Ok. It was a long day and I am tired, but I want to share my pictures with the family. I am sure I will need to make changes and deletions or additions to this initial post. So if you have any questions, comments or additional pictures you think would help make the pictorial instruction better...let me know.

And let me say this set up seems to rock after bedding my brakes. My trip to Sebring in November will confirm this I hope...but I am VERY HAPPY at first impression.

Also...use this pictures as a reference, but also read the instructions from the Stoptech site...they are very good.

Jack up the car...duh


Put jack stands under frame rails or at jacking points


Make your friend who is letting you use his garage and helping pose for a picture


Loosen brake hose fitting with 10mm flare wrench


Remove retaining clip with needle nose pliers. After removing retaining clip finish disconnecting the hard line from the oem rubber line. If you are using Stoptech lines they supply you with plugs to put over the hard line to limit/prevent additions dripping out of your brake fluid. This is important since if you do not plug the line eventually your master cylinder will drain out completely...not good.


Remove the 12mm(i think) retaining clips/bolts holding the brake line to the suspension.


Use an ice pic to carefully tap back the retaining pins after pulling out the cotar pins




Use something to press back the pads. Make sure end of brake line is in a pan so when the brake fluid drains out...


Use a breaker bar to remove the 22mm bolts that hold the caliper in place...I am currently not holding a breaker bar.


Remove brake line from caliper and stick them in a box,pan...somewhere. Also go clean and inspect your calipers.


Should have said this sooner, like as soon as the wheel is removed spray PB Blaster around studs and center of old rotor. Now take a rubber mallet and bang around the edge of the rotor and slide the loose rotor off the the studs. Empty hub.


Project Mu Rotor. The slits do not determine the rotation of the rotor. The interior vains do, so read your manual or the marking on the rotor. I know for instance that Stoptechs mounted like this would be backwards which is not good for cooling.



Install caliper...though don't torque the bolts. Though I don't have a picture, you will want to remove the top retaining bolt and rotate caliper into a vertical direction when you bleed the front brakes. It made a big difference...and tap the caliper with a rubber mallet to dislodge air bubbles too.


Install SS brake lines using 9-12 ft/lbs of torque for banjo nut...or what ever your supplier/parts requires.


Attach clip to upright and route the lines back and around suspension and reconnect with body hard line with flare wrench. Reinstall retaining clip.


Install pads...using anti squeel compound. I used CRC Disc Brake Quiet I bought a local auto parts stors. These are the oem shims I am re-using. These are old pictures from a previous pictorial I made.










hooo...ahhh




Move to the rears. You will need to bang on the back rotors more than the fronts to knock them loose. Of course, they will never come loose if your parking brake is applied/on/in use...whatever. Make sure that you remove the rubber emergency brake adjuster hole plug from old rear rotor and install on new rear rotor. I did not take a picture of this.













Ok. There are a lot less pictures for the rear...but hopefully you are getting the idea. The mounting bolts for the rear calipers are torqued to about 60ft/lbs and the fronts will be torqued to about 100ft/lbs when you do torque them. You and a friend will be bleeding the rears first, then the fronts with top rotor mounting bolt out so you can hold the caliper nearly vertical while doing the initial bleeding. Watch the level in the resevoir OFTEN! Also, G35's and 350z's with VDC will need to have the negative battery terminal disconnected. Make sure your windows are down before doing this since they drop raise a half inch as you open and close the door. After you think you are satisfied torque down the front caliper mounting bolts. Put on the wheels and drive around gingerly and then throw in a few hard stops. I then returned to the garage with the car and bled the brakes again...and then again just being **** about it. You are also trying to flush out as much of the old brake fluid from the system as you can. We pumped 2 and half bottles of Motul RBF600 dot 4 fluids through the system during the multiple bleeds.

 

Grate write up! I'm sure lots of people here will appreciate your effort for this.

So how long in total did this job take for you?

 

Thank you very much

Here is the stamping on the left rotor and top view.

 

The physical installation took about six hours between reading instructions and cleaning the parts to my satisfaction. I spent a lot of time cleaning the caliper...probably too much. I bled the brakes over and over and over again to make sure we had all the air out and to flush the old fluid out...and we had time and where having fun. So in the end after cleaning up the tools and the garage we will say all day...eight hours. Some people have said they spent an hour on each rear rotor just trying to break it free! Take this with a grain of salt..or not since I live in Florida and we never need to salt the roads due to snow..but with the PB Blaster 3-5 really hard hits with a rubber mallet broke each of the rear rotors loose. Maybe up north they corrode on even more but the PB Blaster is some great stuff.

