Brake Upgrades - How do you know what fits?

[Jakg]

Background - I have an MG ZT CDTi which features 284mm front discs. The 190 model features 325mm discs. I've been considering upgrading, as the cost of the discs and pads is pretty much the same, so all it really costs me is the cost of the calipers & carriers (~£50) over an ordinary disc / pad change... plus it gives me an opportunity to properly paint the calipers + fit some braided hoses.

However, whenever I drool over the "readers cars" sections, they always seem to find some elaborate supercar caliper which fits their car perfectly... I was just wondering if anyone could think of any other caliper that would fit my car. Ideally looking for something OEM that I could pick up from a breaker for an affordable (sub-£100) price, over some £1k AP kit.

I'm assuming that a good place to start is a car which uses the same PCD / bore as my current car? In which case, the Impreza is a perfect match, and im sure there are some beefy brakes for it...

I've got 18" OEM wheels which I will be keeping.

[6speedmanual]

Surely the simplest solution would be to find a 190 version in a breaker and buy the complete front corners?

P

[Jakg]

Bump of an old thread... Saw a TT today with absolutely massive Porsche brakes and it looked AWESOME, and I want something equally ridiculously overkill.

[Kozy]

You need to be careful, simply grafting any old caliper on 'because it fits' could lead to you making the brakes worse. Porsche brakes are a prime example, you need to be careful taking brakes designed for a car with a 35% front weight distribution and putting them on a FWD car with a 65% distribution. The requirements of the two cars are completely different so you may well find that despite being massive, they're actually less powerful than your standard brakes!

[The Black Flash]

Aye, plus if you go too big, you'll never get them up to temperature and again, braking will be worse.

[stoocake]

Also remember that if your current brakes are good enough to lock the wheel, you cannot improve stopping power - you can only alter the feel (admittedly worthwhile) and ability for the brakes to cope with more demanding use (track days). No point spending a fortune if it's not actually going to give you a useful benefit.