| I've had this kit since April, but finally got around to installing it when my front pad warning tabs started scraping on the rotor. Product here: La-Z-Link Overall impression: Fantastic upgrade if you want to keep stock 16" wheels Quality: Excellent Instructions: Non-existent Execution: Good Installation: Easy I've had larger wheels in the past, but really like the look of stock chromes on my car, so went with Mattz's upgrade to gain some improved braking. The kit came with two 12.2" rotors, two brackets to offset the stock caliper out and back, and four bolts. Did I mention no instructions? Starting point:
 Step 1: Remove stock caliper and rotor. There are two large bolts which hold the stock rotor to the hub. These will be reused. Two other bolts hold a brake line bracket for the hard line coming off the caliper. These will not be reused as the new caliper bracket does not have a place to bolt the hard line bracket back on. The brake lines do not need to be disconnected from the caliper, you can just set that over on your suspension parts. Step 2: Remove dust shield I decided rather than bending it back, I would just delete it entirely.
 A Dremel bit worked quite nicely...
  Step 3: Attach the caliper offset bracket The caliper brackets are marked 'Left' and 'Right', but I still had to try a couple orientations before I figured out which way it was supposed to bolt on. I did read where the bolts SHOULD go with the head toward the rotor, but they are a bit long and are too close to the brake lines in the back for me to feel comfortable with that so I put them on with the heads in the back. There is clearance behind the top hat for the bolts.
Here is a pic of the bolts in with head towards the rotors, and the uncomfortable distance to the brake lines:
 This shows the bolts coming in from the back on the offset bracket. (Opposite side from previous pics):
 Test fit of caliper (back to the left side). Note the hard line bracket sticking up above the offset bracket.
 Here's the new 12.2" rotor beside the stock rotor:
 Test fit of new rotor, w/o pads in the caliper:
 Decided to repaint the calipers and do some detailing before stitching everything back together (sorry, swapped sides again):
 A look behind the stock chromes:
 I installed Hawk HPS pads with this rotor upgrade, and was really impressed with the improvement in braking over the stock set-up. Ok, here's why Mattz's package only rates a 'Good' for execution:
 Apparently the caliper offset bracket design did not take into account the standard wear tabs on the outer brake pad. This gouged a line in the top hat where the tabs came too close. I'm pretty annoyed at this but not much can be done about it now. As the pads wear, the tabs will continue to move closer to the rotor and make a wider scratch mark in the top hat. This is a flaw in the bracket design, IMO, and should be fixed. I guess I can use the Dremel to take a bit of material off the wear tab. The other bothersome part is no attachment point for the hard brake line bracket (see pic above from behind the caliper). I guess it will just have to hang??? There it is, folks. I think there were installation instructions that someone posted a couple years back but the pics are dead and I wanted to share my experience with the interference on the wear tabs.
 |