new setup braking effort is completely linear. You hold the pedal down and you get x amount of braking power no matter how long you hold it down.
At this point if you saw my story on IG I upgraded my claim that it stops "better than completely stock LX450 with refreshed brakes" to... This thing stops like a modern vehicle and not something 3 decades old! The system is nicely balanced front and rear, one of my major objectives! Not too front biased, not too rear biased. Just feels right.
One not so apparent thing I noticed that most may never will. I previously upgraded all my lines to braided stainless, but always felt there was still some flex somewhere in the braking system, and I believed it to be in the cast iron calipers. Upgrading to the much larger and forged Wilwood Aero caliper that sensation is completely gone. So definitely was the front calipers. Might even be more responsive/firmer when we ditch the floating rear. If we opt for the WW Superlite caliper which is smaller compared to the Aero, but still also forged, I think it will still provide a significant upgrade to caliper stiffness from stock.
Some nuances...
Performance tuned brake systems are always about sacrificing some things to pursue more consistent, reliable, and more powerful braking performance. In this case we do sacrifice a bit of NVH. Due to the high friction pads in the rear, rotor wear and dust will be increased. One of the reasons a high carbon rotor is desired for it's higher durability. More rotor wear due to the higher friction pads mean more dust. Dust is corrosive, and of course therefore harmful for the environment, so there's that. If you have expensive wheels, wash them regularly, or ceramic coat them like I did. The front rotors should not dust as much due to using a much milder pad in the form of Wilwood BP-20. Front rotors should also last noticeably longer. This of course should be reserved for long term driving impressions, so update on rotor wear and dust will come once I've developed longer term opinions.
Another that has to do with NVH, due to higher clamping forces, friction, and increased braking leverage, (this is consistent throughout the board in most high performance braking applications) I notice on instances in normal day to day driving where I come to a complete stop, the last 15-0kmh I notice a slight bit of high friction noise, some minor sacrifice in harmonics, and not as smooth as something where comfort is higher prioritized. Think like you're sliding two pieces of rock with each other at higher pressures... This is pretty nominal though as you have to feel and listen for it. The momentum from 15-0kmh is not high enough to overcome the high friction levels. This might be attributed to a more linear brake feel as I mentioned earlier. A simple solution is to just lightly let off the pedal to decrease the clamping force when you reach these low speeds. Honestly might just all be muscle memory from not trusting the previous brakes, and might just have to get used to having something more modern...
High friction, high heat range pads typically come at the cost of low cold performance. Modern technology does allow some pads in this category, like the EBC Bluestuff, and Hawk HP+, to have noticeably improved cold performance. While still higher friction that stock, there is still some minor sacrifices. Braking isn't as consistent as it is after a few stops(4-5) around town. I would say while the temperatures of this system at cold temperatures is still far superior to stock, it's just something to be aware of. Once the full rear kit is developed we can definitely drop down to a milder rear pad and get more consistent braking throughout the entirety of your drive. This to me is the only real downside of the Stage 2-Lite. While it will be significantly more cost effective, you are in turn running a true high performance rear setup given the limitations of stock rotor and caliper.
Some things for me to continue testing...
The benefit of running a motorsport caliper is the vast list of pad options to your disposal. We're very much limited to a handful of pads on the stock 80 calipers. But with Wilwood almost all other brake pad manufacturers have a number of options at different performance levels. I have a couple different options for front pads on hand, and may pick up another that I think might be best suited for the current setup. Not sure how frequently I'll change them, would like to have more long term feel for the current setup, but I like tinkering with things... Not much I could do to the rear beside adjust the lspv or go with a manual prop valve. (This is not compatible with LSPV delete without a proportioning valve to tune the rear bias.)
One of the main reasons for me to develop this kit is how quickly the stock system, even with performance pads, overheat. When pads overheat the coefficient of friction can drop to half, sacrificing a lot of braking performance. Interior mountains of BC are a good test. You can be in mountain passes for hours. So hopefully I can test the thermal capacity of this system at some point in the near future.
If anyone's in the Squamish area or in the Lower Mainland, BC and want to get a feel for the system, shoot me a message. More than glad to take people out.
Awesome (and very detailed info). Thank you for all the hard work. Looking forward to hearing if a package for the rest of us without your patience and skill will be available in the future.
We're a patient bunch, honest.
We're a patient bunch, honest.
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Good to see your heading this direction on the rears. Means it will pair well with my fronts
.Sorry if I overlooked it, what is the initial plans to operate the parking brake? Guessing electric means ditching the manual OEM lever and going push button? That may scare some away here but you have my attention.
Nice work
- Thread starter
- #36
Electronic will be button/switch operated. I don't expect to sell much if any of the rear kits. Mostly doing it for myself. I don't think the push button PB is what will scare people away. I can tell you right now it will be more than double the cost of the F+R Lite package. The cost is attributed to the 2 extra spot calipers, the parking brake module/controller and brackets. I've found most 80 owners won't be willing to spend this kind of money and if they are willing to double down on costs, then a switch operated PB is the least of their worries, and they know what they're getting into.Good to see your heading this direction on the rears. Means it will pair well with my fronts
Sorry if I overlooked it, what is the initial plans to operate the parking brake? Guessing electric means ditching the manual OEM lever and going push button? That may scare some away here but you have my attention.
Nice work
Lol... 80 owners spend money.
- Thread starter
- #38
I will design an "overland spec" for those that do.
Kidding...
Its a shame the electric PB is so expensive. Would the FR Lite package retain the drum then for a parking brake function. Gots to pass state inspection
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- #40
Yes it will as the rear would just be a rotor and pad upgrade.
