HEMIWagon Project Log: Update! Bigass Brake Kit Is Installed

"JGrabowMSt" (jgrabowmst)
07/22/2019 at 12:15 • Filed to: HEMIWagon Project Log, hemi wagon, brembo

Ride height needs serious adjusting. Needs more low in the front.

It has been a long time since this has been updated. A very, very long time. About 9 months ago, I alluded to this happening, and it has finally, after absolutely forever, come to fruition. There will be a lot of photos in this post, I will try to limit them as possible .

The car has sat, as I have dealt with numerous unforeseen issues, primarily unrelated to the brake swap, but some related. Let’s start from the beginning.

The LX factory brakes on the RT cars leave a bit to be desired. If you’re on the brakes for a while, it’s really annoying, as fade is common. Most people swap on the SRT brakes, but those come with an SRT price tag. Some of that is unavoidable, but there’s a lot of room for improvement. My main issue was that unless I get the early 4 piston front, kind of small SRT calipers, I would be forced into running 20 inch wheels all the time. New Jersey is not known for nice roads, as I’m pretty sure the state motto is going to be changed to ‘The Pothole State’ in coming years. I do not want to be running a low profile tire all the time. My second issue is that I want these to look great. The 4 pot SRT calipers just don’t really check that box for me.

Factory Hellcat front Brake caliper and rotor

Enter a lot of Googling. Day after day, until I find a 10+ page !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! found on early E63 AMG (~2007) or S55 AMG models of similar model years. This is a huge brake caliper. It’s larger than my size 10.5 shoe. I’m going to be putting it on my station wagon. This is nuts.

I found a full set up the calipers, front and rear, take offs from an S55 AMG (unknown VIN). This later proved to be a little pointless, as the rear AMG calipers are different from the rear SRT brakes and it’s not compatible. If only I knew (the first of many). About 4 days after purchasing the set on Ebay, my UPS driver delivered a large and kind of heavy box. After reading more on LXForums, I then went to RockAuto and bought front rotors for a 2016+ Charger Pursuit and rear rotors for an SRT Challenger (I don’t believe this would have mattered, the rear brakes on the SRT cars hasn’t changed since the early SRT cars AFAIK).

These were far from pretty when I received them. Very far.

More boxes arrived.

I deviated from the brake upgrade to replace ball joints and lower control arms and stabilizer arms as the years have taken their toll. This car has 210,000 miles on it, it is time to replace some of these parts. I was thankfully able to move my existing poly bushings over to the new arms. This process sucked, but it was successful. Adjustable lower ball joints were installed to hopefully help with any alignment issues that I hopefully don’t run into.

Back to the brakes. I inspected the calipers a little, but apparently it wasn’t enough. When I was disassembling the calipers hoping to prep for powder coat, I found a rather poorly installed helicoil and an absolutely trashed fitting. Great. I dropped the calipers off at a machine shop, and things got pretty bad. Machine shop had the caliper for 4 months for machining out 2 fitting holes. After a couple frustrating visits, I supplied a multi-pack of various fitting sizes for 3/16th line. Finally, with a couple of new fittings sized and tapped for install, and a total of 4 months later, the brakes were back in hand.

I have never seen an M10x1 helicoil. For reference, this is definitely not an M10x1 helicoil.

I played telephone tag with my powder coater, who I was able to drop the calipers off with about a month after receiving them from the machine shop, and the waiting game happened again. The color of choice? Prismatic Colors Illusion Copper. I had originally wanted Baer’s Arizona Copper, but when I saw the sample of Illusion Copper, I just went for it. About 3 weeks later, I got the call that the calipers were ready for pickup. Yes. Finally. I can install them. Maybe.

Damn. I own these. They’re on MY car.

