Low Buck WRX Brake Upgrade

A little Rustoleum paint was used on the cut edges to prevent rusting in the future.  We had to bend the dust shield a little in a few places to keep it from rubbing on the rotor so test fitting is important.  We only had to bend the shield very slightly.  If you don’t check you might have scraping noises when driving.

The front brakes look mighty nice in place!  The bigger brakes fill the wheels a lot better and the Brembo calipers look great.

Here is the conversion showing the Powerstop braided steel brake lines.  We used new STI anti-rattle hardware from the dealer on our new calipers.

The rear brakes are much bigger and have a great racing brake look.

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!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*
*