I'm unsure of what brake setup to go with for the front of my car. I'm putting rear discs from a fifth gen. ST184 in the rear, but for the front I have these options:

1. ST185 Single Piston Calipers and 10.9" Rotors - Bigger rotors, but a single piston caliper.

2. ST165 Dual Piston Calipers and 10.0" Rotors - Smaller rotors, but a dual piston caliper.

I've read both ways on this, so I'm not sure which would provide better braking performance...what do you brake gurus suggest?

Oh, by the way, both are pretty much free to me at this point. I'm getting some ST185 single piston calipers and pads and rotors in exchange for some spare parts, and I have stock AT200 rotors which work for the ST165 calipers, and ST165 calipers and pads.

is that the only options?
i am thinking there HAS to be more for you the celica, look for a heavy lexus with 5X100 in the 90s
i just went to ls400 brakes, but that's 5X114
out of those i'd WANT to say the dual pistons, but it's almost a full inch less rotor diameter, and older...i'd want to guess toyota upgraded when designing new...lol, so ST185?

what are the piston diameters? the whole reason for dual piston is for more piston surface area to increase force over the pad (force = pressure * area) by increasing the area you are able to apply more force to a brake pad using the same brake line pressure.

id assume to go with the 185 brakes just because i couldnt see toyota going to a lesser ability brake on a faster and heavier vehicle, to be honest i dont see either being much of a performance gain, id focus more on stainless brake lines and upgraded pads. also see about putting in an adjustable brake bias. if you are going to hodgepodge parts togeather in a braking system you are going to need to have the ability to adjust the bias so they will work in unicen rather than one end or the other locking up before you are using the full ability of the other end.

The bigger the better!

but remember you can only brake as hard as your tires will let you, otherwise you are just putting on ice skates

i'ed go with the single piston 10.9's pad size makes the diff as long as its not a really small piston on a big pad that would cause uneven preassue, and boosted_K2 is exactly right figure out the surface area of the piston, but 1 big piston will do just fine on a biger rotor.

also may not be a big deal but look at pad brands and sizes for each, make sure you can get the pads you want (like ceramics) for each, could be that you cant get a good product range of pads for one of thoes setups, may change your mind about em.

This post has been edited by creis: Aug 25, 2006 - 2:34 PM

nah, you want surface area of the pad.
piston just tries distributing it evenly, the pad area is what you want(i believe).

you want pad area yes but 1 large piston on a large pad isn't as good as a couple of small pistons on a large pad

1 piston the pressure is more center pad
where as say 2 piston the pressure is spread out more evenly along the pad

This post has been edited by playr158: Aug 25, 2006 - 2:46 PM

^ yeah.

kinda what I'm trying to say, but you have to look at the overall sizes, but since the rotor size is that diff, i think your gana gain more from the bigger size then you would gain from the smaller but maybe more even pistins.

does all ST165 have dual piston? My friend has a ST165(Totalled).. I wonder if he would
sell me his calipers.. haha

i hope this thread finally gets a CLEAR overall answer cause i was reading a sticky and nobody ever confirmed if ST185 brakes would even work...