Brembo swap to 2005 G35
 

I am planning on swapping the brembo brake kit from a 2003 MT G35 with my 2005 G35 AT, I think I have everything I need and from my searches on this and other forums I believe they should be a one for one swap with the bigger brakes on thew 2005 model, I may need to swap the rear brackets aas well as I hear the threading is different on the back brackets, also may need to cut back a little of the dust shield behind the rotos.
I do plan on trading the rotors with the brake calipers and will be adding steel braid brake lines.
I guess my question is there anything I may be forgetting before I start this project?
any help or comments/tips from people who have allready done this would be a great help.

Thanks ahead of time

Tony

I'm interested in knowing if there are any other differences.

I finish installing the Brembo's and added 19' rims tires (from the same girl) I have to say I would not want to do that again if you payed me!
It would have went faster but I was working out in the apartment parking lot and using my own tools, which did not include an air rachet, boy would that have cut some time off.
anyway I was doing it all myself and was just trading one for one with this girls car I have been dating (she doesn't care too much anymore about performance goodies.
plus I payed her some cash.
on to what really took the most time, her car is an 2003 and had some amount or rust on the bolts holding the calipers and the rotors, (I traded both rotos and calipers, since the Brembo's are a little bit larger that the new 2005 rotos)
one of her rotos I swear must have been rusted or welded on, it took me some hours to get just that one off, the rest weren't too bad.
also the bolts on my 05 calipers were torqued down so hard I had to use a jack and damn near lift the cars to break it loose.

All this messing with stuck/rusted bolts just eats up so much time, espesially just using socket set and basic tools.
ONe thing I did find was that the dust shield on the rears are too small to get the Brembo rotos on, I used some tin snips and cut back on the curved lip leaving just the backing, not sure if this will cause issues later with brake dust and such, but I had to improvise and honestly looking at them with eveything together you can't even notice.

I have to say that as far as the brackets are concerned everything swapped one for one with the brakes on my 05, the bolts for the rears do look like the threading is different so anyone buying them from someone outright, might want to keep this in mind.

I was going to put on steel braided brake lines but found out after taking the first caliper off, that I was sent the wrong ones so I will have to send them back, may reorder the right ones of just say hell with it for now(too tired to think about it)

On to Bleeding the brakes which was another pain in the Ars, even with a speed bleeder pump I got from autozone this still took alot of time, the Brmbo's have two bleed valves on each caliper up front, so I was pumping away like a madman to bleed them, I did four turns with the pump on each valve filling the pump's resevour each time, cool thing is you can just pour the brake fluid back into the brake master resevour, less mess.

I also remembered to disconnect the negative battery cable, so the ABS system was not on, read that somewhere in the manual.
the only issue with that is now I have a VDC off light constantly on my panel, wether I press the switch or not, and also a Slip light on constantly, not sure what I have to do to clear these or if I can, i don't think the dealership will look favorably on me switching out the brakes.

Oh yea and the last place my girl had taken her car to must have used and impact wrench on her lugs because I was having trouble undoing a couple of them (more time lost) I hate when they do that it should't take a 190 lbs man jumping up and down on the lug wrench to break these bolts.

SO after working into the wee hours of the morning 3:00am, (i start at 11:30am the previous day) I cranked the car up and pumped the brake pedal a few times until I got pressure back and rechecked the mater cylinder (added a little bit more fluid) and she is braking pretty good now. that hand pump to bleed the brakes really does work!

well I roled to work and didn't have any problems, (I tried to make sure everything lined up, and that nothing was binding or catching when I installed the new brakes and rotos) other than those lights on my panel everything worked out OK.

I am pleased with the results and am proud that I may be one of the few 2005 G35's to have Brembo brakes. and the gold goes awsome with the Dark blue color of my car.
sorry I don't have any pic's of the install I don't own a digital camers and really didn't have the time, what with doing all the work by myself, I hope any of this may help anyone else considering doing this.

I am going to try and borrow a buddies camera to take some after shots.
Hope everyone has a great holiday weekend.

