Like the title says. I know about the Legend brake swap. but was wondering what some of you have done, besides that.
“Best” is too subjective. It depends on what you want and how you want to compromise between:
- looks
- stopping power
- wheel size
- price
- unsprung weight
Brake pads are also a huge factor, probably more important than your rotor/caliper setup. You could have stock brakes that are much better (with race pads) than a big brake kit with a more street application pad.
Knowing more about what you are trying to accomplish and what your current setup would help people provide better suggestions for you. Knowing how much power you’re putting down and what you do with the car is also important. I ran stock sized brakes with a variety of street/track pads for years and they were more than sufficient. There was no benefit to larger brakes and really just a downside of increased weight and fewer wheel options. Eventually my driving got better (on a race track) and they started overheating and destroying rotors and pads. I probably could have just rebuilt the calipers (they were wearing a little unevenly) and upgraded to race pads and they would have been fine. But for barely more than the price of rebuilt calipers I could just upgrade to rebuild ITR calipers for better heat dissipation and future-proof my setup at the same time.
The ITR/Legend setups are easy, affordable and a great step up from stock - as was my situation, if your brakes need an overhaul anyway this is an easy way to upgrade for virtually no more money than just refreshing your stock brakes. But most people don’t need an upgrade, they might think they do but unless they’re driving on track it’s likely they need better brakes. Above and beyond the ITR/Legend upgrade there are countless other options out there, again, which most people don’t actually need. In that case it’s more for looks and status than anything else IMO. So I’d say go with whatever looks best to you, fits your budget, will fit under your wheels…etc.
A rarely discussed option is S000 calipers. IMO they don’t look awesome but they should provide similar braking power to the ITR calipers but are MUCH lighter weight. If I don’t stumble on a cheap set of Spoon calipers I’ll likely switch from my ITR calipers to S2000 at some point for the weight savings.
What year s2000 calipers fit?