This is the write-up and images of my aborted big brake install, which I worked on for a couple weekends in February of 2005. There were a couple of reasons I decided not to finish. Foremost among them was that I just felt uncomfortable with my ability to complete the installation, and make it safe.
Click a picture for a bigger one.

First off are some before shots, you always need those.

  

Up she goes. Got to get the car off the ground. Always support it with jack stands for safety.

  

A picture of the kit, another with the aluminum adapters already installed, and the instructions.

  

Next up are a couple shots of the "before" front suspension area. In taking the calipers off, I found out that one bolt was loose, probably explaining the horrible brake squeal I hear sometimes.

  

Here is a shot of the new brake disc held up against the old one, to compare by eye. I bought the crossdrilled spitfire rotors in the aftermarket.

Next are two shots. One with the bearing hub still on the old brake, against the new one for comparison, and one of the hub on the new discs. When you remove the hub, there will be some surface rust on the inside portion that was touching the hat on the old disc. Since the adaptor fit is a little tight, you will want to wire brush this rust off. If you don't the hub mating surface will not sit flush against the adaptor mating surface, making for a wobbly brake assembly.

  

Pointed out here are the two main interference points of the bigger rotor. The first is the tie rod end. To get around that one, you will have to shim the steering arm out a bit, or bend it. I chose to shim it out. Keep in mind, you will also have to shorten the tie rod end in order to maintain alignment.
The second point of interference is the level shock arm, and arm pinch bolt. To take care of this you need to first take out the bolt. WIth that out, shim up the upper king-pin trunnion. To get about the right amount of lift, just use another of the bronze washers that is already in there. Next grind off metal from the end of the arm until the disc no longer strikes when turned all the way in. After that, you need to figure out how to gain clearance around the bolt head. The two easiest solutions are a countersunk screw, or tightening the bolt, and simply grinding about half the head off. Your decision.

  

Last up is another point of interference that actually has to be taken care of prior to mounting the hub to the brake disc and adaptor. You can clearly see the washers sticking out past the adaptor. These are there because the bolts provided in the kit were too long, and bottomed out. Simplest solution is to tighten the bolts in place, and grind the inner bits of the washers off.

  

I stopped taking pics after here due to dirty hands.

After this point you are basically home free. Tighten everything down, bolt up the caliper, hook up the hose. Rinse, repeat. Check for clearances, and do so again once the car is on the ground. Don't worry about the tie rod end bumping the swaybar mount when the car is off the ground. The car does this even in stock configuration. The tie rod bumping is what made me take the whole thing off, and put it back to stock. I was shocked when I found out it was that way to start.

You may have unforeseen problems, and this is by no means a complete guide. Just some pointers to help out.

   

 

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