Could I run my standard S3 brakes on the rear? (with mods)

[123holah]

It may sound a stupid question but im looking to upgrade to some brembo front calipers on my 2002 S3. I was just wondering if the old fronts could be adapted in anyway to run on the rear, that way upgrading all the brakes?

any help or advice is appreciated!

 

[<tuffty/>]

Another member on here has done similar but he had the discs machined thinner to do so which is not really recommended as this will take them to or beyond their safe wear limit and had brackets made to extend the caliper up to fit... he was running much larger fronts too so to go 312mm on the back maybe a little excessive as the S3 is over braked on the rear and getting the balance wrong can cause the car to swap ends under braking... S3 front discs are 312x25mm and would need to be machined to 312x22mm to fit the rear calipers... 3mm is the wear limit of the disc when fitted to the front... brakes are not something you want to mess with tbh..

ECS do a kit if you really want to upgrade your brakes on the rear but in my experience (limited as it is) there is no need to touch the rears on an S3...

JoJo has the ECS stage 1 kit on the back and a Brembo kit up front... he should be able to tell you if its worth doing or not...

<tuffty/>

 

[mattyboy199]

the calipers would be to small to use with the front discs, the rear calipers work in a different way to the front calipers no chance it would ever work.

 

[jojo]

the calipers would be to small to use with the front discs, the rear calipers work in a different way to the front calipers no chance it would ever work.

As mentioned in Tuffty's reply, it's not impossible, but I wouldn't recommend it, the pads the rear calipers can hold would not sweep the whole of the 312mm disks, so they end up looking stupid, even if you get it to work.

JoJo has the ECS stage 1 kit on the back and a Brembo kit up front... he should be able to tell you if its worth doing or not...

<tuffty/>

Unless you are running Big Turbo and some silly brake horse power figure, upgrading the rear brakes to larger ones is overkill on an S3. I did it purely for looks, though brake balance hasn't been effected much on my setup with the Brembo's up front. From a performance point of view, just up grade the disks and pads keeping the standard size diameters would do the job. Going with big rears requires the Brembo's at the very least up front so you don't effect the brake balance of the car, though they look the part don't they!

 

[<tuffty/>]

As mentioned in Tuffty's reply, it's not impossible, but I wouldn't recommend it, the pads the rear calipers can hold would not sweep the whole of the 312mm disks, so they end up looking stupid, even if you get it to work.

While pad swept area is a factor here larger discs are more about leverage, placing the std caliper at the outer edge of the disc will give more effective braking than the smaller std discs but more heat will be generated of course... better braking effort is afforded not by large discs and deep pads but more by large discs and longer pads.... the danger here is the machining of the discs IMO...

Unless you are running Big Turbo and some silly brake horse power figure, upgrading the rear brakes to larger ones is overkill on an S3. I did it purely for looks, though brake balance hasn't been effected much on my setup with the Brembo's up front. From a performance point of view, just up grade the disks and pads keeping the standard size diameters would do the job. Going with big rears requires the Brembo's at the very least up front so you don't effect the brake balance of the car, though they look the part don't they!

..yes they do look good...

<tuffty/>

 

[123holah]

Thats great thanks for the advice guys!

the car is due some discs and pads allround soon so i was looking at my options. i was thinking about upgrading to brembos and looking at caliper, disc and mounting options and i thought it might be worth checking if the fronts which are obviously better would fit on the rear rather than ebaying them for next to nothing! As the car is only running around 270bhp then bigger rears might be overkill as pointed out it was just that if i do want big power in the future then they are in place and they do fill behind the wheels much nicer

the breaks arent bad standard so i was looking to upgrade as i replace parts. as it is i think i might just go for EBC drilled discs and red stuff pads allround and fit braided hoses (the hoses made massive improvements in previous cars!) that should do for now and save some money for coilovers and some wheel spacers.

 

[<tuffty/>]

EBC Ultimax or Black Diamond discs with Ferodo DS2500's all day long mate... much better pad than Red Stuff... plus don't bother doing the rears with expensive fast road pads, you only need std pads and discs on the rear as its over braked already...

I run GSF rear discs (about £18 each) and Pagid pads (about £16 a pair) and they work fine with 380bhp :icon_thumright:

<tuffty/>

 

[JD09]

Brakes seem to be the talk of the forum at the moment Tuffty

 

[<tuffty/>]

Yarp....

<tuffty/>