Monday, February 8, 2010

Braking without breaking the bank


As those of you who have followed us on the track know the Peugeot has awesome brakes (and from the factory no less). The cost of all the awesomeness is brake rotor wear however so we decided that rather than take a chance we'd put new rotors on for Infineon/Sears Point.

A quick check of the few remaining Peugeot parts suppliers in the USA revealed that 505 Turbo S brake rotors are a) as scarce as hen's teeth and b) cost as much as some fairly sizable jewels, about $350-$400 each. To top it off there are exactly two of them in the USA and if we want extras it's going to cost even more to have them shipped from France.

On to The Google. Hmm, early Porsche 944's had similar calipers/rotors to the 505. After much more research I found someone who had claimed to make the conversion with only light machining and a few extra holes to mount the 5-hole 944 rotor on the 8-hole 505 hub.

Off to NAPA to get a 944 rotor to measure. There are two choices, a $110 Chinese knock-off or the "value" rotors for $58 each. Being LeMons racers we chose the $58 ones of course and we opened the box to see "Made in Italy" and "Brembo" stamped on them! WTF, the Brembos are cheaper than the Chinese knock-offs???

Sean got to machining them and the results are beautiful, we needed caliper spacers about 4 times thicker than stock and 7 extra holes drilled but that was it! 505 owners have sweated for years the expense of Peugeot rotors and we just replaced $700-$800 of Peugeot parts with $116 worth of Brembos, cool!

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