Caliper Installation - Rolling Deep

Although we were not planning to eat Greg's '10 Camaro for dinner, it did feel a bit gluttonous to be tearing a set of practically brand-new Brembo four-piston calipers off of the Camaro to install an even bigger set of practically brand-new Brembo six-piston calipers in their place. I mean, what has the world come to when a factory GM car-a Camaro, no less-can ship from the factory with a set of front calipers that would have been fit for a professional race car just years ago, only to have enthusiasts wonder if they couldn't grab an even bigger set of front binders to install on their rides? For once we actually felt slightly silly for even thinking about modifying something on a perfectly good car, as we all know that the factory braking system on the new Camaro is great right out of the box. In a moment of self-doubt, it hit us-we're not crazy-the engineers at GM must have wanted this to happen all along! Take for example the new '12 ZL1 and the Cadillac CTS-V, if the engineering guys thought the six-piston calipers worked well enough to run on the two flagship sports sedans of the company, well then us mere mortals deserve the same stuff, right?

The best part about the stolen-er, repurposed-Cadillac CTS-V brakes? They bolt directly to a fifth-generation Camaro without any modifications at all. That's right, they are literally plug-and-play, you just need to order the correct parts from the right vendor, wait a couple of days for everything to show up and bolt them on without any worry. If you're following along at home, you can find the entire parts list, complete with part numbers, in the captions that follow, but basically you will need everything that the Cadillac gets (front and rear calipers, pin kits, pad kits and all four rotors) minus new brake lines. If you're interested in converting only the fronts, that's okay too, since the rear CTS-V brakes are nearly identical to the stock fifth-gen stoppers except for the powdercoat (wrinkle-black vs. silver) and the pad compound.

Along with the killer new brakes we acquired from Scoggin-Dickey Parts Center we also chose to order a new set of wheels and tires for the Camaro, hoping that wider aftermarket hoops covered in more rubber would not only help our Camaro stop and handle better, but look the part of a modified and personalized car instead of just a stock 2010 roaming the streets. For the wheels, we turned to Scarallo Motorsport Wheels and Group A Wheels, a company who has been producing excellent wheels for quite some time, but just recently entered the Camaro market place. Coming in hot with a set of 20x10-inch front wheels matched to a pair of wide 20x11-inch rears, the new Camaro specific Drift-R wheels looked all business and the curved five-spoke design was sure to frame up the new six-piston Brembo brakes nicely. Knowing that we wanted to run a wide tire combination, we jumped on the horn to Toyo Tires and ordered a set of the company's Proxes ST-II rubbers, which actually come out of their premium "SUV and Crossover" lineup. Go ahead and insert a joke about the Camaro's weight and size here, we don't mind! Truth be told, the ST-II line is actually fairly performance oriented and the 315/35/20 rear meats combined with the 275/40/20 fronts will not only make the Camaro look good, but they will keep the wheel speed sensors and ABS system happy, which is exactly what you want on a daily driver Camaro. As always, feel free to check out the install on the following pages as we document Greg Lovell's handy work on his fifth-gen Camaro project car.