Brake upgrade?

[N9TE]

James, might be something you can verify...

I was poking around the Peugeot-L website and ran across this guy (who is evidently in WA from the looks of his license plate) and he has bolted up what he says are Volvo 245 calipers to a 86 turbo. Being an 86 means, of course that he isn't working with an ABS car. Pretty interesting.

I'll probably be doing the fronts on my 86 soon. From what I saw out there, there are a fair amount of options for parts for the 85+ non ABS turbo cars.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/peugeot-L/ph...707991/pic/list

[norcal505]

I saw this! I can testify that 245 stock brakes are pretty decent. I have some nice pads from Ipd in Portland, and with powerslots they go great.

However, maybe further down the line, I'll upgrade to these:

http://www.davebarton.com/volvo240bigbrakes.html

[Bean]

Wow - I didn't know Jim posted pics of his car there. He's posted on this site as well (Jim in Seattle), and that car is a VERY nice example of a modified 505. Engine is built with some very tasty bits.

To answer your question - yup - the 240 Turbo 4-piston calipers will directly bolt on. His one pic mentioned having to machine the rotor 1/8" though - and I'd guess that was in diameter. If you go with an 88+ caliper I believe Volvo went to the single brake line caliper - Jim used the older two line set up so you need to "Y" the brake line to create two lines. When I contemplated it I was thinking of splitting the lines at the master and then running one line from each side to each caliper as a way of cross linking the system for safety sake like Volvo's did. (Volvo has 2 pistons in each front caliper, and one rear caliper in each circuit.)

Cons that had me decide against this mod was that the Volvo calipers are quite heavy, and pad selection at the time wasn't great. For an upgrade over the stock set up however I think this would be a great choice. Weight difference between the ATE and the Volvo 4-piston likely isn't significant in retrospect.

For me, at the time - I was wanting a track spec package that I could road race with. Probably could with this set up, but I went overboard and that sent me on the BMW wheel and disk upgrade path with the Porsche Brembo's... Taking WAY too long with getting that set up done, and now it's changed to fit the set up on the 89's ABS front end, so another set back. I need to get a set of E46 M3 front disks now as those *should* allow me to get the set up to work on the ABS cars. (315x28mm disks)

Rabin