Legionnaire

Just thinking out loud here - could it possibly be that calipers are incorrectly centered on rotors? I mean, axial offset might cause that. One pad touches rotor prior to the other, and therefore gives that mushy feel at the beginning pad engagement and longer than expected travel, and when opposite pad engages - solid deceleration.

By TC light you mean "slip" light I'm thinking? GTSBoy is correct, it's there so that Nissan could unify dashboard diagnostic and indication circuitry. It's meaning as an indicator is different depending on model though - on GT-t's it blinks when traction control kicks in, on GT Fours it blinks when TCU detects inequality of wheel speeds and engages ATTESA.

wait... you have traction control BUTTON?? In ENR34?? What happens after you press it?

Did you look at bosch.com.au website? Their catalogues say they have all 3 bosch compounds available for skylines (I assume you're talking about sumitomo calipers) - Ultra, Qikstop and Eco. Part numbers for quickstops intended for sumitomo calipers appear to be 0 986 AB4 258 for front and 0 986 AB4 269 for rear pads.

cobrAA, about your initial question - there was a thread on V36/Z34 akebonos some time ago, some info has been posted there. Akebonos, while not bad, don't make a very good upgrade for R32-34 skylines IMO because of lug mounts, uncommon pad shape and weird caliper construction, in that it uses narrow pad, but requires wide annulus rotors. There also was some unfavourable feedback about their use on track, can't remember where I've seen it exactly though. But if you're after similar upgrade, I have a couple ideas for you: you can use Z34 rotors - bolt right on to your hub, 355x32mm - and get yourself some OE brembo calipers with radial mounts. Your options include Audi R8 rear calipers - 4 piston brembos, 2x(38+42)mm pistons, radially mounted, take super-common brembo f40 pad shape, run on 356x32mm rotors. Other option, Gen III dodge viper calipers, 4 piston brembos front and rear, front 40+44mm pistons, rear 38+42mm pistons, all four run on 355x32mm rotors, radial mounts, take F40 brembo pad. Can be bought off American ebay for reasonable price. There are other similar options out there, but those I think are the most suitable ones. I'd suggest 38+42mm pistons, they are a bit smaller than your current factory GTR brembos, so your m/cylinder will be fine, and increased leverage from the bigger Z34 rotor will compensate for slightly lower piston area, so you won't need upgraded rears. This approach basically gives you everything you asked for - quality OEM calipers, parts for caliper repair are easy to find and cheap, readily available and relatively cheap OEM rotors that fit without modifications, and pads available in almost any compound you can think of. You'd only need to make caliper adapters, since calipers have radial mounts that won't be a problem.

I'm not questioning your knowledge, but I fail to see how with _incresed clamping force_ I have decreased stopping power. Or, to be more precise, what does travel of pistons have to do with force they generate, because very little force is produced while they travel and majority of force is generated when there is no travel left and pistons push pads against rotor face. True, using same M/cyl as before we'll have to displace more fluid to make pads contact rotor surface (increased pedal travel), on tandem m/cyl this may result in rear pads making rotor contact earlier that front pads, but once pistons are displaced and pad-rotor conact is established, a caliper with pistons larger than factory - like the one mentioned above - will result in more stopping power (braking torque) due to increased hydraulic ratio and fluid incompressibility (sp?). Or do you mean the situation when m/cyl runs out of travel and "bottoms out" because of excessive front piston area and therefore insufficient fluid capacity to move all pistons out far enough? In that case - I agree with you, there will be almost no front braking at all.

I would strongly advise against this upgrade - SRT8 calipers (300C, grand cherokee, charger, challenger, whatever) have some ridiculous construction - they are basically 2 x two piston modules bolted to a sliding caliper bracket, with only one bolt per each end of a twin-piston module (talk about caliper stiffness)! This link will also give you an idea about their construction. Since they are el-cheapo 3-piece calipers with steel brackets, no one ever bothered to make differential pistons - that would have introduced the necessity to separate left modules from right ones which would be too expensive and time-consuming to assemble, so all pistons are of the same diameter, and they are HUGE. 4x44mm pistons, that gives gigantic piston area of 60.82sq.cm (sumitomos are 51.28sq.cm), you'll never be able to balance them with rears, car will be heavily front-biased, constantly overbraking front wheels and stopping distances are likely to be increased. Same calipers can be observed on non-AMG W221 merc S-class without performance brake package, so the most performance-oriented chrysler caliper is the most basic merc one. Pad is also of pretty unique shape, so the choice of pad compounds may be somewhat limited

If you want alloy caliper and also run 280x30mm rotor, then you should pick R32 GTS-t/GTS-4 caliper.

or you can use 1-mm thick titanium shims under pads - you'll have both correct piston reach and good heat insulation. Or use different rotors

Mine had diagonally cut silver pieces too (R33 GTS-t brakes), apparently this plate profile helps with vibrations somehow, I've seen exactly same thing done to STI and some euro cars' backplates, so your kit is the correct one

How did you figure out that 370Z has 320mm rotors? If that's correct, it should be equipped with sliding calipers. If Akebono calipers aren't modified on that Z (like cut/rewelded lugs) then there will be no trouble with putting them on your car.

About rears - that's not as easy a question as it might look, there are two different p/n's for 4wd R33 rear rotors and it has something to do with production date - what is yours? Diameter and thickness may be different. If you have pre-01.96 model, then they are same as S13, 266x9mm, and should be fairly easy to find. If yours is post-01.96, then things get slightly more complicated, e.g. I couldn't find one for a sensible price, and diameter is also unclear, but they are cross-referenced as a replacement for A31 cefiro and C33 laurel rotors. Are your rear rotors vented or solid?

First of all - do you know piston sizes of the calipers? They may be useless for you. Second - you can always buy them and let them lie on a shelf while you're getting yourself all necessary components, including rear upgrade, a bargain is still a bargain. Not an option if you want a quick solution though.

Yep, he uses OE replacement rotors off W163 Merc ML, so if you find rotors locally, you can save money on delivery and order brackets only. Rotors will have to be modified - mounting redrilled to 5x114.3 and hub hole extended to 68mm.

A few general tips on what to look for: 1)you'll unlikely find something that would bolt straight up to the hub, so look for calipers that have radial mount holes (parallel to rotor surface), not axial mounts. This makes adapters much easier and cheaper to fabricate 2)look for calipers that take common and readily available pad shape. There is no point in buying a set of calipers and then discover that you have to order a set of pads from the only place that sells them half the earth away, and you need to sell your kidney to buy them and wait for a couple of months for delivery. 3)look for calipers that has variety of pad compounds available for it. This is not exactly same as previous point, because not all common pad shapes have high-performance pads available. And vice versa - not all common pad shapes are available in street compounds. 4)look out for pad friction patch (also known as radial depth, pad swept area, annulus, etc), as a pad too wide/too narrow/oddly shaped can limit your selection of rotors big time 5)look out for rotor thickness and diameter that calipers are intended for. This can also limit your rotor options or effectively make your brake "upgrade" an actual downgrade, say when you buy beautiful calipers that take rotor only 16mm thick 6)calipers should be common enough (or use internals that are common) to be easily rebuildable/refurbishable. Calipers that cost, say, 2k new, can be found for 500 in average or poor shape, but will perform just like new when you throw two $50 rebuild kits at them Well, those are the gudelines. And try to do lots of reading and develop general understanding for brakes, so you could understand what you really need and why, and tell whether a particular set of calipers is suitable for you. SAU contains wealth of knowledge on the topic, but is not the only source of info.