Why LGT rear brakes?
Well, a couple reasons. First, I wanted vented rear discs. Solid discs don’t seem to hold up very long without some sort of BBK up front in my experience. And second, wheel selection. Brembos are great for stopping power but many lightweight aftermarket wheels won’t clear them without some combination of spacers and fender flares. I’m not against spacers, I’ve run them in the past, but for the wheel size I want to run, I need all the space I can get and keep my camber settings where I want them vs where I would need them.
And one more reason, cost. The LGT calipers are not sexy, so they are significantly cheaper than Subaru 2-pots or Brembos. I found a set on eBay for about $100 shipped, and most are in that range. Rotors for this setup are pretty cheap as well. KNS 4K rotors are $45 each. Pads are pretty cheap as well. I believe they use the same pads as WRX sliders.
The install is pretty straightforward. There are a couple things to keep in mind. The LGT caliper needs a bit of clearancing at the back of the caliper near where brake line attaches and the dust shield needs to be removed.
While I waited for my rotors to ship, I decided to clean up and paint the calipers. I planned to paint them blue, but my blue paint insisted on staying in the rattle can. So I grabbed a can of gunmetal I had laying around. I think I like this color more.
My rotor package got delayed so I went ahead and painted the front calipers to match.
Primer.
Paint.
In the rear the rotor was seized to the hub. Check your parking brake before proceeding if you have the same issue. Grab a couple M12 bolts and use the threaded holes in the rotor hat to push the rotor off of the hub.
Be sure to use bolts you don’t need as this process usually mushrooms the bolts. If you don’t have a bucket of spare bolts I would recommend starting one now.
With the rotor off I test fitted the caliper bracket.
It’s pretty clear that the dust shield is going to interfere with the 290mm rotor. So it’s got to go.
The shield is attached to the backing plate via spot welds. If you have a spot weld drill bit this is your time to shine. I just have a bunch of dull drill bits that are probably well over 10 years old. Man… I’m getting old.
But they got the job done. Also, ignore my caliper in the background. It looks precarious in the pics but it wasn’t. I do need to invest in a set of caliper hangers though.
Since I had time, I cleaned up the backing plate up a bit and hit it with a couple coats of paint. And I forgot to take a pic of the final product.
However the next day my KNS/DBA 4K rotors arrived!
Ventilation!
I did weigh the rotors, the stock rotors came in at 10 lbs and the 4K rotors came in at 12 lbs. Not bad.
Everything went together pretty smoothly except for the brake line snafu. Because of the extra meat on the back of the LGT calipers you can’t fully seat the brake line. Which is a fun time to figure out when you are leaking brake fluid all over your freshly painted calipers. Also, I would recommend removing the spring clip at the strut to give you some extra slack to work with.
Once you have everything torqued back down it’s time to bleed the brakes and go for a test drive. I did notice that my parking brake may need to be adjusted, so keep that in mind before you put the car back on the ground.
I don’t have any good feedback just yet. I had a few noises to chase down and fix. And there were a bunch of State Troopers out so I couldn’t really bed in the pads. The pedal feels about the same and the tires seem to lock up easier than before. I don’t think I ever got them to lock beforehand, now that I think about it…
There’s a Subie Dragon run coming up soon so I will reserve judgment until then.
Cheers!
UPDATE – 8/7/2017
Brakes are working great. I did a Dragon run with a Subie/Bimmer group over the weekend and the brakes held up well. I didn’t notice any fade even on long downhill sections of the Skyway. Now my main concern is under hard braking I get some squirm from the tires. They are cheap tires so I guess they should be expected.
All in all, very pleased with the LGT rear brakes.
B.黒曜石 