Brake Upgrade

[gweg_b]

Finally finished the brake upgrade on the SSEi a couple weekends ago. Went with the GXP front brake upgrade (actually from a Grand Prix GXP), and what I thought would be a couple weekends of work turned into 3 months of hell, but I learned a ton about this, considering before this, the most I ever did was change pads. I learned how to rebuild the fronts and rears, and even found out the pins in one of my rears was completely frozen, causing the inner pad to drag.

It's amazing how well the car stops now, even better than my GXP (probably because of all the new parts), as it takes so little effort to come to a complete stop now. I know it's not Corvette / CTS upgrades, but it's at least 200 times better than stock. No more weak baby brakes anymore!

Here are the calipers, and front and rear brackets powder coated, and thanks again to Matt for teaching me the wonders of powder coating:


Mock up:


Rebuilt calipers:


Front set test fitting:


Rear brake setup (with stainless steel lines):


Rear setup with wheel on:


I wasn't impressed at first, but once Tim and I got all the kinks out, I ended up almost breaking my nose on the steering wheel on the first successful stop (should have been wearing my seat belt). This now feels like how the car should have stopped from the factory!

[SSEiMan01]

Glad to hear it finally turned out Greg! I'm going to be ordering parts soon to do GP GXP front brakes on my Ultra, a few hasty stops have worn out the already too small brakes, it takes a lot to stop over 4k lb.

[gweg_b]

Yeah, this is so worth it. This is what GM should've done. The stock brakes just don't cut it on these large cars. Had I knew what I was doing and finished this, I would have had this on the fall color tour.

You will love how the PAU stops after you upgrade.

[SSEiMan01]

Oh I'm sure, the last straw was actually on the way home from the color tour, some idiot two cars in front of me brake checked car #2 in line because he was riding too close, long story short the ole Buick had to find a way to do an 85-0 really quick, it gave me flashbacks. lol

[gweg_b]

I know nothing about those flashbacks...

Yeah, I got tired of my car not being able to slow down or stop the way it should have (part of that was the worn rotors, but that was only a portion of the issue). Last night I had a guy in an old Toyota merge right in front of me as I was trying to pass a semi. It was snowing, slick, and I still have the all seasons on, and he was moving about 25mph slower than me. I was prepared to slam the brakes, but I didn't have to. They grabbed so well that I only had to put moderate pressure on the pedal to slow down from 75 to 50 in an instant. I giggled a bit, then proceeded to throw hand signals at the dude.

[nos4blood70]

Might have to do this upgrade to Penny, I almost did it a while back. Love the color scheme you picked.

[gweg_b]

Yeah, this is probably my favorite upgrade so far. For the colors, I wanted something subtle, and the black and silver matched with the car's exterior color scheme. In the sun they look great, but you don't see much with those swoopies.