Advice for NB brakes... Was the sport package available in 2000?

I'm looking for some good advice for new brakes.

I've got a 2000 NB.  Manufacture date 2/20.  Definitely needs pads and rotors.  Perhaps calipers.

The front rotors are 10.6", not 10".  I think that means they are sport brakes, but I didn't think they were available until 2001.  They may have been swapped, but there is no evidence of it.  The only part that doesn't appear OEM are the stainless lines.

I'm looking for a good option for brakes for aggressive street driving and occassional autocross.  The car has a built motor and an older FM turbo kit on it- about 280 hp.  It doesn't stop.  It's got 15" wheels.

The cheap part of me says Hawk pads, new rotors, and drive it on the old single piston calipers.  I'm not sure I will be keeping the car much longer, so this is worth considering.

Another part of me says do it right with the FM brake kit.  I probably won't get my money back if I sell it soon, With the shelter in place orders, I can't get advice from FM.

I'm pretty sure their big brake kit is overkill- this car is not a track car.  

The FM little big brake kit is very tempting.  I'm not keen on losing my parking brake, and that kit does not include the rotors.  And the weirdness of my 2000 MY that seems to be wearing sport brakes adds confusion.  But the Wilwood 4 piston calipers would be really nice.

The FM brake upgrade package is also an option- it would give me good rotors and pads, but the stock calipers (which would retain the factory parking brake).

Not sure why the FM brake upgrade package includes only pads and rotors, the little big brake package includes pads and calipers (no rotors), and the big brake package includes pads, rotors, and calipers.  Their website doesn't appear to offer recommendations for rotors matched to the little big brake kit.  Too many options!  Haha!

Any recommendations?

The cheap part of you is right, you don't need a big brake kit for street driving. But if you do need calipers, the Sport units might be harder to come by as rebuilds. Also aftermarket pad selection is not as good as the standard brakes. 

I'd recommend going OEM pads & rotors. The OEM Sport brakes on my '01 are excellent for street use. (standard non-sport calipers were adequate on my turbo track car with good pads & cooling ducts).   

I would try just putting new pads and resurfacing rotors, sounds like you might just have an issue with pad compound. I run regular 1.8L rotors with Hawk's milder pads on my 245whp car and even with 245-width 200tw tires I can lock the front tires up.

The cheap NAPA rotors and Hawk HPS pads worked fine on our NA for street and autoX.  They weren't enough for lapping bigger tracks, though a more track oriented pad probably would have changed that.

If you're not planning to keep the car, I would try new rotors and pads and a good bleed.

Stoptech Sport pads, clean DOT4 fluid and NAPA rotors will do everything you need them to do and more.  Bear in mind that the fancy brake packages take up a lot of space and greatly limit your wheel choices.  Spec Miata racers are getting around just fine on stock 1.6 brake setups; IMO the only reason to go to the bigger brake packages is on a track car with added power, where the stock brake package simply doesn't have the necessary heat capacity. 

I was reading last night that the "sport" brake setup became standard in 2003. And 10.6" rotors are the bigger size for the front.

Thanks guys. Good stuff. Very helpful. 

SVreX (Forum Supporter) said:

The cheap part of me says Hawk pads, new rotors, and drive it on the old single piston calipers.  I'm not sure I will be keeping the car much longer, so this is worth considering.

I think you nailed it with your initial thought. Especially since it's not a track car. 

I spoke with Jeremy a few days and realized the NC I purchased from him has the ridiculous IMSA MX-5 cup 2-piece rotors up front. 

Hats/rings = $1000 for the pair.

NB sport brakes first showed up as an option in 2001, 99-00 all had the same brakes as 94-97 1.8 cars.

The BBK is definitely overkill if it's a street car.  Frankly, it's probably overkill even if it's a track car if it's got stock-ish power.  You do get some unsprung weight savings out of the aluminum calipers, up to you if that's worth the money.

I had the FM rear Wilwood setup on my car for a while but took it off.  The piston diameter was significantly larger than stock and it did odd things to the hydraulics.  I changed a bunch of other things to try to fix it but ultimately went back to stock rear calipers using the M-tuned/TSE/whoever brackets to fit them over sport rear rotors.

As for advice from FM, I dunno if they're answering the phones, but I'd be surprised if there's no email contact.

I love the stoptech sport pads on my Ralliart. I had alway found the brakes just adequate, but a set of these on the front of the car totally transformed it.

codrus (Forum Supporter) said:

I had the FM rear Wilwood setup on my car for a while but took it off.  The piston diameter was significantly larger than stock and it did odd things to the hydraulics.  I changed a bunch of other things to try to fix it but ultimately went back to stock rear calipers using the M-tuned/TSE/whoever brackets to fit them over sport rear rotors.

