Brakes

I went with the Brembo GT brake upgrade. This includes modified uprights and the following kits from Brembo:

• 1N1.9017A2 2010+ Chevrolet Camaro Front

• 2P1.9016A2 2010+ Chevrolet Camaro Rear

Everything about the Brembo GT upgrade is nice. The rotors, the anodization on the brackets, the castings, the powder coat finish, the documentation, etc. The bolts that attach the rear calipers to their brackets (right in picture below) were nicely finished and had a shank. The equivalent screws for the front (left in picture below) looked like they came from the bottom of the bargain box at a surplus store. The threads were rough, the finish poor and beat up and there was no shank. They stripped all of the anodization off of the bracket's threads (the rear bracket's anodization looked like new).

WTF? Surely someone at Superlite used the wrong bolts... Nope that's the way the fronts come from Brembo and 99+% of their brakes use them. That said, I wasn't crazy that there was no way lock them (Brembo is clear that no thread locker should be used). What to do? Upgrade to studs!

The Brembo studs are beautifully machined and have a really nice finish. Jet nuts and washers are used to lock things in place. A jet nut is an all-metal, self-locking nut whose primary advantage over a nyloc is that they can be used in high-temperature locations (i.e., no nylon to melt). They are also smaller and lighter. The downside is that they utilize an asymmetrical thread which deforms when torqued making them a onetime use item... that's right, when you take it off you throw it out. Taking the calipers off costs 8 x $5.60 ($44.80), so I don't want to be taking them off and on a lot. With that in mind I'm going to use nylocs until near the end of the build.

The following parts can be ordered from Race Technologies.

Note that the lock nuts are one-time use items and should not be reused so I ordered extras. According to Brembo tech support the studs should be installed finger tight with permanent thread locker (i.e.,  Loctite 271) and then the jet nuts torqued to 35 lb. ft. (420 lb. in.) to set the stud.

IThe brake hats had been nicely machined; 5 holes for the wheels studs and the hole for the wheel hub had been enlarged.

A few extracts from the directions:

• Many of the parts are handed and the left and right-side parts shouldn't be swapped.

• Discs with curved fins are directional and must be installed with the fins facing backwards, from the internal to the external diameter, in the direction of rotation. This creates a centrifugal effect which results in air flowing from the center of the disc through the ventilation channel towards the outside, considerably increasing the heat capacity of the disc.

• WARNING! Do not use sealants or thread locking compounds on the screws or nuts fastening the caliper to the bracket OR on any of the pipe fittings.

Rear Calipers

The GT calipers brake lines exit in a different location than the stock ones. As can been seen in the picture below the banjo fitting collides with the toe link arm and spacer. There is only ??? amount of room and the stock crush washers, banjo fitting and banjo bolt are ??? high. There is a two-prong solution; (1) ind low-profile crush wasters, banjo fittings and banjo bolts and (2) machine the toe link arm and the toe link spacer.

Apparently no-one specifies the heights of their crush washers, banjo fitting and banjo bolts which means lots of calling and emails. After searching, I found the following:

• XRP Banjo Fitting (0.???)

• Banjo Bolt (0.???)

• Crush Washer (0.???)

The above results in a total height of 0.???”. To obtain a 0.???” clearance, 0.???” needs to be machined off. The toe link arm is a challenge to mill because of its awkward shape. I didn’t want to mill a flat onto the spacer because it might be installed correctly (i.e., the flat not aligned with the flat on the toe link arm) or it might rotate post installation. For this reason, I turned it down on a lathe.

Parking Brake

I spent a massive amount of time looking for a good solution for a parking brake and I eventually found one. Read about it here.

Misc

The Brembo GT rotors are 28 mm wide and 380 mm in diameter.

The following is a really nice overview on brakes...