Bespoke Front and Rear Big Brake Kit(Bigger than big) with Electronic Parking Brake

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A442 but marginal difference in gearing. I have been thinking how gearing affects everything since an 8HP swap has been in the back of my mind for the past year, and these go down to 5.5 first gear!

The EPB kit comes with Wilwood's BP-10 which is pretty much their basic standard compound, also they're new and not bedded, though being the EPB there's no way to bed them. Personally have had years experience with Wilwood's street compounds like the BP-10 and BP-20 even going back to polymatrix days and never grew fond of them. Not that they're horrible, just many better options. Will be testing out a different compound for the EPB likely very soon.

 

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Couple 100kmh stopping tests from yesterday



Also met up with @BayArea80 today and he got to test drive the brake system. He has a front Wilwood setup he pieced together himself, with a bit of assistance from me in picking out the right components few years back. He comments on the improvement over just a front brake upgrade. Check out his IG stories on quick impressions from the test drive while they're still up! IG: @bay_area_80

 

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Updated parking brake panel for the center console, added a cupholder because the Land Cruiser can always use another cup holder, and quick sound from the EPB actuator.

 

[96bruizer]

I've already done the front "Big brake kit" with another company, is it possible to purchase only the rear set up you make?

 

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I've already done the front "Big brake kit" with another company, is it possible to purchase only the rear set up you make?

Hey, unfortunately will not be making this kit available with components separately. Mainly due to the fact these rears will overpower any currently available front kit.

I designed them as a matched set so I can guarantee over 40% increase in brake rotor torque, while maintaining correct brake bias, and also be compatible with the factory LSPV and ABS for those that wish to keep these systems. No problem if you've deleted them.

Main problem with having overpowered rears is they will lock up too early potentially causing a spinout, a risk I'm not willing to take, considering general public don't have proper understanding of brake systems.

Here's an example... recently talked to somebody who reached out about their front big brake kit being "dog s***". I did quick research and found out that the company(quite well known considering a very popular 80 is running them) is utilizing an undersized caliper for their 80 series kit which is listed as B32-6, a 6 piston caliper with piston diameters of 31mm-34mm-31mm. That is a total piston area of only 3.75 sq in, 25% smaller than the 4.9sq in the factory caliper. While there's marginal increase in leverage going from stock 311mm rotor to their 330mm rotor in their kit, it still means these are actually worse than stock braking performance if we compare same pad compound. Smaller piston area means you have to apply significantly more pedal pressure to achieve same clamping force at the rotor.

Usually a caliper with a piston area of only 3.75 sq in are used in compact vehicles. For comparison my VW GTI has 4.0 sq in Wilwood calipers. Unfortunately many of these kits sell because they're sold on "6-piston calipers and larger rotors". This is the reason why almost all brake companies never state their performance increase. I do, because these may be the only kit for our platform to be engineered correctly.

 

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From page 6 showing exactly the improvement over stock the front and rear, and more importantly see it maintains near identical front-rear brake bias. I said it in an earlier post, I'll wager money no company will ever come close to the performance.




Here's another clip of what is likely the steepest hill in the East Bay.


NGL that was a bit of a butt pucker releasing the brake pedal after engaging the EPB. You'll soon realize though it's just a bit of "trust issues" due to the trauma of previous relationship with the old parking brake. Held the old rig quite well.

 

[NeverFinis]

 

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View attachment 4099258

Should hopefully be working now, lmk if not.

 

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First pass at designing a rock slider for the EPB. After discussing with some of the heavy wheelers in the community it may be good to add as an option. For most of us it shouldn't matter, your rear lower shock mount sits quite a bit lower, it's more for larger features that have a jagged and sudden drop and you can't position your tire right, so pretty extreme case.

Designed to be cut from 3/16 steel and welded.

Some of you might have also seen the recent testing I've done on the brakes. If not here's the latest.


A little ASMR action:


And a game of chicken between a guard rail and the brakes. What's not shown is about 20 minutes worth of hard braking intervals prior to the two clips. Mostly done from 60kph(37mph) and a handful at 80kph(50mph). Around 1 min 20 sec in between attempts, absolutely zero brake fade.


Here's what sort of distances from 80kmh to 0 I was consistently getting. That's over 6000lbs and an 38" tires stopping in roughly 100 feet from 80kmh(50mph).

 

[efjayatee]

Well I had the opportunity to see it up close in person and even test drove it......
I must say it's F-ing great!! Makes my stock set up like .

 

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Well I had the opportunity to see it up close in person and even test drove it......
I must say it's F-ing great!! Makes my stock set up like .