 

 

Curious as to what you had on the front with the FM rears?

I have the four piston Wilwood rears (on 'sport' size rotors) from FM, with the V8R/949 Wilwood 11.75 fronts on our NA and I absolutely love the setup.  I did use a Wilwood master cylinder and run a less aggressive pad in the rear.  It's totally overkill for my current power level, but it's got the best feel of any brakes I've ever driven, and it's future proof no matter what power the car ends up with.

Most 15" wheels on Miatas with sport brakes won't clear the stock banjo bolt on the front calipers. 

You have to change to a low profile bolt like FM sells.   If you have the stock banjo bolt and are not rubbing inside your 15" wheels odds are they are not sport brakes.   Yes I found this out the hard way. 

In reply to jharry3 :

10.6" rotor. 

Rodan said:

codrus (Forum Supporter) said:

I had the FM rear Wilwood setup on my car for a while but took it off.  The piston diameter was significantly larger than stock and it did odd things to the hydraulics.  I changed a bunch of other things to try to fix it but ultimately went back to stock rear calipers using the M-tuned/TSE/whoever brackets to fit them over sport rear rotors.

Curious as to what you had on the front with the FM rears?

I have the four piston Wilwood rears (on 'sport' size rotors) from FM, with the V8R/949 Wilwood 11.75 fronts on our NA and I absolutely love the setup.  I did use a Wilwood master cylinder and run a less aggressive pad in the rear.  It's totally overkill for my current power level, but it's got the best feel of any brakes I've ever driven, and it's future proof no matter what power the car ends up with.

Ah, the saga of my brakes. :)

When I put the FM rear Wilwoods on the car, I had 11" Goodwin v1 brakes on the front (Dynalite calipers).  The car is a 99, but at the same time as the Goodwin rears I had also transplanted the ABS out of a 2003, including the 15/16" master and OEM prop valve.  This yielded a brake system with a very soft pedal that would never firm up.  I put several gallons of brake fluid through the bleeders and took it to a couple race shops trying to address that, the ultimate fix was to switch to a 1" master out of a 929 (it bolts up to the NB2 booster, requires a couple custom adapter hard lines).

The master fixed the squishy pedal but rotor life at the track was atrocious (250-ish rwhp, rotors were going 1 or 2 days).  I upgraded to a TSE 11.75" front kit with Dynapro calipers so hydraulically the same but more leverage, I also went through several iterations on brake ducts for better cooling and tried a few other pad compounds.  Finally I got it to the point where it would do 3-ish days at the track before needing parts replaced.  At this point I started noticing that the car got very unstable in hard braking at high speeds, wanting to swap ends.  I had a couple other people drive it to give opinions, the conclusion was that the rears had too much bias and while the ABS was preventing it from locking up all the way it resulted in a car that lacked confidence in that situation.  I was using DTC-60s up front and Wilwood BP-20s in the rear, so it wasn't really possible to go much more in that direction with pad choice.  Comparing my car to others with similar power (making 320-ish at the wheels now) the biggest difference was the rear calipers, so I swapped those out for OEM 99 calipers on M-tuned/TSE brackets to use sport rotors and that problem was fixed.

It's possible a different prop valve might have addressed it.  There are some rumors that the 2003 ABS prop valve is actually a straight-through piece of prop valve-shaped metal with the proportioning being done in the ABS.  I can't find any documentation of that, but if so then that might explain it.  Maybe I could have fixed that by putting in a different prop valve, but the general recommendations I've seen are not to mess with those on ABS cars.  

Ultimately it became moot because I wound up retiring the Miata from track duty and now I'm driving an E46 M3 instead.  The Brembos on that are amazing. :)

In reply to codrus (Forum Supporter) :

Ah, OK... I do remember reading some of that back when I was researching brakes (929MCs, etc.).  I was also worried about rear bias with my setup, but was able to balance it with the prop valve (no ABS) and pads.

I think I've found the problem...

At some point, it appears the brakes on my 2000 were swapped to 2004 Sport brakes.   This must have been a really long time ago, judging by the wear and corrosion.  It has 10.6" front rotors, and 11" rear rotors.

I decided to go with several of your recommendations.  I'm sticking with what I've got, upgrading the pads, and replacing parts as if it is a 2004 Sport.

Thanks for the help!

