13WL Brake Upgrade

Burned the midnight oil and finished the brake swap last night. Some of the hard lines were seized and I had to salvage some replacements from the 3rd gen parts truck. Also installed stainless 'soft' lines. Brakes feel much better, I will have to report back after driving on them for a bit.

 

Is that the power stop kit?

 

It is

 

I went with the same kit, worth every penny.

 

Which brake lines did you go with? Wheelers?

 

I went with Stop Tech.

 

These kits are available from summit right?

 

Yessir! That's where I got mine. Z36 kit I believe mine was. Love it, very nice in every way.

 

can you link me to it please!

 

Check rockauto in the "rotor and brake pad kit" part. They have stock, z23, and z36 kits. I did the z23 kit not too long ago. You will need to trim the dust shield if going from WE to WL.

 

Any HUGE notice in braking distance?


Or, just a small notice (due to everything being functionally new)?

 

I get the idea that some of the "better" feeling comes from new brake parts and newly bled brake lines. Mine are broken in now and I have done some hard stops, they work well but I can't give an apples to apples comparison.

I do wish I went with a better painted caliper. I used Beck Arnley and they were painted silver from the manufacturer, but after 3 months of California use they're both rust brown already. I should have went with Stop Tech calipers.

Good job Eugene.

 

Excellent distinction and one I wonder about as even with these WE calipers of mine the minor adjustment I’ve made (LSPV and the rear drum star adjuster) have made a huge ‘feeling’ in improvement and stopping distance.

Eugene did some fine work here. Looks pretty!

 

That's difficult to answer. It has made a big improvement in stopping for me, I have 35x12.5 tires. More important is the WE rotors tend to warp, this is normally caused by excessive heat. The WL larger pad surface and the cross drilled and slotted rotors help keep temps down and improve performance

 

Thank you. I am aware of the warped rotors having driven on them for 15 years (they warped the first year on me). Argh!

The nuiance question: Is the improvement because of all brand new equipment vs. old and tired everything?

In other words, did the (huge) improvement come about due to the larger size (maybe) or did it come about due to all new equipment freshly adjusted and operating at peak newness (most likely). Larger pads help for sure from a common sense perspective. But by how much? In other words is it worth someone doing this if their brakes are operating the best they’ve been (new rotors and adjustments and pads on the WE), or not?

I’m sure its worth doing. I’ll probably do the bigger WL if a caliper goes bad.

I’m convinced my rotors warped early due to the rear brakes (LSPV) never getting used forcing the fronts to do all the work. Rear pads looked new with 150k on them. Only reason for changing them was gear oil from a blown seal (breather clogged).

 

That part I can't answer, brakes really sucked when I purchased the truck. Going to the larger caliper made sense to me considering the heavy tires. I guess if you don't have any complaints about your brakes presently then keep going, but if you tow or are running larger tires then I would go to the larger caliper.

 

Will do. Right now the brakes are tuned as best as possible and working good (back brakes actually engage now!). I’ll switch to the WL if a caliper goes bad.

Last step is getting the parking brake to work properly.

 

I wish I had really tested the brakes before and after, but they do feel much better now, more firm pedal and no warped rotors. After wrapping everything up, I would have ordered OEM hard lines as they were all seized and I had to salvage them from the 3rd gen 4Runner parts truck.

Sidenote, the red calipers add an easy 5 rwhp.

 

Sorry, two replies in a row. I decided to upgrade the calipers after looking up the maintenance records on this rig. The previous owner had this truck in the dealership every 6 months with brake issues. That was enough to tell me it was time to upgrade. All said and done it cost me around $400 and a couple of Coors lights.

 

this is the larger 13wl kit.
https://www.summitracing.com/parts/pwr-kc2324-36/overview/year/2000/make/toyota/model/tundra

Seems to have went up in price since when I purchased. At the time my calipers were shot as well, so it was actually cheaper for me to buy the full z36 kit with the 13wl's than it was to buy the original size for my 2000. I don't know if there was a sale or something, I just assumed it was cheaper because the larger 13wl's are more common since they were the bigger/better replacement for my 1st year 1st gen!

 

Thanks Zac!!

 

I put these same calipers/ rotors on my 2001 TRD Ivan Stewart Edition about a year ago and have been very pleased with their performance. Up to this point, no warping or fade coming down steep mountain roads.
A couple things to mention, first the slotted/ drilled rotors do produce more brake dust so important to clean your wheels maybe a little more often.
Also, one of the calipers did not come with retaining rings for the piston dust boots. I had to wait another week for summit to send me some. Not a big deal but did make me question quality control standards.
Overall, this upgrade is absolutely worth doing.

 

What are you guys doing about the rears? I would like to convert to four wheel disc at same time as front upgrade.

 

I did a rear drum brake to disk conversion . Big difference , not too difficult and worth the money. Went with power stop calipers and drilled / drilled rotors. Will need to fabricate brake lines as I did

 

Got pics?

 

Is that kit compatible with 16 inch wheels?

 

I just did my front WE calipers again...three sets of rotors in as many years. But this time I spent a bunch of time on the rears, not only replacing them but adjusting them which I am hoping is part of why the fronts warp so much as it seems most people don't really understand how the rear auto adjuster works.

But I'm saving this thread...if my fronts warp again I'm going to spring for the WL conversion.

However, none of this is true. They do exactly the opposite if anything. Its a popular gimmick that people bought into because it looks cool and most people don't understand thermodynamics very well if at all.

 

Crazy huh? I've never run drilled because they're potentially weaker. I run slotted on my truck but only because these slotted rotors are the only cryo treated ones I could find, and they've not warped or gathered buildup at all in the 7 years I have run them. I don't think the slots keep them cool and they probably increase stopping distance if anything.

 

Yup.

How brakes work is pretty simple from a physics point of view. They turn kinetic energy into heat and dump that heat into the mass of your brake rotors. (and to a lesser extent, your pads)

The amount of braking you can achieve is dependent on the surface area of your braking surfaces, and the thermal mass of those surfaces.

Drilling and slotting....you guessed it....decreases both the surface area, and the mass of your brakes, the two things that are responsible for....braking. Luckily the effect is small so you probably won't notice a difference, but if you pay extra for drilled and slotted your paying more, for less.

The funny thing is, this isn't some conspiracy theory or anything, its posted all over the place and common knowledge....yet so many people associate drilled and slotted with 'better' it doesn't matter that its a gimmick, they are still extremely popular.

 

I've always thought that drilled rotors came from "I want what race cars have". Race cars run giant drilled, dimpled or slotted brakes to save weight. Somehow that made it to street cars with a claim of running cooler. If anything they probably run hotter since the heat exchange is more concentrated (less mass to accept the transfer). Any vent effect is negligible.

Solid rotors are best for street, especiallyfor a truck.