Low Buck WRX Brake Upgrade

You must remove the pesky outer flange of the dust shield to make room for the bigger, thicker vented STI rotor.

 

The first step is to cut off the flange.  We used a die grinder and a cut-off wheel.   You could use tin snips as well. It is easier to do it on the car than to disassemble the complicated drum parking brake.

Once the flange was cut off, we sanded down and deburred the sharp cut edges for safety.

When we dummy fitted the Brembo caliper we realized that the dust shield needed a little bit of trimming to clear the caliper ears.  We used some tin snips to do this quickly and cleanly.

8 comments

    1. For the fronts you have plenty of options like from Centric and it’s child subsidiaries. It’s a standard STi fitment part. DBA is an “OEM plus,” level upgrade.

      The rears are of course more tricky. Another option for that is the Kartboy rear brackets (San Diego company, makes all things in-house) , to get to a two pot rear caliper and still keep the dust shield I believe? Going that route nets you not having to buy a special rotor over time.

  1. I’m in the process of piecing together a super budget brake upgrade myself for my VA WRX. I looked at going with OEM STi calipers front and rear but came across a set of brand new Cadillac CTS-V front calipers from a local Chevy dealership for $200 and found a company from that makes brackets to mount them. All in, it should be less than $2,500 front and rear even factoring the rear STi setup. Excited to see how this works out in comparison.

  2. Although not in the same league as the STi brakes, the 2006-2007 WRX had 4-piston front/2-piston rear fixed calipers. The 2002-2005 had the sliding calipers, and the 06-07 package is a popular swap for the earlier years as a mild upgrade.

  3. Love the content and will probably look into getting some used calipers to do this on my 05 Saab 92x Aero! Awesome write up with great details!

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