wsutard
Well-Known Member
As some of you know, I have been on a front end rebuild with a engine freshening. Part of this was upgrading from the 10" drum drakes to disk.
I chose to go with the the disk conversion kit sold by P-S-T which is a kit made by GPS Brakes. I selected this kit because it offered a more modern 4 piston setup vs others I saw that used a two piston setup. Additionally, with the forum discount it was competitively priced.
I will break this down into a few categories.
TL;DR: 30/30. I would buy this kit again. In fact I will be going to GPS/P-S-T to get my rear disk kit when I am ready.
Quality of parts: 9/10
Every part included in the kit was top notch. The calipers and the rotors looked flawless. The master cylinder and proportioning valve were perfect. The custom machined spacers were perfect, once I got the right ones. More on that later. The bearings seemed like they were great quality.
I took away a point because I would have like to have seen braided brake lines included. This isn't due to looks but safety. The routing of the brake line passes right next to the king nut of the upper ball joint actually even touching it when turning. Additionally, it will touch the shock housing. More detail below.
Ease of installation: 8/10 at first 10/10 now.
This kit is "made" to mount on the front of the rotor. I wanted the extra room for a sway bar mounted to the shock mount so I mounted mine on the rear of the rotor. First, you can easily mount these on the rear. Second, I'm glad I switched them because it looks like the calipers would have hit the sway bar mount.
However, the kit includes lines made for front installation, as the brake line input would be facing rearward and would be located forward of the shock and would create a mostly straight shot to the stock brake hard line. Mounting on the rear points the brake line input toward the front and moves it reward of the shock. This means the line needs to take a 90 degree turn right out of the caliper. The included lines can be used, they just point forward then loop back toward the hard line. This causes some rubbing issues I am still figuring out. However, this is my doing and not the kits so I didn't take this into account. I will more than likely get some custom braided lines made up by a local hydraulics shop.
As for the rest of the install, I have never installed disk brakes before and this was easy for me. The hardest part was making the brake line run for my proportioning valve. The kit included lines to mount the valve just behind the stock brass block. I installed the valve up next to the MC so I could easily adjust the knob.
The MC easily installed into the stock location. You still need to be able to get to the backside nuts to tighten it up.
Why did I mark it down to an 8 then back to a 10? The kit includes a spacer that sits on the inside part of the spindle and pushes the rotor assembly into the correct location so it will lock down correctly as well as not rub on anything. The wrong spacer was sent with the kit. GPS keeps all the parts on the shelf and pulls them when they build an order. The spacers were labeled wrong and thus, I got them. More on this in the "Service" section but once I got the correct spacers everything went smoothly. I have included a picture of the spacers below. The thick one is the correct one.
Service: 11/10
This is where GPS really shines. The wrong spindle spacers didn't push the rotor assembly out far enough and thus the outer bearing nut would bottom out on the spindle threads before actually making contact with the washer/bearing. I called up GPS and spoke with Greg. He basically dropped everything to help me figure out what was going on. He even offered to FaceTime with me via his personal iPhone so I could show him the issue and all the parts. Greg finally figured out it that the wrong spacer had been sent with the kit. He sent out two correct spacers via 2nd day at no charge.
P-S-T even got in on the service action by following up with me about the issue.
I could tell that GPS cared about me as a customer/user of their product. In today's world of corporations only caring about the bottom line, this scores big with me.
I hope this helps people. I see a ton of posts about what disk conversion kit to get. I'm sure other kits are great quality as well but I am super happy with the GPS/PST kit.
I will update this with a performance section when I actually get my car back on the road.
I chose to go with the the disk conversion kit sold by P-S-T which is a kit made by GPS Brakes. I selected this kit because it offered a more modern 4 piston setup vs others I saw that used a two piston setup. Additionally, with the forum discount it was competitively priced.
I will break this down into a few categories.
TL;DR: 30/30. I would buy this kit again. In fact I will be going to GPS/P-S-T to get my rear disk kit when I am ready.
Quality of parts: 9/10
Every part included in the kit was top notch. The calipers and the rotors looked flawless. The master cylinder and proportioning valve were perfect. The custom machined spacers were perfect, once I got the right ones. More on that later. The bearings seemed like they were great quality.
I took away a point because I would have like to have seen braided brake lines included. This isn't due to looks but safety. The routing of the brake line passes right next to the king nut of the upper ball joint actually even touching it when turning. Additionally, it will touch the shock housing. More detail below.
Ease of installation: 8/10 at first 10/10 now.
This kit is "made" to mount on the front of the rotor. I wanted the extra room for a sway bar mounted to the shock mount so I mounted mine on the rear of the rotor. First, you can easily mount these on the rear. Second, I'm glad I switched them because it looks like the calipers would have hit the sway bar mount.
However, the kit includes lines made for front installation, as the brake line input would be facing rearward and would be located forward of the shock and would create a mostly straight shot to the stock brake hard line. Mounting on the rear points the brake line input toward the front and moves it reward of the shock. This means the line needs to take a 90 degree turn right out of the caliper. The included lines can be used, they just point forward then loop back toward the hard line. This causes some rubbing issues I am still figuring out. However, this is my doing and not the kits so I didn't take this into account. I will more than likely get some custom braided lines made up by a local hydraulics shop.
As for the rest of the install, I have never installed disk brakes before and this was easy for me. The hardest part was making the brake line run for my proportioning valve. The kit included lines to mount the valve just behind the stock brass block. I installed the valve up next to the MC so I could easily adjust the knob.
The MC easily installed into the stock location. You still need to be able to get to the backside nuts to tighten it up.
Why did I mark it down to an 8 then back to a 10? The kit includes a spacer that sits on the inside part of the spindle and pushes the rotor assembly into the correct location so it will lock down correctly as well as not rub on anything. The wrong spacer was sent with the kit. GPS keeps all the parts on the shelf and pulls them when they build an order. The spacers were labeled wrong and thus, I got them. More on this in the "Service" section but once I got the correct spacers everything went smoothly. I have included a picture of the spacers below. The thick one is the correct one.
Service: 11/10
This is where GPS really shines. The wrong spindle spacers didn't push the rotor assembly out far enough and thus the outer bearing nut would bottom out on the spindle threads before actually making contact with the washer/bearing. I called up GPS and spoke with Greg. He basically dropped everything to help me figure out what was going on. He even offered to FaceTime with me via his personal iPhone so I could show him the issue and all the parts. Greg finally figured out it that the wrong spacer had been sent with the kit. He sent out two correct spacers via 2nd day at no charge.
P-S-T even got in on the service action by following up with me about the issue.
I could tell that GPS cared about me as a customer/user of their product. In today's world of corporations only caring about the bottom line, this scores big with me.
I hope this helps people. I see a ton of posts about what disk conversion kit to get. I'm sure other kits are great quality as well but I am super happy with the GPS/PST kit.
I will update this with a performance section when I actually get my car back on the road.
