[hesh]

hi all im a little puzzled! :sorry: :gay:

i recently upgraded my front brake discs to dba slotted. My car is the r33 saloon gts4 (rb25de) with four stud wheel fitment. these were a straight swop for the orginals and bolted on no prbs. (standard size)

I had a second set of these discs which Skyline girl now has. when she has tryed to fit em this is whats happened. the discs are much bigger than standard, and are fouling the rear guard, yet have the four bolt fitment same as mine. :screwy:

skyline girls car is a coupe with the rb20e engine i beleive. After all the research aitchand to alesser extent i myself have done with non turbo models im suprised to find yet another brake varience within the r33 range ...can anyone shed some light on this?

i had believed that these would bolt straight on as mine did .....

the orginal disc were also some way thinner than the dba's on her car though having rechecked mine were identical??

im going to check what set up is on my rb20e engined saloon tomorow....just to be nosey.

 

[Aitch]

Hi hesh, oh dear oh dear!

OK, what's going on?

I can tell you categorically the discs shown from Skyline girls motor are not the original discs. Just in case you doubt that stement I'll repeat it, THEY ARE NOT THE ORIGINAL DISCS.

The DBA discs you upgraded yours to and the identical units you passed on to her are both 280mm discs, and as you know a straight swap for your model and should be for hers.

I am not as confident in her model specific details as I am yours but I can tell you the discs she has are not original, no Skyline since the R30 and R31 had discs smaller than 280mm, and these are much smaller, I'd guess at 250mm, which are R30 & R31 discs, probably also some models of Pulsar and S13 etc, can't be arsed to check at the mo.

Someone has swapped out the discs in the past, (maybe even the hubs) probably because that's what was available at the time for next to nothing.

So, what next?

Simple, either get some new backplates or cut/grind the lip off and fit the DBA's, but Skyline Girl will really need to step gently on brakes until she adjusts to actually being able to stop!

Hesh, when you say "having checked so were mine", are you saying that whilst your original discs were 280mm they were thinner than the DBA's you had from me?

If so then your discs were also not original spec, they were S13's!

Aitch

 

[hesh]

Hi aitch , thats sort of what i had come too, in that it seemed ludicrous to have yet another set up on the r33. I had wondered if someone had swapped stuff out.

she has previously mentioned the pulsar as being the same so i reckon someone somewheres been fiddleing.

as for my brakes, the dba discs are the sme thickness as my "original" ones. the ones i took off the car in order to fit the dba ones were only a few hundred miles old and came off no bother. Obviously these have been sourced from somewhere as oem spec.

ive asked sg to get a pic of her caliper, as it look like thatll need changing back to standard as well. i cant see a 2500 mil disc having the same caliper and mount points as 280?

 

[Aitch]

Ok, all understood..

No, the calipers would need to be changed, as whoever did the bodge would surely have changed the calipers as well..or is that another horror story!?

As I recall you also have a spare set of calipers to match the DBA's if they haven't gone yet Si, when finished that would produce a phenomenal brake upgrade from where she's at now.

Maybe SG could then give us both a ride in order that we can make comparisons Si, I'm told the rear end tends to be a bit friskier on the smaller models..

Aitch

 

[Skyline Girl]

Hmmmm, interesting! Wonder what the previous owners motive was to do that? So, calipers..... this is proving to be more difficult than i thought!

 

[hesh]

sg what id do is get the wheel off and take lots of pics......

the mounting points for the caliper should (i hope ) be standard, and if so the calipers i have now would bolt on. however the fact the backing plate is the wrong size is a litte worrying.

now im not trying to panick you but ask yourself why would someone change the hubs to a smaller set? its not an upgrade.....so more like a required change after ...perhaps .......an accident ..?

it just makes me think ....so if i were in your position id start taking a good look round the whole car.....better yet take it to a good skyline garage explain the brakes thing and get them to go over it looking for anything else odd.

 

[Skyline Girl]

I might take it to my garage that i am always at and ask them. I think its been in a crash anyway as it has a black gtr boot lid on it (black paint coming through and had the holes for the gtr spoiler already) so who knows!