Paul, how much clearance do you have between the front calipers and the inside of a 15" wheel?  Curious minds may have an idea......

codrus (Forum Supporter) said:

It's possible a different prop valve might have addressed it.  There are some rumors that the 2003 ABS prop valve is actually a straight-through piece of prop valve-shaped metal with the proportioning being done in the ABS.  I can't find any documentation of that, but if so then that might explain it.  Maybe I could have fixed that by putting in a different prop valve, but the general recommendations I've seen are not to mess with those on ABS cars.  

It's not a rumor, it's right there in the factory service manual :) It's also in at least one of my books and on the FM website in the chart showing all the various factory prop valve. The parts fiche calls a prop valve a "valve" but the 2001+ ABS unit is a "joint, pipe". Mazda even states the car has Electronic Brake Distribution in the feature list. What's the bar for "documentation"? :) 

To correct a little misinformation, the FM Wilwood rear setup has the same piston area as a Sport stock caliper. It may generate more brake torque, but it's not due to a hydraulic mismatch. Sounds like you kept decreasing the amount of work being done by the front brakes to save rotors until the rears were overpowering them.

SVreX, the Sport cars came with a 15/16" master. It's cast into the top of the master cylinder body. If you have a 7/8", I'd recommend swapping it out.

FM is not currently answering phones but we are answering email. If you want details on the current status of FM, there's a link at the top of every single page on the website.

In reply to Keith Tanner :

I'm sure that's the way it's supposed to work, but I contacted FM before I started this thread. Left a voice mail, and sent an email.  Never got a reply. 
 

No harm, no foul. I know things are screwbally right now. Just figured you might want to know. 

Send me an email with times. Our guys are slammed right now, so callbacks and email responses are taking a bit of time.

Keith Tanner said:

It's not a rumor, it's right there in the factory service manual :) It's also in at least one of my books and on the FM website in the chart showing all the various factory prop valve. The parts fiche calls a prop valve a "valve" but the 2001+ ABS unit is a "joint, pipe". Mazda even states the car has Electronic Brake Distribution in the feature list. What's the bar for "documentation"? :) 

To correct a little misinformation, the FM Wilwood rear setup has the same piston area as a Sport stock caliper. It may generate more brake torque, but it's not due to a hydraulic mismatch. Sounds like you kept decreasing the amount of work being done by the front brakes to save rotors until the rears were overpowering them.

SVreX, the Sport cars came with a 15/16" master. It's cast into the top of the master cylinder body. If you have a 7/8", I'd recommend swapping it out.

FM is not currently answering phones but we are answering email. If you want details on the current status of FM, there's a link at the top of every single page on the website.

The only place I've seen it written is in various posts on Miata.net, I don't have an 03 FSM to look at. :)

Hydraulically, my PowerLites had 4 1" pistons, for a single-side area of 1.57 square inches.  NB2 sport rears are a single 1.375" piston, for an area of 1.48 square inches.

And no, I wasn't reducing the effectiveness of the fronts -- reduction of rotor wear was what the bigger diameter rotors and brake ducts were all about.

Okay, so they're about 5% larger. That's not a big difference. It's as close as you can get with the off-the-shelf sizing. 

If you want to see the prop valve info printed somewhere else, send me your address and I'll send you a copy of my book :) Seriously.

If you didn't have balance problems until you fixed the rotor wear problem, then you must have decreased the amount of front brake torque. Or was the car always squirrely?

Keith Tanner said:

If you didn't have balance problems until you fixed the rotor wear problem, then you must have decreased the amount of front brake torque. Or was the car always squirrely?

Yes, it was always squirrely.  I didn't notice as much at the beginning, not sure why.  Might be that I wasn't driving it as hard (I've gotten faster as a driver), I also changed track tire compounds from RA1s to RRs at some point, more grip, more weight transfer might be a part of it too.  Looking at the specs some more, the Wilwood Dynapro fronts are pretty much spot on for being the same size as the normal 1.8 fronts (3 square inches), but are actually 15% smaller than the Sport fronts (3.5).  So 15% less on front and 5% more on rear.

I liked the pedal feel with the PowerLite rears (once I had the 1" master) and I really liked the simplicity of the pad changes (man I hate the retractors on the stock rear calipers), but they just didn't work out for me on the track.

For future reference. I did this so long ago I don't remember when it was, but I'm guessing 13-ish years ago. 
 

https://www.flyinmiata.com/tech/stock_bpv.php

DeadSkunk (Warren) said:

Paul, how much clearance do you have between the front calipers and the inside of a 15" wheel?  Curious minds may have an idea......

Warren:

About 1/2". 
 

Those are 2004 Sport brakes with TR Motorsports 7x15 wheels.