Tonight I finished the mazdaspeed3 front brake upgrade and I wanted to make a few points about it.
Parts used:
Rock auto refurbished calipers (FoMoCo stamp)
Stainless lines
Hawk HP+ pads
3mm hubcentric spacers
- It's easy and affordable-ish
- the braking performance is phenomenal
- flush your brake fluid, because old stuff is nasty
- stock wheels don't quite work, but a 3mm spacer gives about 1.5-2mm of clearance which, in my opinion, is enough clearance.
Just for kicks, no spacer
And a 3mm spacer
Driving impressions:
The stock brakes and economy pads were horrid. Full force standing on the pedal didn't activate abs and there was no rush to slow down. Emergency stopping would be impossible. Spongy pedal, bad modulation, and zero confidence in the brake's ability to stop the car in a hurry.
After the upgrade, what a huge difference in braking power, modulation, and feel. The brakes have some initial play, then have smooth tip in, and then the pedal gets nice and firm. There is no surprise in the relationship between pedal force to brake force. It's very easy to manipulate. City driving is easy, there is very little noise except for during very light pedal pressure where there is some quiet squeaking from the pads. I know the pads will dust like crazy, so I ended up painting my wheels black because I'm lazy like that. There are no tracks for hours, so I won't see how much abuse they can handle, but I doubt they'll handle a long track session. I have no doubt now that the weak link is the tires, which will be replaced in quite a while as the current ones are almost brand new.
I'd highly recommend this upgrade to anybody who wants just a bit more confidence in the brakes.
One day update:
The passenger caliper wouldn't fully release after a complete stop and the Hawks were overwhelming my music, so everything came out. I relubed both caliper bracket slider pins and the pad mounting surfaces. I also replaced the pads with an OEM replacement pad and went to bed them in. They have 80-90% of the braking ability (they won't handle the same heat and abuse as the Hawks) with zero squeaking, so I'm still happy with the improvement over the stock braking setup.
Parts used:
Rock auto refurbished calipers (FoMoCo stamp)
Stainless lines
Hawk HP+ pads
3mm hubcentric spacers
- It's easy and affordable-ish
- the braking performance is phenomenal
- flush your brake fluid, because old stuff is nasty
- stock wheels don't quite work, but a 3mm spacer gives about 1.5-2mm of clearance which, in my opinion, is enough clearance.
Just for kicks, no spacer
And a 3mm spacer
Driving impressions:
The stock brakes and economy pads were horrid. Full force standing on the pedal didn't activate abs and there was no rush to slow down. Emergency stopping would be impossible. Spongy pedal, bad modulation, and zero confidence in the brake's ability to stop the car in a hurry.
After the upgrade, what a huge difference in braking power, modulation, and feel. The brakes have some initial play, then have smooth tip in, and then the pedal gets nice and firm. There is no surprise in the relationship between pedal force to brake force. It's very easy to manipulate. City driving is easy, there is very little noise except for during very light pedal pressure where there is some quiet squeaking from the pads. I know the pads will dust like crazy, so I ended up painting my wheels black because I'm lazy like that. There are no tracks for hours, so I won't see how much abuse they can handle, but I doubt they'll handle a long track session. I have no doubt now that the weak link is the tires, which will be replaced in quite a while as the current ones are almost brand new.
I'd highly recommend this upgrade to anybody who wants just a bit more confidence in the brakes.
One day update:
The passenger caliper wouldn't fully release after a complete stop and the Hawks were overwhelming my music, so everything came out. I relubed both caliper bracket slider pins and the pad mounting surfaces. I also replaced the pads with an OEM replacement pad and went to bed them in. They have 80-90% of the braking ability (they won't handle the same heat and abuse as the Hawks) with zero squeaking, so I'm still happy with the improvement over the stock braking setup.
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