 

Here are pictures with the wheels installed.

 

Great writeup. Thanks for the hard work!

How do they feel/drive?

 

OHH MYYYY GAWWWD!!! I could not believe what a difference there was. The car stops NOW! The cold initial bite feels similar ot the way it did with the OEM brembo pads when the car was new four years ago...only I don't have to press the brake as far down. I learned how to heel toe in this car and during street driving a normal stop would put the brake pedal and gas pedal on the same plane. If I press the brake pedal that much now it is almost like an emergency stop! So heel toeing will be a bit more difficult on the street at normal speeds but should be much easier on the track. During my previous Sebring days the brake pedal would be below the gas pedal which was a little annoying. I am anticipating much later braking into the corners compare to my stock rotors with the Hawk HPS.

For anyone else reading...I know the HPS pads are for the street but were sufficient for my novice status and slow learning curve at Sebring since I only go every six months. The last time I went it was obvious with my increased confidence they were very inadequate.

So...I kind of sound like I'm happy huh I am sure the effects I am feeling are from a better pad and the stainless steel lines. The two piece rotors are noticably lighter when you hold them in your hand but who knows if I will truely notice that driving. I hope that the next track day really shows off the extra cooling they offer and I don't experience much if any fade. I am not trying to set records but just have fun. That being said I did have a lot of fading my last time at the track.

 

I stickied this thread.

 

WAY COOL!!! I got stickied...Thanks. I hope that this inspires a lot of people to do their own brakes.

This was the a lot of fun, especially since my helper/teacher was one of my math students that graduated five years ago. We had a lot of fun joking around and learning about my car's brakes together. He had done the same type of job on other types of cars. I had done the brakes/rotors once on my old truck but his guidance and help was great...and appreciated.

Rotors and lines are a LOT more work that just pads but none of the individual steps are real complicated. Just study the directions on the Stoptech site, ask a lot of questions, check out my pictures, and take your time.

 

Glad to hear you like the feel. My guess is that just bleeding the brakes had more to do with the pedal height and firmness than did the components themselves, but they will certainly help maintain it. I had the dealer flush/bleed my Brembos last year and it really improved the height and feel dramatically - it's something that should be done at least every 2 years anyway.

So, are these the Nismo "R-Tune" Pads?

Also, since I'm asking everybody with slotted rotors on Brembos, any additional noise ("whooshing" or otherwise) or added pedal vibration from the slotted rotors?

 

The brake pedal...LOL...Yeah, I teach math and can't spell...height may have been changed by the bleeding process. I had the system flush at the dealer a couple of years ago and didn't notice this big of a difference. Of course that was two years ago and how good is my memory for stuff like that. It could be that I bled the brakes this time the old fashoned two person way with one person pumping the pedal and the other working the bleeder screws. I also read, and was told by Eddie at mynismo.com, that the SS lines would firm up the peddle a lot. I think that made the biggest difference especially since my car is four years old now and so were the rubber brake lines.

I did get the Nismo "R-Tune" pads and at least for the few days I have used them I am happy.

I felt a tiny bit of vibration as I bedded the pads and the day after, but I noticed none of that today driving to work. There is definitely no additional noise.

 

Excellent...thanks.

 

How do you get the rear rotors off? I'm putting new pads on my rear brakes and can't seem to get the rotors off. I have the caliper unbolted and the parking brake is not on. I thought they would just pull right off. Is there something else I need to disconnect?

 

Get some PB Blaster and spray it around the center of the hub and studs and let it sit. Then BANG on the edges of the rotor and go around the rotor as you hit it HARD with a heavy rubber malet. I angled my hit towards the center of the rotor too making the impact at the edge. My friend was trying to do the passenger side rear as I was doing something and didn't get the rotor loose, then I hit a few times and got it.? There is nothing holding the rotor in place once the caliper and pads are removed. There are special tools but... I have learned since that if you use copper anti-seize when you reinstall the rotor, removal will not a problem next time.

Oh...why are you removing the rotor? Are you planning on getting them turned?

 

Yeah, I need to get them turned as it seems I have a vibration in the rear when I get on the brakes hard from a high speed. I just bought some PB blaster and coated them pretty good. We'll see what happens.