I came to the point where I am not sure whether I want to invest anymore into my car, however. I need new brakes and I need to change my coolant. I guess its more so maintenance at this point but I typically don't like to change something on my car without upgrading it.

Soooo, who has Rpf1s with Wilwoods? Haha

 

hey Domo! Nice to see you again! rpf1's with wilwoods.. ok let me win the lottery and I'll get back with to you with a review.. lol

now back to your car, coolant.. probably time to replace the radiator hoses/clamps? and coolant, easy to drain and fill. which reminds me I gotta do that this summer! oh and the toyota coolant is about the best out there, so no reason to upgrade we already have the best!

brakes.. hmm.. have you looked at porterfield-brakes.com? They sell a carbon-kevlar street pad that's very grippy. It's about $90 a set for the R4-S (street) compound. Last set I had lasted about 48k miles. But on inferior rotors they tend to eat the rotors since they have so much friction! There's a nice upgrade for ya!

oh and when you do the brakes, don't forget to use lube up the sliding pins with the toyota grease the sliding pins take that special stuff.. here's the part number

08887-01206 RubberGrease

 

Mich! Yea, I wanted to do 17x9 rpf1s with the Wilwood Big Brake kit but I didn't want to deal with spacers. Not much of a fan. Unfortunately, that route just seems so complicated at the moment, so I am looking to upgrade to Stop-Tech stage two brake kit from Dezod.

Guess, I have to do some research and see what are the pros and cons to drilled, slotted, or both. As far as the coolant, Dezod also said Toyota has the best. Sigh...I haven't flushed out my coolant since I bought the car.

RubberGrease? I hope that combo from Dezod comes with some. I feel like bleeding the brakes will be a pain in the butt.

 

nope i don't think dezod includes the lithium glycol soap grease, it's a funky, special grease that toyota uses on the sliding pins. I did try what everyone else had before the silicone that others like Honda uses, and it gummed up everything. Had to replace it and now the pedal feel is excellent. Only drawback the grease only seems to last a year before I have to re-lube.. eh.. that's ok it's just my time, rather have that than a seized up caliper. easiest $13 i've spent (grease price)

yeah you can do a drain and fill for the coolant, there is a bleeder nipple/valve at the upper right of the radiator that you attach a clear vinyl hose, loosen the upper drain valve and when you fill up the coolant that helps the air bleed out of the system. Once you see the coolant enter the clear hose, you know you're full! It's really a well engineered system to service. Oh and you also fill up the coolant reservoir, as the system can "burp" a little it sucks the coolant from there. just letting ya know what you're in for. I know after this long I'm thinking of replacing my radiator hoses, they're still pliable but I'm thinking this many years is long enough.

but yes, toyota is the best stuff, I got 2 jugs of it at the dealer was about $18 a piece (ouch) but hey I'd rather make sure that the water pump stays in good shape. Other coolants can ruin water pumps.. not trying to scare ya, I did research and ended up back with the Toyota stuff. Like their branded oil.. Bob is the oil guy forum has done oil lab analysis on it and it too is good stuff. Mobil makes it for them but to their specs.. My relatives are using it in their honda.. Funny when they get an oil change and they bring in Toyota oil.. lol

about spacers, I agree.. I've thought if the wheel doesn't fit, get one that does! without spacers! And stoptech is good stuff. Did you know that TRD contracted with Stoptech for all their big brake kits? yup.. the parent company is Centric, I've used their parts on other cars, good stuff. I can see why TRD chose them. so you'd be good there too!

 

Well I'm running RPF1's with the TRD big brake kit (which is made by stop-tech), and imho just as good, if not better than the Wilwoods. My RPF1's are 18x8's (offset et35) and they fit the car as well as the brakes perfectly with no spacers, I can't imagine going back to 17's after running this set up.

If you just want to upgrade the basic braking feel of the car, just get the stainless steel lines here:

http://www.dezod.com/pd-dezod-motors...less-steel.cfm

....and get the upgraded fluid and pads here and here:



These 3 items together will create a dramatic improvement in braking feel, it's what I would call a "Stage 1"

 

Here is a couple pics of my car with the 18x8's


I'll try to take some more pics now that ive got the TRD BBk on.