Maybe indeed. I was specifically warned not to get brake fluid on the calipers, as it will dull the clear coat. Good to know. Well, I had bent some crossover lines, but they didn’t really work, and honestly they didnt look great either. Back to the drawing board on that. I go to put the lines on the calipers, and they didn’t get tight. Fittings were tight, line had a lot of movement. Shit. Here we go. Weird problems need weird solutions, right? I’m not going to be let down at this point. I’ve come too far. I started comparing the fittings, and grabbed a couple garbage fittings and cut a few mm of the end off. Discussed with the landlord, as he worked in a restoration shop for many years, and he was unsure. Maybe it will work? He humored me and helped flare the lines, but honestly wasn’t sure. Ghetto is the word that comes to mind as to how to describe this solution. I went to test fit the lines and guess what, it worked. Ghetto or not, I’m able to progress.

Of course, disassembly first. I had to get a lot of parts to get this far. The list:

Mercedes 8 Piston AMG front Brembo calipers

SRT 4 Piston rear Brembo calipers (from an early Jeep SRT)

Rear spindles from a Challenger SRT

Front lower ball joints

Front stabilizer arm

The rear suspension was a nightmare for disassembly. I’m glad I did it first, because lordy, the fronts at least seemed a lot easier in comparison. The driver’s side axle has a leak in the boot and the ABS tone ring is missing a chunk. Neither of these are easily accessible in the spindle, so I’m not sure what caused it, but it’s made a mess along with other issues to deal with. The passenger side rear was no better. The axle seemed to almost be fused to the hub. Lots of heat, and lots of beating with a hammer were the only way I made it through that. Despite mushrooming the outer thread of the passenger axle, I was able to save it by filing down the out thread at a 45 degree angle so the axle nut would go onto good threads and secure the axle properly. The axle boot and tone ring are replaceable, but not a fun job, I am going to try and have the alignment shop deal with this.

The front brakes provided a whole different set of problems. First, the stainless flex lines I had for the factory brakes proved useless. Unfortunate, but the angle and the banjo bolt were just not going to work. I ordered a set of E63 AMG front stainless lines, and encountered a whole new set of problems. The car has lines from the brake system that have inverted flares . The lines that Mercedes used for these giant calipers? Bubble flare . This required a lot of thinking in the back of an Autozone.

If you’ve never been in the back of an Autozone, let me tell you, it’s a magical place. There’s things the employees really don’t know anything about (no offense). I found a special rack with pre-made brake line, fittings and tons of other things that were more or less, exactly what I needed. I ended up purchasing a premade line with bubble flares , and another premade line with inverted flares . I also got myself a pair of inverted flare unions (couplers) that would be able to solve this stupid flare problem. After stopping by a friend’s shop, we had two adapters. Perfect. At least that wasn’t awful.

Yes, it’s blurry. But I came up with a great solution that works really well.

Some annoying tinkering later, and it was assembled. Easy, right? Far from it. I was able to bleed the rear brakes and got some fluid to the calipers, but had issues with the front. Don’t get brake fluid on the calipers, right? Want to play a game? It was bad. A loose line, and then bad fittings. I went through an entire roll of shop towels fighting with the driver’s side front caliper. Somehow after tightening the passenger side front, all was well over there. I now have two bleeder repair kits in the driver side caliper. TWO. Somehow, despite my complete lack of faith, they both hold.

These are actually awful. I hated the installation.

I took the car out to try and bed the brakes. Needs to be bled still, but more progress has been made in the past two weeks than the past 7 months in getting this working. I’ve stared at the car, unable to drive it for months because I wanted to do this right, modifying a little here and a little there, fixing broken things, even going as far as completely disassembling the interior to do a full detail on everything in anticipation of being able to drive this car again. The list of additional parts I needed to figure out:

Stoptech stainless flex lines for Mercedes calipers

Inverted to bubble flare adapters

New axle nut

Motul DOT5.1 brake fluid

EBC Red Stuff brake pads front/rear

2 Bleeder repair kits

Axle boot

Axle ABS tone ring

And I’m sure I forget plenty of details from this swap. Would I do it again? Hard to say. I haven’t yet felt the full braking force, but I have gotten a taste of it. It’s intense. These AMG calipers have close to twice the pad surface area compared to factory SRT brakes. Can’t find much compared to the factory RT brakes, but it’s certainly a lot different. These brakes will certainly compliment the planned engine swap. I’ll be saving up a lot of pennies to make that happen.

