EEngineer

apparently highlander caliper, rotor pads is a direct swap as well.

Mxkmster

Well I want the 4 calipers due to the hydrolic principle that increase area on the opposite end decreases travel but increase force. More force faster stops. And yes, tires and wheels size influence effectiveness but I running a upgraded wheel and tire size off stock size. 235/45r17 front and 225/45r17 in the rear. If I can drop the LS400 calipers and supra rotors I'd be happy. I'm trying to build handling improvements first over more power. More power us great unless there is no way to slow it all down.

Mxkmster

Because if we all wanted a super car none of us would be modding ESs. They are great powered cars, they hold a ton of **** and 4 adults can comfortably sit it in. You can get that in a civic.

Power6

Here is where you have the wrong idea... first increasing the piston area on the caliper side that the fluid acts on, increases pedal travel at the same time it increases the braking force you get for a given force on the brake pedal. Think of it like a see saw, more leverage means lots more motion. To boil it down, more piston area means a softer pedal thats easy to push.

The other misconception you have is "more pistons is better" which is not true. A 4 piston fixed caliper is better because of the properties of fixes calipers, not the number of pistons. You also assume that "more pistons=more area" but that is not necessarily true you have to measure the sizes for each caliper, calculate the piston area and compare. In fact in a cruel twist of fate physics dictates that a sliding caliper has double the pressure acting surface...so those twin piston calipers you have on your old ES have the piston area of the same size 4 piston fixed caliper.

None of above the affects objective braking performance...only how the system "feels" to you. Are you saying you don't have a strong enough leg to push the brakes now? Changing leverage would help that.

Can you engage ABS in a full stop on dry pavement? If you can. and a properly functioning ES stock brake system should, even with bigger sticker tires...you are at the limits of the braking system, it cannot possibly stop any faster. To understand how brakes work you have to get the hydraulics and rotor sizes and leverage out of your head.

Now there is another aspect of this...heat mangement: stop enough times in your ES in a row say try a 100-0 a couple times in a row, and things start to go south quickly...for this reason big heavy rotors, aluminum calipers, race pads and fluid etc. are needed. I ran that stuff on my WRX, I needed to, because I drove it on a racetrack such as Pocono



A track like that kills the stock brakes you are going say 100-40-100 and back and forth for 20 min non-stop.



So I swapped to this big ol Legacy GT brakes



Not every car needs big brakes my old SRT-4 (Mopar Stage 2 yeehaw) had a pretty good stock brakes, with race pads and fluid I could lap Watkins Glen all day long! Obviously if I bought the STI instead of the WRX it has big Brembo brakes. But yet both stop in the same distance give or take a few feet...wonder why that is?

When I didn't drive on the track much anymore...I swapped back to the stock brakes because the heavy brakes aren't needed on the street, not in the least. And heavy brakes make the ride a little bit worse. Clamping force, pedal travel none of that matters for the ultimate performance of the system...for mere mortals like us who can't afford carbon brakes, only rotor weight and tires dictate brake performance. Everything else is tuning, not to say that doesn't matter, good feel is important.

This is a common theme, everyone says that and it is a good advice generally. But lets be objective here there is no huge increase in power you are putting in an ES, not anything that is going to tax the system. You could run 10sec 1/4s at 130 in this car and still the stock brake system will haul you right down from that speed. Only the repeated abuse of the track would demand more, are you tracking your car? If not, just make sure you have good fresh pads, fluid, rotors etc. and you have plenty of brake in this car.

Now of course there is the bling factor, maybe you want something to look nice, that is a different story, nice calipers, bigger rotors to fill out the wheels. I'd say don't waste your money, but if you do, be careful it is easy to mess up braking system bias, ABS operation etc.

EEngineer, looks like the Highlander has a 292x28mm rotor, where our ES has a 275x28 with the same 49.2mm offset, from my brief research this seems to be the same as the later 02-up ES/Camry it is likely the bracket/rotor or some combo swaps to the older cars. If one realllllly needed some more rotor mass this would be a simple upgrade. I can't imagine many out there are overheating brakes on their ES. Never seen an ES at a track day ha.

Mxkmster

If we all wanted to go buy everything instead of building it we wouldn't own cars and modify them. Power6 if upgrading parts on your bought kit with " sweet aftermarket" parts then I think upgrading with OEM parts if going to do just plenty. Hydrolic theory is simple you have yours backwards. Not to sound as condescending as you. A larger caliper with more area can squeez a larger pad on a larger rotor. More stopping power. And more pistons is better, go grab a new f sport caliper and start counting pistions is sure is a lot more than 2.

Mxkmster

Abs isn't fastest way to stop it designed to add control to an emergency stop to keep the wheels from locking up and stop being uses full.

Power6

Mxkmster sorry to sound condescending but I come from a bit of "BTDT" and frankly, hanging out on a Lexus forum isn't all that educational for this sort of thing. I don't have the hydraulics of braking wrong the math backs me up, and incidentally it is hard to give you some credit if you can't even spell the word. But at the end of the day I am mostly regurgitating what I have learned from years of tracking and modifying my own cars and participating in clubs and forums with those who actually use the hardware to the limit.

I don't know anything new or revolutionary so it isn't much use for me to try to educate you when all the resources are out there, so here are couple things to check out:

http://www.stoptech.com/technical-su...l-white-papers
http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/show....php?t=1326319

The StopTech stuff is great. The second link of course is a Subaru forum, the level of technical expertise there is astounding, there is lots to learn in a general sense but the specifics don't apply of course. That is just my experience, I have seen tons of good brake talk on Porsche, Corvette forums etc. anywhere people actually use the brakes on the track, race teams in the forums etc. you will find good technical discussion.

I guess you could talk about what goals you are looking to accomplish and we could go from there, maybe find a solution, or you could go on about how you have it all figured out and don't need any help, whatever works for you. Good luck either way and let us know what you come up with.

21oreo21

I want to upgrade my 1999 ES300

What calipers and brackets would I need?

LeX2K

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