 

Now if you want to do a serious brake upgrade and you track your car a lot, the best one on the market is this:

http://www.dezod.com/pd-brembo-front...smo-kit-tc.cfm

And the best fluid money can buy is this:

 

As far as the cooling goes, I run the Mishimoto Radiator, Mishimoto Electric Fans, Mishimoto hoses, and Mishimoto thermostat. The car stays much cooler and this set-up has about tripple the cooling capacity over stock. You can find those items here:

http://www.fastscions.com/Scion-tC-A...-Radiator.aspx

And the absolute best coolant that you can get is this:

 

i dont see how this is necessary...what kind of conditions are you driving in that you need drilled and slotted rotors with racing brake fluid and carbon pads? do you realize our cars base at 160 hp?..and that drilled and slotted rotors chew pads like its nobodys business...how much of a difference would there be with stainless lines and dot3 fluid vs stainless lines and that fancy brake fluid on stock pads and rotors... im not trying to be negative i got a brake job coming soon, im kinda fishing for answers... but i would be surprised to see any cold hard evidence that proves that fancy a$$ brake fluid make any difference more than lets say 6in to a foot better stopping power

 

Well, you are asking the right questions for sure. "What kind of conditions are you driving in that you need drilled and slotted rotors with racing brake fluid and carbon pads?" The conditions I'm driving in are on a professional race track that we use to auto-x. Extreme braking conditions with multiple hot laps at high speeds with cars that are more powerful than stock.

So in those conditions, it makes a HUGE difference when it comes to heat dissipation and reducing brake fade. The wet and dry boiling points of the fluid are much higher and can stand up to the abuse, whereas the stock set-up cant even come close.

But if you have a simple daily driver, the stainless steel brake lines and ebc Greenstuff pads should be more than enough to get a much more solid braking feel. I wouldn't recommend the Castrol SRF ($65 a bottle) for daily driving, but I would recommend the Motul RBF600 ($18 a bottle) because it will hold up better if you happen to be spirited daily driver who lights up the brakes frequently and likes to keep your speed late into corners

 

Here is a pic of the track we race on and a link to the site:

http://showtimespeedway.us/

 

thank you for the clarity and explanation...do you know of anyone or have any personal experiences with the stoptech premium blanks and hawk ceramic pads (yellow)? i have been planning on taking that route for quite some time.

 

i think your only route bbk side other than the spacers would be to do the fastscions.com 'upgrade' kit' (wilwood caliipers, lines, pads, fluid) or fast scions own kit that is same thing except comes with 11" rotors. the problm is that the smaller wheel (17 instead of 1 with larger rotors (13 instead of 11) pushing larger caliper is where the issue lies

 

Yeah a couple of my friends run Hawks on their BMW M3 and Subaru STi, respectively. I like Hawks just as much as EBC, they are both great and both top of the line. I would happily go with either one of them, I just happened to find a deal on the EBC Greenstuff's recently so I went with those.

You can't "go wrong" with the Stoptech blanks, although they are pretty much identical to the stock OEM rotors.....so unless you've got 140,000 miles on your stock ones, or you did some insane hot laps to warp them, they probably don't need to be replaced and this is by no means an upgrade. But get them if you need them:
http://www.dezod.com/pd_dezod_motors...tc_05_pair.cfm

If you don't need them yet, just go with the Stainless Steel lines (the most important upgrade), the Hawk pads, and the Motul RBF600 Fluid and you will be quite happy with your setup for daily driving.

 

well then scratch the rotors u just saved me 150$...im tired of squishy brakes this will happen soon thanks!!

 

Yep, let us know how they feel once you take them for a spin!

 

About to get my car back from the body shop tomorrow. I have a feeling I won't be happy with the results but we shall see.

I guess I never really considered going 18s. If I did, they would be Rpf1s 18x9.5. Regardless, I don't think I want to invest that much more. My next step would be to flush out my radiator, get some new coolant, and some new brakes.

I did however contemplate on the stainless steel lines. Do I really need them...

Any who, where is the best place to get toyota coolant? And Chris, wanna help me install my brakes ?

 

toyota coolant i always get from dealership. its not that expensive at all. stainless lines i can't tell you since mine is the whole kit so hard to tell if its the lines themselves give a good feel. just hope you dont have a oem line seized like mine did (had to get a new hardline put in because they had to cut to put it in a vice and use 2 sets of vice grips and heat to get the btch apart)

sure i'm game. i just got my driver's side back on last night (with longer bolts n lock tite) lol

 

Yep you def want the stainless steel lines, IMO I would get these even before I got better pads

 

I have zero experience with bleeding my brakes and swapping out the lines soooo, thats one of the reasons why I am hesitant.

Little update, I just got my car back from the body shop. They did an decent job but I noticed a door ding that I am for sure was not there before dropping it off at the shop. They gave me some crap excuse that my car was dirty when I brought it in and the dent could have been there prior but they will try to fix it for me when the dent guy comes in next week.

For the record, I have not received one door ding in the past 6 years of owning my car. These people...