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Big rotors on the rear.

btcc93

CEG'er
Joined
Jul 28, 2007
Messages
170
Location
Birmingham, England, U.K.
Hi folks,
While browsing the web I found a kit sold by Nautilus to convert the rear brakes to use the 278mm front rotors. I am about to convert the fronts on my '93 Mondeo touring car rep to 300mm using Jaguar X type calipers and Focus 300mm rotors and like the idea of using my fairly new grooved front rotors on the back. I know that this may have been covered before, but bear with a Newbie from the UK as nothing like this is available over here, has anyone any experience of doing the conversion on the back.
 
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The nautilus Performance kit was prototyped on my car. It was designed and tested (HARD!) on both front and rear. I am still using the kit and have about 22000 road-tested miles on the kit.

There is not one micro-second of though I would put in to whether or not to purchase this product. The full conversion is VERY popular, as is the front/rear only for some people. Certainly not a company nobody knows about, as the Turbo kits we have are very high quality and not one person has not liked them.
 
And my car was the beta tester for the front brakes, confirming that the kit worked equally well on the larger early 98 (E0) SVT as it did on the later SVT models. Later I installed the rear kit too.

The front kit reuses your existing front calipers. You need to start with the 278 mm front brakes though. The kit spaces the caliper out to clear the 300 mm Focus SVT rotor.

The rear kit accommodates the Contour SVT 278 mm front rotor, as you know. Either the rotor hat area needs to be enlarged or the hub needs to be reduced to allow the rotor to fit onto the hub. The caliper bracket needs to be opened up to accept the thicker rotor. If you have access to a machine shop, about .065" of an inch off each side of the inside throat should do it. In the absence of a mill, you will need to grind it out with hand power tools. Some have removed some material from the rotors so you don't need to open up the throat as much. If you leave the rotor at original thickness, you may need to leave off the pad shims or even sand the pad a little for clearance.

The end results is well worth the effort. The improvement in braking is beyond description.
 
I'm hoping to use them on this

DSC_0175.jpg
 
Huh? What size rears are on the race car? I'd have thought they'd be bigger than 278mm. Race cars get all the good stuff! :drool:
Karl
 
The '93 car used 350mm on the front and 300mm on the back, by the last year of the Supertourers, 2000, they used 380mm front and 280mm on the rear.
Ah, so you're basically looking for a rotor that is readily available rather than the probably "custom" type and sized used on a race car.
Karl
 
Yep thats it more or less. The rear conversion to 278mm would be near enough, that just leaves the front a 340mm conversion using 4 pots billets will cost in excess of the equivalent $1,400 in the UK and thats parts only
 
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