Steven

Edit: LOL, I said the following on March 28 last year: And I still don't have new rotors yet. More humble pie. Seriously this R32 set up is giving me head aches. Now I found I can't really get a much deeper rotor due to the dust shield design etc and it's mounting points. Then there are possible issues with this rotor (315mm) being too large a curve to sit properly in the caliper designed for a 280mm rotor and not getting proper pad contact! In the best case I have figured there will be about 1mm clearance between the rotor and the dust shield, and about 2mm clearance between the caliper and the back of my wheels. These are also some of the more compact 4-pots around. From this the landcruiser or hilux calipers haven't got a hope in hell of fitting. I'm thinking this is a good time to sell off these calipers and cut my losses

Okay I think I've got the right rotor now. Corvette C5s, only 48mm high unfortunately so too shallow :( They also have a centre bore of 71mm, how do you plan to work around this with the Camry needing a 62mm bore?

I tried but it only lists rear rotors? Im also on the mobile so will double check when i get home

How high are they?

I only need another 5mm of clearance to fit, thats taking into account the wheel flare. Out of interest, what are the dimensions of the rotor you intend to use?

I'm pleased to announce that my return trip from Toowoomba to Brisbane this morning had the trip computer stating I had managed 6.9L/100km. Once I got back to Toowong though there was a bit of heavy traffic which saw the figure rise to 7.2 by the time I got home. So now I know the car is capable of very good economy on the freeway, I'm struggling to figure out why it's so bad around town.

Still can't get a sure answer on the pad spacers, but I'll come back to that later. Further fiddling with the calipers shows they WILL hit the inside of the sportivo rim using the rotor I had planned (some humble pie to be had here), however I have an alternate idea and need some opinion as to whether it will work. Current OEM rotor is 49.3mm high from back of disc face to top of wheel hub. I have found a rotor (actually a 30mm thick rotor) that is 56.7mm high. I'm assuming this would mean the disc would sit further inside the wheel well and would give me my required clearance. Unfortunately the disc isn't a direct bolt on, the centre is 58mm (OEM is 62mm) and the PCD is 100x5 instead of 114.3x5 however I believe these are easily rectified with a few minutes on a mill. Am I on the right track here? Obviously hub spacers are out of the question and different wheels are as well at this time.

anyone know if brake pad spacers are illegal and/or dangerous? Basically I want to fit an r32 caliper to the back brakes, but they need an 18mm vented rotor where ours are 10mm - alternate rotors that suit our handbrake aren't available. I initially wouldn't have thought so, but I see so many people using them and even online shops selling them that I had to ask

Agreed. US Price is around $200 per shock absorber for genuine parts. No matter how you view it, that price is complete rip off. $3000 for new front and rear STOCK shock's installed - you can get a high performance set of coil overs installed for less

Fitted my home made lower grill today. Not overly happy with it up close, same with my upper grill the paint finish isn't my cup of tea, but will have to do until I get them professionally resprayed. Sorry it's a bit hard to make out due to the lighting.

Truck drove over the front of my car on the way to work. Had Police on site to take a report asap. Got witness details. Phoned AAMI as soon as I got to work with the report number handy so basically I did everything I could to ensure the matter was addressed as quickly as possible. Girl on the phone taking my claim was quick, efficient and well-informed of the process. I booked in a time to drop it off at their assessment centre and received a free taxi ride home to be called later that day to be given an approx time for it to be fixed and ready. Repair was handled by a mob I hadn't heard of before just around the corner from me as my preferred repairer was far too expensive (it's a mob that fixes all the exotic sportcars etc, so of course they'd be exxy). Having a bad experience with repair jobs on my previous car I went over everything with a fine tooth cone, even removing the bumper etc to check it. Essentially I found the work to be almost flawless and I'd actually go back to this repairer for my own personal jobs. Also been running my mods past them recently, no worries at all no increase in premiums etc. Only thing I'm not fond of is the wait times on the telephone but I guess any company can have a busy day. All in all very happy with AAMI

Was heading back from George's place after picking up some GPS units. Good spotting - I thought you were on the coast since some stupidly early hour this morning?

got some good news. The IS350 uses the same rear brake caliper sizing as our Aurion. The assembly is slightly different, but for the most part it's the same sort of caliper. What's most important is that it's a single pot in which the piston size is the same as ours. The IS350 and IS250 share the exact same brake master cylinder, however the IS250 has the same front brakes we do in the Aurion (single pot, same size piston). I don't believe the Aurion shares the same master cylinder as the IS250/350, but it does look like it would bolt straight onto the Aurion if it were required. From this, we can tell that the Aurion should be capable of running 4 pot front calipers without ruining front/rear bias. Further it would also imply the MC was up to the task of pushing the front brake pistons the correct amount. The IS350's front brakes are actually bigger than the R32 calipers I'm thinking of using, so that works out well too. Shame the Lexus brakes are rarer than hens teeth. They have a weird looking mounting bracket on the calipers (staggered) but I have a feeling they might still have fit as a direct bolt on.

Being a 1 piece 4 pot caliper it doesn't have a sliding assembly so fully open is the same width as the pistons fully extended. Mostly my interest in the master cylinder is that the Aurion one is sufficient for these brakes. Seeing how the R32 only needs a 1" master cylinder, it's not too large and considering the TRDs come with a twin-pot set up using the same MC (I assume) then I imagine it must be big enough for these brakes.

I have given the landcruiser calipers a miss due to there size, weight and unsuitable disc requirements. I've now decided to go the R32 caliper route as per my previous picture. With a 320mm disc this caliper will clear my wheels and is very light as they're alloy. Further the bracket I need to make to fit these is very basic and does not require any modification of the caliper or the front knuckle assembly. I don't even need to cut the dust guards. As the moment I'm trying to track down the master cylinder bore size of the Aurion (which I believe must be similar to all recent model camrys) as one of the final pieces of the puzzle.

