ea81-ej22 swappers, what did you do about your breaks?

[ragingbull]

I did the 6 lug conversations on my 86 Brat and noticed it's a bit harder to break. Swapping in a ej22 may be asking for trouble without better breaks.

 

What did you guys do to get better breaks?

[shongo]

i put discs on the back , we will see how that goes once this ej is in the loyale

[TomRhere]

Yep, rear disc brake swap is the best.

 

But, just swapping over to the EA82 drum type rear brakes will be an improvement over the EA81 rear drum brakes.

Slightly lager drum/shoe size, and the benefit of self-adjusting brakes.

 

Wouldn't hurt anything other than your wallet to replace the Master Cylinder either.

[wagonist]

Aren't the Loyale front brakes slightly bigger also?

If you've changed wheels then there shouldn't be a clearance problem for these.

[WoodsWagon]

Good pads are a must. I ran 29" tires and an EJ, and the cheapo parts store pads made the braking dangerous. It would slow alright in normal easy stops, but you couldn't really stop quickly when you stood on the pedal. With quality Wagner pads in it, I could lock up the fronts on pavement.

 

Honestly, engine power doesn't have much to do with braking unless you're running laps on a race course. As long as you can lock up the tires on dry pavement, then you have as much braking power as you need to be safe. Bigger brakes help when you're doing repeated stops from high speed, or holding back a load decending a long grade. But for normal driving you don't need anything too fancy.

[TomRhere]

Aren't the Loyale front brakes slightly bigger also?

If you've changed wheels then there shouldn't be a clearance problem for these.

Yes, they are bigger.

That is why the EA81 Wagon Spoke wheels don't fit the EA82 bodied vehicles without doing some grinding on the calipers.

 

The rear EA82 brakes are basically a bolt-on swap to an EA81.

 

The front EA82 brakes take a bit of doing to swap onto an EA81.

Caliper mount brackets have different bolt spacing, so one would have to swap the knuckle over, or fab a custom  bracket.

If one swaps the knuckles, which do directly fit the EA81's. You now have issue of tie-rod end differences in where they fit the knuckles.

EA82 tie-rod ends are smaller diameter than the EA81's where the taper fits into the knuckles.

[carfreak85]

Better tires will do more to improve braking than just about any other modification.  I've done everything you can do besides installing larger rotors on the front and my Yokohama A048s have done more than stainless braided lines, track pads, nice rotors or rear discs.

[ragingbull]

Sounds good! I'll start researching ea82 swap and rotor swap and see what happens!