Silvermine Motors Z car brake upgrades

[Ben280]

So I have been struggling with the stock brakes for a while now, and have finally decided to upgrade them. After a lot of searching and research I decided to go with the Silvermine Motors kit, their "small" front and rear Wilwood packages. I've had good experiences with Wilwood in the past, and was looking to keep the weight down, and not add more brakes than I need. Z's are "inertia" cars, especially with stock motor, so the less you use the brakes, the better!

 

 

Kits arrived nice and complete! They include stainless lines ready to bolt up to the stock lines, and even have those annoying little clips that you always loose when pulling the stock lines. All the fittings to get the Wilwood 3/8 24 NPT fitting into something useful are there, as well as some great 10.9 hardware. Had a choice of pads as well, Wilwood BP-10 or BP-20. The 10's are a high performance street/track compount, and the 20 is a full on, "Don't work till they get fairly hot, so don't use them driving to the store" pad. I went with the BP-10's since in auto-x, there is rarely time to get heat into friction surfaces. 

 

I think the hardest part of converting the rear to disk is removing the drum backing plate. I recently put new studs in the rear of my car and had NO desire to relive pulling those stub shafts. I decided on a pizza method instead. Note, this is only possible due to the 3 bolt pattern Silvermine uses on their brackets. 

 

  

 

 

After the backing plates were removed I went after the ebrake cables. The SMM kit doesn't retain e-brake functionality, but I'm fine with that as this is a VERY track oriented car and it rarely is parked without a woodblock or in gear. SMM does make kits where the ebrake function is retained. No photos here because I was too busy getting dirt in my eyes. 

 

The actual install in the rear is beyond easy. Bolt up the brackets with the 3 provided bolts, slide on the rotor and then bolt up the caliper! Its easier to install the stainless lines and fittings with the caliper off the car, and a little teflon tape helps seal the NPT fittings. 

 

 

Back view of the bracket bolted up. 

 

 

Caliper located at the 10 o'clock position. This helps keep the (minimal) wight inside the axle line, as well as help keep the caliper free of rocks and debris!

 

 

Brake line routed in the most useful way. 

 

Front kit was even easier to install, just remove the caliper (but save those bolts!!!!!) and then take off the hub and rotor! If you've never done this, pop off the dust cap with a flathead screwdriver, pull the cotterpin and then remove the 27mm nut holding your hub together. The hub is bolted to the rotor (thanks for that datsun, I didn't want normal easy to replace rotors anyways). Sometimes the disks fall right off after unbolting, sometimes they need a little "persuasion". Clean up your mounting surfaces and then reverse the steps! the end result looks like this;

 

 

Add fluid, bleed everything starting with back passenger corner, back drivers corner, front passenger corner and then front drivers corner! The way the wilwoods are designed, you need to bleed the inside then outside screws. Don't worry about the ones on the bottom. 

 

I'm super excited about how easily everything went together. Really nicely made kit, very easy to put together. Haven't had a chance to race the car yet, but I'll be commenting back with some initial performance impressions next week!

[edakotaford]

sorry for bringing this old thread back, but i wanted to know what size wheels you are running?  I am planning to buy brake upgrades for my 510 soon, and have been considering these same kits from SMM. But i am running 14x7 Enkei 92 mesh wheels, and i want ot make sure that they're going to fit prior to buying.