Tony

As for the bolts in the rear having different threading, is the threading that's different on the caliper or on the part of the suspension to which the caliper mounts? If the threading was on the calipers, were you just able to use the bolts that were holding them on the donor car? If the threading was on the suspension piece were you just able to use the bolts that held the original calipers to you car's suspension? I'm glad to hear someone has done this mod and thanks for sharing your experience.

Threadin gon rear calipers
 

Thanks Heckler

Yes the threading is on the rear Brembo caliper, the mounting points on the brackets have no threading so the bolt just slips through, its on the calipers themselves that the bolts attach to or in the case of the OEM a similar point on its mounting bracket.
the thing to really watch for is the dust shield on the rear because to have to make sure that enough on top and below the rear caliper is cut away, i made this mistake on the right rear and saw after I mounted the caliper that a the dust shield was being bowed, I just cut a little more off the bottom, (because I was so tired I didn't even take the caliper back off just cut it in place.

Have a good one
I this helps

Tony

How are the brakes doing? Did the VDC and Slip lights ever go out?

The stock sedan wheels will not work. But the coupe wheels do.

The VDC and Slip lights did go out the next day after driving it for those couple of days
also during that itme I added a little brake fruid as it was a little low ( I was expecting that) everything was running great for two days when I noticed the VDC and Slip lights came on again, I made an inspection of each caliper and found the left rear flare nut that connects the hard brake lines to the rubber ones, had a little seepage, I tightened it down again with 10mm wrench and it has been fine since, (lights went out after doing this)
so everything is running fine at this time.

tony

Where do you guys find those girls driving 6MT coupes? ;)

Great post, a writeup with pics would have been nice, but thanks for sharing regardless. I saw some camera phone pics of your car, but could you PLEEEEASE borrow a camera and snap some better quality photos? I want to see the Brembos but mostly how gunmetal wheels look on an Athens blue. It would be greatly appreciated.

the wheels were just sent out to get reconditioned, the girl who had them before, did a few curb checks with them, and someone used a wheel cleaner on the lips and took off all the chrome finish, so this shop in town is going to clean them up fix any nicks and dings and rechrome and refinish them. (all for a fee of course).
But when I get them back in 10 days they should look almost new, I will try to gety some better pics of them then.

Tony

as far as the girl, she was a friend who was married a couple of years ago when I first new her, she drove a yellow corvette, well I waws driving one day and this silver G35 coupe is right on my *** and someone in it is trying to flag me down,
so it comes along side at the intersection and it is this girl (she is divorced now) so she yells her cell phone to me as the traffic is moving, of course I got the number wrong but it only took me a week to track her number down.

it's been great for the last couple of months but now she is starting her own company out in Nashville, TN so we have decided to just be friends since she is leaving.

Everything still working well with the brakes?

Hey there
well the brakes are working great, but working with some of these vendors to get the right parts is sometimes a pain in the a$$ I had ordered steel braided brake lines for the Brembos from Z1 motorsports since I saw they were selling them online for 75.00 (what a great deal) great even talked with them on the phone and confirmed the order.
well the next couple of days I get a call from their parts dept. letting me know that they had made a mistake and the accual price is 125.00
well at least they waived the shipping cost!
I did get the lines in but they didn't have all the parts (missing Banjo bolts) which generally doesn't come with the lines, which I think Earl's is going to change for now on to include the bolts, they did ship it back with the bolts, but now I find out that the bolts are 1/4 in too long and will not screw all the way into the caliper,
only alternative I guess it to have the last 1/4 in cut off of each bolt from a local shop.

I finally bought a good digital camera and took some quick pics of the car, I have to admit I am not very artistic when it comes to setting this up so sorry if they are not very artsy, also have a picture of the girl (Jamie) in her silver Coupe, who I got the wheels and brembo's from.
http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b2...G/000_0112.jpg
http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b2.../000_0116r.jpg
http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b2...G/000_0114.jpg
http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b2...G/000_0115.jpg
http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b2...G/000_0118.jpg

I just wondered how the Brembos are doing.