dont know if anyone asked this yet or not but has any one swapped the knuckle from a cobalt ss to the cavalier? the bolt patterns are the same but i dont know if anything else will work. i want to use this set up for my brake upgrades front and rear any help will be appreciated
very interesting but i doubt anyone here is going to know. best bet is to do lots of research, and keep us posted. i dont care about my rears but i would certainly like to upgrade my front brakes so that they dont wear out every 35000 miles.
michael groves wrote: i dont care about my rears but i would certainly like to upgrade my front brakes so that they dont wear out every 35000 miles.
You think swapping to a different cars brake system will help that any?
I suggest slow down.
larger brakes dont wear down as fast buddy.
michael groves wrote:larger brakes dont wear down as fast buddy.
Wanna bet?
You are still using the same braking force just on a larger surface area, means more to replace, and more to wear out where the smaller size rotor would surfice.
If you want larger brakes, spend the money on a big brake kit. And they will wear about the same under the same conditions.
The only reasons to go to a bigger brake set up is for looks, and if performance brakes of stock size do not have the ability to slow you down.
Know i have proslot slotted rotors and performance pads. My 100 to 0 mph is about half the time and distance then that of stock. With the same amount of wear.
So let me hear your side now?
yes, you are correct; i will have more expensive parts if i did this. but, i certainly wouldnt have to do the work as often. it is a common problem to have the brakes wear down that fast so dont tell me to slow down especially since some people on this site dont even make it to 20000 miles. i had an f-150 that i did not have to replace the brake pads on for nearly 100000 miles and you tell me to change my driving habbits. are you denying that the stock brakes are crap and hardly suitable for this car? because if you are, you need to have your brain rewired. as for the performance side of it, there is a huge bennefit to having larger rotors (increased braking surface) to dissipate that heat under constant hard braking. im not saying that i have a huge need for larger rotors at the moment, but i am seriously considering taking part in some autocross events. rotors can warp or crack if they heat up too much and what is that going to do for your braking? before you try and act like you know what you are talking about, know what you are talking about. take a look at my registry and you will notice that i could care less about aesthetics. take a look at my first post and you would know that (where does most of your braking come from and where did i say that i wanted to upgrade my brakes?). as for if it would be worth it to make a kit out of this, idk.
steering knuckles(2)118.75
calipers(2)153.08
pwerslot rotors(pair)179.99
greenstuff pads 72.99=
$796.64
at that price it may not be worth it especially if there are other parts needed. but what if the knuckles on the cavaliers are exactly the same as the cobalt's knuckles? 796-237=$559.14
at that price it would certainly be worth it. all im saying is that this idea should be looked into.
Quote:
where did i say that i wanted to upgrade my brakes?
Quote:
dont care about my rears but i would certainly like to upgrade my front brakes
I suggest you read that first post of yours again.
Well you should know that upgrading only half your braking system is foolish too. But you only want to do your fronts. Yes 75% of your braking is controlled by your front brakes, but when was the last time you checked your rears?
When i bought my car USED from a reputable dealer, Part of the price of the car was new brakes, tires, belt, timing chain, and what ever other maintance parts thet may needed to be changed soon. But for some reason, i kept going through my front pads every 25-35K miles, Stock being 25k, and hawk performance pads at 35k. Well it turned out the reason my pads were going every 6 months (35k) was that i had no rear brakes. Though i passed inspection 2 times. Now that i replaced them with better then OEM shoes and drums, with new harware, my front brakes are taking much less of a beating then they once were. Remember, on a J, your rear brakes are self adjusting, so if there is a problem with the adjustment lever or spring, or your have no shoes left, you wont really know.
Getting back to the original question: Yes. We've looked into it.
The front brakes would be hard to swap for minimal gain. If you want to do a front swap check out the sticky I wrote. Or a Big Brake Kit, or heck just performance pads will make a large difference.
As for the rear, it's just too different to make it work easily. The Neon swap would be much easier it you just want rear disks. Or you can do the IRS swap, that gets you rear disc brakes too.
cts, correct me if im wrong, but doesn't the cobalt have a 5x100 bolt pattern? if so, that is a totally different swap that hasnt been explored and may only involve the changing of calipers, rotors and pads. that would be tits
If you want a different caliper, thats easy, you may need to modify the bracket. Regardless if is has the same bolt pattern or not.
Why change over to another set of OEM rotors and pads from another car, when aftermarket components are easier to come by, last longer, and perform a hell of alot better? IMHO.
the cobalt ss and the redline have 5 x 110
El Fuego ( the unstable ) wrote:The only reasons to go to a bigger brake set up is for looks
Physics proves this statement to be incorrect. Brake systems apply resistance to the rotating hub in the form of friction. This friction produces a rotational force called torque. But we're interested in deceleration.
Friction:
Ff=Fn*u
Force of Friction = Normal Force (how hard you press the pedal) x coefficient of friction (type of brake pads)
Energy loss (deceleration):
U=N*uk*d
Deceleration = Normal force (pedal pressure) x coefficeint of friction (brake pads) x distance traveled (in the case of a circular path such as a rotor, this distance can be calculated with the circumfrence equation c=2*pi*r, where r is the radius of the rotor) The final equation can be written as U=N*uk*2*pi*r
As you can see by the simple equation for energy loss is directly proportional to the diameter of the rotor which the braking force is being applied to. Big brakes are not simply cosmetic.
wrong bolt pattern......... It would be too much of a hassle to have two different bolt pattern wheels between the front and back.
