Baystate Jeepers

I have an unplanned opportunity to upgrade the front brakes on my 93 YJ. Right front caliper locked up so I need new calipers and rotors. I also need more stopping power then the stock brakes offer. I have an 8.8 with disc brakes on the back. Looking to upgrade the front to something stronger than stock.

What does everyone recommend? Joe? What you got for me?

Sport

If you want to stick to stock calipers, then Black Magic pads are all the rage on JeepForum. They're just aggressive brake pads that supposedly work real well on wranglers. They'll likely have a YJ application if you contact them.

http://www.blackmagicbrakes.com/

For more stopping power you should upgrade to a 1995 YJ brake booster.
The 1995 is a "dual diaphragm" type and provides way more stopping power than the 1987-1994 YJ "single diaphragm" boosters.

I put a dual diaphragm booster in my 1992 YJ.
WOW... what a difference!!!

If you get decent rotors and soft pads you should be fine. There isn't going to be a huge improvement on stock brakes but you want to stay away from any pads with "long life" or "dust free" or "extreme duty" on them. You don't want ceramic pads either. Those types of pads are compounds designed for heavy vehicles and to last a long time, they need to get more heat into them before they really start biting hard.

You want pads that will warm up quickly and give you maximum bite at cold temps. Typically the best pads for this application dust like crazy, wear fast, and are noisy I'd recommend Hawk HP Plus like I run on my BMW race car but they don't make them for Jeep applications. I run HPS on my street car and they are good...but still take a little heat to get going. Hawk has an HPS and LTS application for a YJ. I think they are very similar but the LTS is likely a little harder (bad for you) so it can deal with the additional weight of a full size truck.

Bought the Black Magic set up: calipers, pads, and rotors. Talked to the guy there, Blaine who was very helpful.

Also swapping out the 93 single diaphragm booster for a 95 dual diaphragm booster. Will also put in some stronger lines to hook all together.

The only other option is to go to 16 to 17 inch wheels so I can fit larger brakes and that is too expensive right now. Money is tight, business is slow, economy is slow, and my daughter starts college in August. Ugh. Looking forward to wheeling more 4-years from now.

COH143 wrote:Bought the Black Magic set up: calipers, pads, and rotors. Talked to the guy there, Blaine who was very helpful.

I'm real curious to see what you think of those pads with new rotors. Definitely report back. I wonder if they will squeal and spit out excessive brake dust, but if they work, I'd go the Black Magic setup over Vanco brakes to save $$$.

I never upgraded the booster in my YJ. I do run bigger CJ front brakes and 11x2" Waggy drums in the rear (stock was 9"). She stops gooder, even with 600 lbs of wheel/tire.

If I had kept my Dana 30, I would have probably gone with EBC pads/rotors. I hear good things about them. When I ran 33's/35's though, my braking system always seemed up to snuff. My the squirrels just don't like to run too fast, so braking was easy.