Hey guys.

I'm looking into options for a brake upgrade for a soon to be supercharged 944, what can I do (cheaper solutions are of course better)

• Upgrade to 951 brakes
• Brake callipers / disks from any other Porsche
• Score Cayanne callipers, cheap, WILL IT FIT? What disks to use?
• A ready brake upgrade Kit
• Other?

 

Good quality pads/rotors/fluid. If it's a street car you'll be fine for that power level. You can also look into Volvo 240 calipers, they're 4-piston 38mm. I have a write up somewhere, easy swap. Their advantage is better pedal feel due to the fixed design. There are other points such as more heat dispersion potential for lower brake fade, more even piston area distribution on the pads, and more even pad wear...but I wouldn't swap brake calipers for those reasons. I like mine.

 

Ok, thanks

 

Upgrade the pads - save your dough for the supercharger issues.

 

haha, thanks. I'm gonna do a little better then that: pads, calliper cleanup, maybe paint and reseal. new brake lines. but that's dirt cheap compared to an upgrade

 

If you need to tear down and rebuild your stock calipers, consider the Volvo ones. They're available cheap as remanufactured units ready to install. They only need minor modifications to work, and they are a modest improvement in brake feel (and even a couple pounds lighter).

That said, though, I've done both routes and rebuilding the stock calipers is not difficult either, and rebuild kits are even cheaper than the Volvo calipers. You just run the risk of finding out that your cylinders are scored or corroded beyond reuse, but even if that's the case you're not really any worse off than where you were before.

 

The NA's brakes are quite good when working properly. I replaced the fronts with rebuilds, and rebuilt the back brakes on my '86. Not difficult to rebuild at all. The pistons were rusted to the bore, but 30 minutes in an ultrasonic cleaner loosened the rust enough to pull the pistons out. Bores and pistons were fine. Cleaned them up, new seals and good to go.

One thing you can do, that you already mentioned, is to replace the 30+ year old rubber flex lines. I can say from experience on motorcycles, replacing the old rubber with braided lines makes a huge difference. Instantly goes from a mushy feeling brake lever to one that only requires two fingers to get full braking power. Remember the rubber expands as you press down on the pedal, where the braided lines do not expand anywhere near as much.

I swapped the rubber lines for braided ones on my 944. The new lines with rebuilt calipers gives a very firm brake pedal, with a nice progressive feel. Stomping on the brakes would throw you out the windshield if you were not wearing a seat belt.

Rebuilt front calipers are not that expensive from Autozone. Difficult to find rebuilt rears. Make sure to use the correct grease on the slides and such.

I think you'll be quite happy with fresh NA brakes and lines.

 

If you're not planning on running the autobahn and braking hard from 140mph repeatedly, I really don't see the point of upgrading 944 brakes aside from "bling factor" or weight savings with alum. calipers.

Just because an engine is putting out more power means nothing for braking capacity, aside from potentially higher max. speed of the car and how quickly it gets up there.

Agree fully with pdxfj.

 

Thanks dude, great answer! I also had a bike and you don't want to play around with weak break lines. NA rebuild and TLC is the answer.

 

Sound like I'm not going to bother with a break upgrade. REbuild it is