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Cherub (AZ) wrote:El Fuego ( the unstable ) wrote:The only reasons to go to a bigger brake set up is for looks
Physics proves this statement to be incorrect. Brake systems apply resistance to the rotating hub in the form of friction. This friction produces a rotational force called torque. But we're interested in deceleration.
Friction:
Ff=Fn*u
Force of Friction = Normal Force (how hard you press the pedal) x coefficient of friction (type of brake pads)
Energy loss (deceleration):
U=N*uk*d
Deceleration = Normal force (pedal pressure) x coefficeint of friction (brake pads) x distance traveled (in the case of a circular path such as a rotor, this distance can be calculated with the circumfrence equation c=2*pi*r, where r is the radius of the rotor) The final equation can be written as U=N*uk*2*pi*r
As you can see by the simple equation for energy loss is directly proportional to the diameter of the rotor which the braking force is being applied to. Big brakes are not simply cosmetic.
You missed the rest of that sentence.
Quote:
The only reasons to go to a bigger brake set up is for looks, and if performance brakes of stock size do not have the ability to slow you down
i didnt realize the bolt pattern was different. still, would the caliper for the cobalt bolt onto the a cavalier steering knuckle? as Glen said above, the bolt pattern for the steering knuckle is the same. now the only question is if that is also true for the caliper mounting point. as far as i know this is still a possibility.
The sentence implys that large brake kits cannot be of any performance benefit if stock sized brakes do not do the job. However the benefit is not mutually exclusive as you have put it. A stock 2200 car will stop better with a set of Wilwoods than without. Safety is also a very good reason to upgrade any brake system.
Also, the same equations can be used to point out that larger brakes would wear more slowly in comparitively driven situations.
Simply, using the equation for energy loss we can solve for the pedal force required to bring a car to a stop from a set speed. N=U / (uk*2*pi*r) So, say we had a stock brake system slowing from a set speed (say 45mph) and a constant coefficient of friction (XYZ brake pads) The pedal force required to stop a 3000lb cavalier @ 45mph with stock brakes can be compared as such: N1=(3000lbs @45mph) /(XYZ pads*2*pi*10")
N2 = (3000lbs @ 45mph)/ (XYZ pads * pi * 12"). Do the math N2<N1. Assuming that brake pads wear more quickly with higher pedal pressure (try a simple eraser on a piece of paper to experiment) we can conclude that the larger brake system will wear less quickly because less normal force is required to stop the car.
mathematically proven! ^^^
When those OEM brakes were made for a much larger vehicle, they last longer, work better, and was MUCH cheaper than a big brake kit. I put less than $400 into my front end, and I've got 11.9" rotors, dual piston calipers, and ceramic pads. Trust me they work way better than stock.
Yeah. The Cobalt uses that damn 5x110 bolt pattern; isn't that was Saab uses? I wish they would just standardize all their cars at 5x115.
Cobalt uses 11.7" rotors, our sock are 10.2", and the FWN Front swap has 11.9". If you're going to screw up the bolt pattern anyway you might as well go with the larger rotors (not to mention dual pattern rims 5x100-5x115 are much easier to come by than 5x100-5x110.) Also you don't need to use the F-Body caliper, the N-Body caliper could be used with the N-Body rotor; but that's 10.9"
On a side note. I wonder if the F-Body rear calipers and rotors (or substitutes) could fit the IRS setup... Hmm.. 12" rear rotors... making me drool. Stock is 10.9, and I'm happy with that, maybe in the future.
i dont think my last question was understood. unless im having a brain fart, the caliper is conneced to the steering knuckle. if the bolt pattern is the same from strut to steering knuckle, whose to say that the cobalt caliper wont just bolt right up to a cavalier steering knuckle? theoreticaly, all you would need then are rotors and pads if everything lines up properly. it would be a little more expensive that your fwn swap but make the job a lot less work.
if the ss caliper bolts up to our knucle , your still stuck with our small rotor
its not a worthy swap
your better off doing the grand am swap
but even still for the price youll be close enough to just get a set of baer , ssbc or wilwoods
for the ease of work , and the stoping ability , i love my wilwoods , and to me its not worth it to use stock parts from another car
if i swapped the caliper i certainly wouldnt stay with stock rotors. so you are saying that its not the caliper but the nuckle that decides where the caliper sits? (distance from center of the wheel)
The combination of the caliper and knucle set the distance. Stock knuckles have an old way of attaching the caliper, I wouldn't be supprised at all if the newer caliper doesn't bolt up.
You'd need a rotor with a 5x100 bolt patter, the correct offset, thickness, and diameter. Good luck.
Where are you going to find a SSBC, WIllwood, or Baer kit for <$400??
The cheapest I've seen is about double that. (Yeah I know that's a bit apples to oranges, since the BBK would be new, and the swap is used parts; but still)
ill do some research. till next time.
