Camry & Solara LoungeDiscussion area for every generation of Toyota's family car, the Toyota Camry. Lexus ES250/300 owners welcome! Topics of discussion range from fuel economy, safety, modifications, performance and more.
Important Part:
Hello everyone; newbie to this forum. I have a 03 LE with ABS.
My search for answer to my questions introduced me to this forum.
I am wondering if anybody has done drum to disc brake conversion on 5th generation camry.
I did the search and found the little write up done by Kocho I believe on his 4th generation camry. I am looking for some information on the latest model, to see if someone can give me best possible information on it.
Not so important part:
I fill really stupid for not noticing this when I was buying my car. I assumed it had disc brakes on rear. I only noticed otherwise when I reached home after buying the car and I pulled my hand brake while parking. Needless to say it was too late. The car had steel wheels with covers when bought and I did not bother to see in there or carefully read the specs.
I have tried to live with it but now I am tired, so I want to see what I can do about it. Only reason I servived so far without doing something about it is that it is my wife's primary car. I drive a 01 Accord V6 Sedan as my primary car. After having a baby we have started using camry more and I end up driving it and I hate the drums in the rear, especially with the ABS they fill really not functional.
Welcome to TN. Please do a search next time before posting. Usually, most questions can be answered in this way.
Basically, the rear only accounts for 25% of braking. The price-to-performance ratio is just not good. Its not worth it unless you're building a track car.
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Last edited by white3ch0c0late; 11-10-2005 at 09:28 PM.
Welcome to TN. Please do a search next time before posting. Usually, most questions can be answered in this way.
Basically, the rear only accounts for 25% of braking. The price-to-performance ratio is just not good. Its not worth it unless you're building a track car.
I saw the thread where cam2xrunner gives you that advice but I disagree with that. While I am not an expert on cars I have driven enough camrys (especially 5th generation) where I see a significant difference when i drive one with disc brakes. I own 01 V6 accord which has disc brakes on rear and the brakes are 100% better in stopping and feel.
Moreover I do not have any better plans for my money rather than spending on good feel and confident braking. I don’t spend on turbos or body kits. I am not a racer but I do like spirited driving and only way I can fell confident is to have decent brakes.
By the way I do like the way your car is setup. it looks very tight, not to over done for my taste.
rip it all off and slap on fat brembo brakes. solves ur problem right there!
And well...although drums tend to do less...on the camrys the brake distribution isnt as equal as msot of us would like. I beleive accords use the rears a bit more. And im not doubting your driving experience with other gen 5's its just that if you honestly compared brake distance the two camry's with and w/out rear discs would almost be the same.
Sorry i cant give more advice as i've never done a conversion but from driving different cars with and without drums i cant really tell a difference except for if i were to use the hand brake for...."spirited" driving.
this may not help at all, but just my personal experience with brakes
i have a 93 camry dx, front disc, rear drum, no abs, braking is horrible compare to my 99 V6 solara, and 03 Camry SE, which both has 4 wheel disc brake, and abs
but once you get the feel and used to it, you won't notice the difference.
i only complain the i drive the solara or camry SE, then switch back to 93 DX, feel like when i step on the brake pedal, the car still moving forward without control.
this may not help at all, but just my personal experience with brakes
i have a 93 camry dx, front disc, rear drum, no abs, braking is horrible compare to my 99 V6 solara, and 03 Camry SE, which both has 4 wheel disc brake, and abs
but once you get the feel and used to it, you won't notice the difference.
i only complain the i drive the solara or camry SE, then switch back to 93 DX, feel like when i step on the brake pedal, the car still moving forward without control.
I agree with you. My problem is I which between Accord V6 and the Camry with family in it.
Newer cars have way better braking systems to start off with so there isnt a strong correlation. I bet if you upgraded ur dx brake system with something new u'd feel a dramatic difference.
But i guess its all on preference. Plus money of course.
there's a difference in 4cyl using drums and v6 using drums, lol, i believe, most v6 only come in disc, not drums, and 4cyl uses drums, they dont need all that stopping power, but switching will improve, but, if normal driving...it won't matter
yeah i was thinkin about doing a disc conversion also, but like white3chocolate said the rear doesnt help stop the car as much as the disc brakes in the front. i'd go with changing the fronts to a big brake kit.
find an auto wrecker, get the hub, spindle, calipers, rotors, hoses, and the brake master cylinder from a v6 wreck. I have seen prices from $400 for everything to $800 or more. It depends on how much they actually care about selling parts, or just having a large rusting junkpile.
It should take a skilled mechanic about 4 hours to do it all. Sicnce the car has ABS already it has the sensor plugins for the disc sensors and the brake system already has the proper pump.
Good luck.
hahaha
are you for real?
if you're reeeeeeeeeeeally worried about braking performance, change the front discs to slooted/crossdrilled, or buy the whole big brake kit. if you're worried about looks, thats a whole different department
we're talking about an LE you said? if you understand the fundamentals of brakes, 3/4 or 75% approximately of total breaking force comes from the front, so why not just beef up the front, where you'd actually feel a difference?
for the previous post, yes you can buy bias adjsusters but you wont gain any braking performance, youll just be REMOVING some front bias to make the rear feel stronger or vice versa.
to the post agove the previous one slotted/drilled perform worse then plain blank rotors.
as for ABS brakes better, if youre reaching the point of ABS cutin, you better be avoiding a crash.
as for drum rears, nothing wrong with drum rears. if youre paranoid about them, you got issues...
drums require much less maintenence and becausd theyre on teh rear they hardly do any of the work.
as for the handbrake, that is a DRUM either way. the drummed rear handbrake is MUCH BETTER then the drum in disc on the camrys with disc rears.
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