Kinda unsure about the interior. Kudos to Toyota for trying something a bit special, but that color scheme reminds me of a cheap interior vinyl retrim as seen on many modded cars.

Shame bout no pics, I'd really like to see how Toyota approaches a CF interior trim

Steve, just going slotted with some good pads will make a huge improvement over day to day driving. I'm starting to agree with you. I'm very fond of doing things differently (and breaking new ground if I can), but for how I drive my car it seems overkill doing this particular mod. Also as you pointed out the extra work involved getting this mod engineered and mod plated also seems fairly complicated. If only money wasn't an issue...

yep, as DJKOR posted I used the denso ones that Toyota offers. The ones that came out exactly matched the replacement ones. Interesting to note the old ones looked to be in fairly good nick, not bad after 80,000km.

let's try that one again

I meant 320mm was probably the largest you could go out of the 3 rotors I listed towards direct bolt on rotors. A 334mm is an increase in about 20mm over the standard OEM rotors, and the measurement I took yesterday shows that would have the caliper sitting against the wheels inner surface (but also fouls the balancing magnets). A larger rotor would provide more leverage clamping force on the wheel even without being thicker. Naturally I would prefer to go all the way up to 334mm in the 30mm rotor, but I know that would not suit my chosen calipers lest I modify them, which I'm not keen to do. I think a step up in rotor size from 293 to 320mm, going slotted, with 4 piston calipers using decent pads should make a substantial enough improvement over stock.

They look promising, however as with most calipers I experimented with today looks don't mean much, its how they fit which is very hard to test until you have one in hand. The majority of calipers I played with today were all 4 and 2 piston types, from various brands (brembo, subaru, Mazda, Nissan etc) and I only found 2 that fit well. They were the R32, and another Nissan that was cast but the guy couldn't remember which it belonged to (was practically identical to the R32, except it was cast instead of alloy). It also looks like most 4x4 4 piston calipers stand a good chance of working, as from what I found today when experimenting with different landcruiser calipers, but they tend to be VERY heavy even compared to the factory cast brakes. I'm hoping to keep the weight done. As for the stud pattern, it doesn't matter unless you plan on swapping to the calipers matching rotor. Considering we have the factory (293mm), the RX330(320mm) and, to a lesser degree the Lexus IS350 (334mm but 30mm thick) that should bolt right up there isn't really a need to think of a way to fit other rotors. BTW the 320mm is probably the largest you can go using 17" factory wheels

Not sure. It's hard to say without seeing the caliper up close, and knowing the dimensions of the factory disc (most important is the disc thickness) Had a little run out to the local jap wrecking yard and played around with a pile of brake calipers from various vehicles they had there. Found the ideal caliper actually R32 GTS alloy 4 piston caliper. Suits a 30mm disc (close enough to our 28mm disc) and will bolt up with a very simple bracket. Pics of it on my mdf replica below using a small spacer to bring it out to the 320mm diameter of the RX330 rotor. The Prado is 338 x 28 front, 312 x 18 back. Aurion is 296 x 28 front, 286 x 10 back. Could do. It depends then on the caliper's mounting tabs. Without having one in person it's very hard to say. As they're made to suit a 338mm caliper, they might look a little oversized even on a 320mm rotor. I was thinking of using the Lexus IS350 (334mm diameter, 30mm thick) rotor for use with the Nissan R32 4 pots, but the R32 were originally designed for a 293mm rotor and only JUST fit a 320mm (as it is they'd probably need a little bit grinded back on the calipers inside surface to clear the rotor) and I also think I'd have clearance issues then with my 17" wheels. A caliper meant for a 338mm rotor sitting on a 293 or 320mm rotor shouldn't pose any major problems except in reduced effectiveness due to the loss of clamping leverage. Have you got a pic of the Prado caliper?

Not sure. It's hard to say without seeing the caliper up close, and knowing the dimensions of the factory disc (most important is the disc thickness) Had a little run out to the local jap wrecking yard and played around with a pile of brake calipers from various vehicles they had there. Found the ideal caliper actually R32 GTS alloy 4 piston caliper. Suits a 30mm disc (close enough to our 28mm disc) and will bolt up with a very simple bracket. Pics of it on my mdf replica below using a small spacer to bring it out to the 320mm diameter of the RX330 rotor.

To any who are still interested in my wacky experiments, it seems as though the Toyota Landcruiser 78/79 series calipers have a very good chance of fitting. I took a look at some new ones this morning but got distracted by the 75 series which seemed even better, however once I got home I realised they only fit a 20mm unvented disc :( as a result I didn't spend too much time measuring the 78/79 series versions. I've since made up an exact replica of the front disc and knuckle assembly out of MDF so I can test fit calipers on the fly. I'll go back early next week to check the larger versions. One thing about these Landcruiser calipers, aside from being 4 piston, is that they're heavy mofos. Haven't weighed them but I reckon swapping to these would add about an extra 10kg to the weight of the car. However as they aren't part of the rotating assembly, could someone more experienced inform me whether they would have a negative affect on braking? Other thing is that these calipers are worth around the $340 mark brand new, which is alright for 4 pistons but combined with new discs and adaptors might end up costing around $650 or so. Think that's worth it for 4 piston, slotted front brakes? http://cgi.ebay.com.au/2-Front-Brake-Calipers-Toyota-Landcruiser-HZJ78-HZJ79-/120687483771?pt=AU_Car_Parts_Accessories&hash=item1c1988db7b BTW it looks like the standard Aurion brake lines will bolt right up. Same looking banjo bolt setup.