And you didn't even take it up to high freeway speeds where it really shines!

 

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Great meeting up with @reklund5 and @lelandEOD yesterday! Opinions seemed to be quite positive but I'll let them chime in!

We also got to discussing offering a 3d printable template for people to check clearances with their wheels, so I made a few with the most common offsets. 0, -25, and -38, which would be in line with 0 offset and using either a 1" or 1.5" spacer. The "bridge" also mimic's the 1.1" rotor placement. Template slots into two of the holes on the inside mounting surface of your wheel. Must have at least 15.6mm clearance for the "dowels".

Downloadable STL here:
epbTemplate 0 offset
epbTemplate -25 offset
epbTemplate -38 offset

 

[reklund5]

We had a great time meeting @synapse and checking out the brake kit. I think the 3d printed template to mimic the brakes will be a great way for folks to determine fitment. My only concern is with the EPB caliper placement- the actuator might be susceptible to rock damage for those who wheel aggressively. That said, there's not really much else that can be done to relocate the components given the rear axle setup. The brakes certainly increase confidence in stopping a heavy80. I was hesitant to jam on the brakes real hard, as it was someone else's rig, in an unfamiliar town, and its RHD which I'm not used to at all. @synapse 80 is really well put together and looks just flat bitchin. I wish my US Spec pile had all the cool JDM Features his has!

 

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One of the biggest factors for exposure is wheel offset. Higher the negative offset the further away the EPB is from the wheel. The wheel in this case would actually protect the EPB with a 0 offset.

Here's comparison between 0 and -38(1.5" wheel spacer). For representation purposes, not to scale! With the -38 its more exposed.

The EPB in my case with original adapter is about 2" higher than the bottom of the shock mount.

Maybe someone who wheels a whole lot and running 0 offset can chime in on how many times they've hit the shock mount on rocks?

Another angle to give others general idea of layout. New adapter allows you to clock downward another 15-30 degrees. While it does bring the EPB lower to the ground, it does get tucked behind the shock tower and an even more robust rock guard can be welded onto the shock mount. On the left side brakes there is no track bar "tower" in the way so you're free to mount up higher if you don't care much for symmetry. With my 38's and bumpstop setup I could mount it 15degrees further up, taking advantage of the modularity without hitting the trackbar.

Rear has pretty high modularity, though it was originally designed for those with lots of fabrication like wider diamond axles and custom rear suspension, still a bit of modularity for the rest of us! A bit of a balancing act at this point. 0 offset will protect the EPB, but will likely need 18" wheels. Keep 17" and run high negative offset and run some sort of rock guard(still waiting on mine to come in from sendcutsend, apparently it's coming freight tomorrow as part of a large order).

 

[Broski]

One of the biggest factors for exposure is wheel offset. Higher the negative offset the further away the EPB is from the wheel. The wheel in this case would actually protect the EPB with a 0 offset.

Here's comparison between 0 and -38(1.5" wheel spacer). For representation purposes, not to scale! With the -38 its more exposed.
View attachment 4112804View attachment 4112803

The EPB in my case with original adapter is about 2" higher than the bottom of the shock mount.
View attachment 4112805View attachment 4112808

Maybe someone who wheels a whole lot and running 0 offset can chime in on how many times they've hit the shock mount on rocks?

Another angle to give others general idea of layout. New adapter allows you to clock downward another 15-30 degrees. While it does bring the EPB lower to the ground, it does get tucked behind the shock tower and an even more robust rock guard can be welded onto the shock mount. On the left side brakes there is no track bar "tower" in the way so you're free to mount up higher if you don't care much for symmetry. With my 38's and bumpstop setup I could mount it 15degrees further up, taking advantage of the modularity without hitting the trackbar.
View attachment 4112822


Rear has pretty high modularity, though it was originally designed for those with lots of fabrication like wider diamond axles and custom rear suspension, still a bit of modularity for the rest of us! A bit of a balancing act at this point. 0 offset will protect the EPB, but will likely need 18" wheels. Keep 17" and run high negative offset and run some sort of rock guard(still waiting on mine to come in from sendcutsend, apparently it's coming freight tomorrow as part of a large order).

Mine’s built for wheeling
I have replaced the rear lower shock bolt’s several times As they get hit often.
I actually keep a bunch of spares.
17 x 8.5 3.75 BS wheels with 39x12.50 tires

 

[NeverFinis]

The EPB looks too exposed for me. I am running -12 offset 18x9 rims, which I won't change.

