• From: Auburn, NH
  • Registered: 2019-11-02
  • Posts: 81

Topic: Honda nerds- you can help!!

Hey everyone. I’m a Miata guy who’s British friends are now importing a Rover 600. This car is basically a reskinned European market accord from the mid 90s. Those of you who have raced accords and civics of this era how are the stock brakes with good pads in Lemons?

El Capitan of Team Corky
94 Miata transitioning to BRG because she now identifies as a Lotus previously covered in cork as Mazda/Toyo Kogyo tribute then painted like the Queen's coffin
4 time tire raffle winner. (So I got that goin for me which is nice)
  • From: Plymouth, MA
  • Registered: 2013-06-07
  • Posts: 787

Re: Honda nerds- you can help!!

I race a 1987 Honda Prelude Si, but I upgraded front brakes (rotors, calipers, knuckle assembly, axle, etc.) to a Accord (1989) LxI....the hub, rotor, brakes are bigger
The wheel on the Prelude would snap off with the hub on the turns, happened 3? times, kinda sad when your car flies off the track and you see your tire passing you....
Now its been great....and more parts available
Rear is stock
I use EBC Yellow pads in the rear, and Hawk Blue in front (EBC Yellow in front wore out too quickly).  4 wheel disc brakes.  Stops really well.  The car is quite light now, so it really brakes well.  I was thinking of getting an adjustable proportioning valve, but everyone that drives the car says the brakes are really well proportioned with stock valve, so I left it alone.
Otherwise, we did a brake booster delete...feels better. A bit of a project, but after lots of calculations, estimations, approximations, and, well,....guesses....we got a master cylinder off a Prius that seemed to work the best....I did not mind just unplugging the booster from the vacuum, but for some, it was a bit too difficult to brake....now its at a happy medium...
anyways, best of luck!
Cheers!
mz

MarioKart Driving School: 1987 Honda Prelude Si (Opus #28) 
Loudon, NH 2014 - Millville, NJ, Lightening 2019 (RIP)
New and improved: 1987 Honda Prelude Si (Opus #11) Pittsburgh, PA 2021 - ??
and finally won something, Class C Win: Loudon, NH 2022
  • VKZ24
  • VKZ24
  • Lemons Staff Stalker
  • Offline
  • From: Wilson, NC
  • Registered: 2009-05-20
  • Posts: 1,840

Re: Honda nerds- you can help!!

We race a 1993 Integra and the parts swaps between platforms is one really nice thing about running a Honda.  Up front we have upgraded calipers from the Acura Legend (bolt-on) and run larger rotors from a Mini Cooper S.  The rear brakes are stock.  We run Raybestos ST-43 pads and get at least 3 entire races on them.

Captain
Team Super Westerfield Bros.
'93 Acura Integra - No VTEC Yo!

VKZ24's Website

  • Registered: 2014-11-11
  • Posts: 148

Re: Honda nerds- you can help!!

Sorry for late reply.  We have raced a 91 accord and now race a 93 accord.  Brakes were one of our challenges.  Any of the brake fluids that have a dry boil around 600F are fine. I think the best value is redline.  For pads we tried Porterfield and Porterfield-e compound pads and two Hawk compounds and none of them lasted a whole weekend on the fronts and they all ate rotors like sharks in a feeding frenzy. 

After our first race we swapped out the hub-over-rotor factory brakes for some honda oem franken brakes. The knuckles are from a 99 cl 3.0 (moves the caliper out ~1" to accommodate a 10% larger rotor, the rotors are for some prelude or other and are an inch bigger diameter. We ducted air at them. But the thing that changed everything were the raybestos st43 pads.  Yeah they are expensive per set but dirt cheap per race. A genuine value. We get 6 or more races per set of front pads, have only bought the rear pads once, and haven't needed new rotors (cheap centric blanks) for more at least 10 races and they show no wear. 

So iffin you have hub-over-rotor, change that because it sucks to work on, and go straight to raybestos st43 pads. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if the totally stock setup with good fluid and st43s works perfectly well. Maybe duct some air at them to add pad life.  I order ours from Porterfield and I think they are super nice folks. We also changed the rear drums to disks, but mostly because the disks are way easier to work on and a bit lighter. The drums never failed us. We did the drum-to-disk by swapping in the entire rear subframe from 99 3.0 CL, which gets you a slightly bigger rear swaybar, 1" wider track, about -1 deg camber with stock arms, and disk rears and it just bolts right in. There was also some concern about nissin versus akibono calipers, both of which are found at random on accords and preludes.  I think we settled on the nissins because the pads are much more readily available but I could have that backwards.  The only advantage I see to fancy pants calipers like willwoods would be less unsprung weight. Gimmie the cash for a set of willwods and I'll find 5 better ways to spend it on other stupid car stuff.