 

[hesh]

is this the garage that mucked up yout spoiler? if it were me id take it to one of the guys on here ...they will know the car type better than most i reckon

 

[Skyline Girl]

Mucked up my spoiler? I dont remember that happening? Its a local garage who deals with jap cars, i always take car to him so trust him, he gives good advice!

 

[hesh]

ok front bumper then ... the whole paint thing?

 

[Aitch]

So far as I'm aware the mounting hole centres are the same, so the calipers are interchangeable. I now have the 4 pots from the GTST on ours for example, a straight swap taking 15 minutes a side, so not expensive SG!

The resultant improvements will in your case be spectacular SG, they will allow you a huge margin of safety over what you have now. You will be able to drive much more confidently, (read agressively in the male of the species!) the car will feel faster and will indeed become slightly faster, as your driving style is modified to take advantage of the extra stopping power and the ECU "learns".

I'd forget new handbags for a while and be nice to Si, as he got the spare calipers from me as part of a deal we had. (bugger!)

Aitch

 

[Skyline Girl]

But i bought brake pads for my car, and they fit fine? Does that mean the caliper is the same but the carrier is different?

 

[hesh]

picture is the only sure way to make a true comparison sg. ask your bf to take a pic of the disc and caliper in place whithe the wheel off. and then try and get a picture of the mounting point for the calipers. you coulda alos measure the distance betweenthe two mounting holes on your calipers and then ill dothe same with my spare set to see if they would fit.

si.

 

[Нi5]

I can tell you categorically the discs shown from Skyline girls motor are not the original discs. Just in case you doubt that stement I'll repeat it, THEY ARE NOT THE ORIGINAL DISCS.

based on what?

 

[Skyline Girl]

Ok, ill get pics, then we'll see.... to be honest im that close to just putting the brake discs in the bin and forgeting the whole thing!

 

[hesh]

noooooooooo dont do it! just p[ut em on a shelf, figure out what set up you have then work out what to do.

as for the rply to your post adam, i'll let aitch tackle that......hes so much better than me at explaining his research.

 

[Aitch]

Simple really, no magic involved at all, I have a complete printout of every Skyline's brake setup since 1968. Albeit the first recognisable model for most would be the C210 in 1978, which incidentally had solid discs allround, fronts were 270 / 48 / 12.5 /4 stud and rears were 269 / 69 / 10 4 stud.

This was followed by the R30 in 1982, the first Skyline with vented discs, and one of only two ever to have 250mm discs, which were just 18mm thick, the other being the 1986 R31, though it's discs were 22mm thick.

So in a nutshell Adam, based on research over a few years, I can tell you the exact brake setup for every Skyline model for many many years. Just to make that information more useful I did the same research for the whole Nissan range over the same period to date, so I can cross check and match any discs for any nissan since 1968.

If I was unemployed I could even cross ref this data with the numbers on SG's discs and tell her what model they came from, but I do have a life beyond this forum!

I just love data, amassing and assimilating it makes up for my inferiority complex over my poor maths!

Aitch

 

[Aitch]

SG, I'm betting the caliper mountings will be the same, with 100 mm hole centres, meaning the calipers Si will let you have very cheaply I'm sure will drop straight in.

Aitch

 

[hesh]

VERY cheaply?


raised eyebrows?!


lol hey im just curious it up to sg if she wants to fit these calipers and bda or not ....

 

[Aitch]

Just trying to keep it light Si, as right about now SG will be feeling she should have bought an ordinary car.

As long as the hole centres for the calipers are the same there can be a result, in fact if SG can bring the car and bits to me I'll fit them for free its that easy. The difference in braking will be vast and well worth the effort and extra cost, but it's a real bugger when you come across this sort of thing.

This is why I get pissed off reading posts from people recommending this and that disc from such and such a model fits so and so, which in most cases is pure hearsay and or guessometry. I know such comments are intended to help but unless they are accurate they can frequently cause more trouble than they prevent. How many Skylines are driving around with the thinner discs from other Nissans, just because they are the right diameter for example? That does nothing to improve the braking but is an instant degrade, indeed it could contribute to accidents.

It's important to check and double check such info before acting on it, unless it comes from a trusted source.

One good thing SG is that the right parts required to finish the job are sat there and available, and I'm sure they will be a good price too.

Good luck whatever you decide

Aitch