I was just looking if GM offers an EPB with their HD pickups and they do now since 2020.

Interestly, GM still uses brake shoes with a rotor with an internal drum, just like the FZJ80 rear rotor. The GM EPB actuator, which is external, looks small...

I am going to just say it... To me, it makes the more sense to use an OEM (GM/Ford/Dodge/Toyota) HD calipers/rotors rather than costly race car/hot rod calipers/rotors.

 

[Broski]

The EPB looks too exposed for me. I am running -12 offset 18x9 rims, which I won't change.

I was just looking if GM offers an EPB with their HD pickups and they do now since 2020.

Interestly, GM still uses brake shoes with a rotor with an internal drum, just like the FZJ80 rear rotor. The GM EPB actuator, which is external, looks small...

I am going to just say it... To me, it makes the more sense to use an OEM (GM/Ford/Dodge/Toyota) HD calipers/rotors rather than costly race car/hot rod calipers/rotors.

Agreed

 

[OffRoadScott]

The EPB looks too exposed for me. I am running -12 offset 18x9 rims, which I won't change.

I was just looking if GM offers an EPB with their HD pickups and they do now since 2020.

Interestly, GM still uses brake shoes with a rotor with an internal drum, just like the FZJ80 rear rotor. The GM EPB actuator, which is external, looks small...

I am going to just say it... To me, it makes the more sense to use an OEM (GM/Ford/Dodge/Toyota) HD calipers/rotors rather than costly race car/hot rod calipers/rotors.

What about the EPB feature on the Camry? They use the actual rear caliper as the parking brake. Later today I can try and take pictures of it.

Here is a picture of the RAV EPB, if I remember correctly I believe the Camry is the same size and probably WAY to small for our rigs to handle both duties as a brake and EPB.

 

[Broski]

What about the EPB feature on the Camry? They use the actual rear caliper as the parking brake. Later today I can try and take pictures of it.

Here is a picture of the RAV EPB, if I remember correctly I believe the Camry is the same size and probably WAY to small for our rigs to handle both duties as a brake and EPB.

View attachment 4113011

The thing that interests me in EPB is to be able to lock up one side at a time effectively using them as cutting breaks.

 

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What about the EPB feature on the Camry? They use the actual rear caliper as the parking brake. Later today I can try and take pictures of it.

Here is a picture of the RAV EPB, if I remember correctly I believe the Camry is the same size and probably WAY to small for our rigs to handle both duties as a brake and EPB.

View attachment 4113011

The EPB looks too exposed for me. I am running -12 offset 18x9 rims, which I won't change.

I was just looking if GM offers an EPB with their HD pickups and they do now since 2020.

Interestly, GM still uses brake shoes with a rotor with an internal drum, just like the FZJ80 rear rotor. The GM EPB actuator, which is external, looks small...

I am going to just say it... To me, it makes the more sense to use an OEM (GM/Ford/Dodge/Toyota) HD calipers/rotors rather than costly race car/hot rod calipers/rotors.

@OffRoadScott 24+ Tacoma non-hybrid would be a perfect match for 80 series. Same piston diameter and same rotor thickness. The actuators on all these OEM caliper assemblies are likely all from the same one or two manufacturers, which Wilwood sources from. Problem is if we put the 24+ Tacoma caliper with the built in EPB onto the OE fzj80 rear dics, you now come into problems with the shocks. They will come very close to the shocks. similar to the problem I had running 90 degree bend directly on the brake lines in earlier post. This would actually protrude further than using Wilwood's EPB compact caliper assembly because you have a smaller spot caliper rather than a full size service caliper.

OEM EPB's are also quite costly at just under $1k per side from Toyota, can find them marked down at various outlets, or get used of course. So makes the Wilwood option at $1400 rather fair considering you also get wiring, control module, and switch.

The offsets on these 14.25" rotor is also slightly less than the 13" FZJ80 rotors. @NeverFinis these rotors are technically designed for shoe in drum parking brake which has the exact same drum diameter as the stock 80, BUT... huge BUT, the offset doesn't line up with the 80 brake shoes and trying to design a custom shoe in drum parking brake(cables + brackets) would be way more expensive than just implementing an electronic parking brake. Why many classic car, restomod builds are going with Wilwood's EPB.

Only option if you really want to tuck the caliper into the wheel is a 0 offset rotor(minimal hat depth). But only way to get that is a 2pc rotor design and costs would go up significantly, which costs have already been prohibitive for many. But of course if someone wants to commission that design work and get that made I'm available (goal of the business is to do more boutique design work).