Damn. This thing is mine. It’s really actually mine.

What else has happened to it besides the brake upgrade? Two pretty big things. First, I was finally able to score an amazing deal on SRT valve covers and coil packs. My aging coil packs were in really sorry shape. One night I saw them arcing, and that was the biggest reason for not driving the car for so long. Last thing I need is a fire. I was browsing the local Facebook Marketplace ads, and I saw a 6.1L intake and exhaust manifolds for sale, with a coil pack visible in the background . These things are expensive, so I shot the seller a message, thinking maybe they’re still available, maybe I have a shot. After some back and forth, he said the valve covers were not available, but I could have the coil packs for a great price. I rush out to meet him, and he decided to give me the valve covers as well as the coil packs. I learn it’s from a core return motor that’s going back, and while he was originally going to send the valve covers back, he’d do me a solid and give me everything, as he had no use for it . He was repairing a Cherokee SRT8 had spun a rod bearing, and got a replacement complete motor for that car. I bought the coil pack adapter wires off the internet, and ended up taking all of them apart to solder connections after finding a bad adapter. But here I am, running new valve covers and coil packs that aren’t on their last legs.

Original factory coil pack to the car. 210,000 miles on it. Pretty sure that’s not how it’s supposed to look.

This is a lot cleaner than when I first bought the car.

What else did I get? A set of 20 inch wheels. After going through a ton of trouble to make sure I would be able to run my 18 inch steel wheels with this brake kit, I ended up with a set of Factory Reproduction SRT10 replica wheels in 20x9 and 20x10 front and rear respectively. They need to be repaired, every wheel has curb rash, and the rears have a couple slight bends, but they were at a salvage yard for cheap enough that I couldn’t help myself. I’ll have a good set of aggressive tires put on them, and they’ll be a set of track wheels for the car when all is said and done. Admittedly, the steelies are heavy, and they have a really big sidewall, which wont help the car corner better. In the name of performance, I can handle a set of 20s for occasional use, but I do really love the look of the steelies.

These make the brakes look really small. It’s weird.

Hopefully the next update is sooner, the car is running well and going on adventures again. Even only driving the car about 15 miles today was a huge success and felt amazing. It’s been a long time since I’ve had it out, and it’s never felt this great before. I’m relieved and excited that my vision for this car is continuing to take shape, and looks damn good doing it.

DISCUSSION (27)

Long_Voyager, Now With More Caravanny Goodness > JGrabowMSt
07/22/2019 at 12:27

This car has 210,000 miles on it

This article is a lie, everyone knows Mopars cannot make it over 100k........

Jokes aside, those brakes look amazing, Nice W ork!

E90M3 > JGrabowMSt
07/22/2019 at 12:27

Tell me more about this SL600.

CB > JGrabowMSt
07/22/2019 at 12:45

Jeez, it's been a hot minute since I've heard of or thought about this car. Brakes sound like a pain in the ass.

AfromanGTO > JGrabowMSt
07/22/2019 at 13:26

Awesome work!!! I love OEM+ upgrades on cars! I think it is interesting that you used Mercedes parts on your Magnum. I use Motul 5.1 in my GTO, and it has CTS-V brakes on it .

Chan - Mid-engine with cabin fever > JGrabowMSt
07/22/2019 at 14:46

Nothing like getting something done right and knowing it.

JGrabowMSt > E90M3
07/22/2019 at 15:11

What's to know? It's a 1997 SL600 Sport, Monoblocks, basically stock. I'm driving it today while I wait for tires to be replaced for my daily. 126k miles, and over 30k of them have been from me. Runs extremely well, gets run hard, put away wet, but I also treat it well. Hopefully getting some pedantic stuff fixed this year, rock chips, failing mirrors (auto-dimming units, starting to leak). It's a joy to drive, but it is a liability and I do not drive it very often anymore. Last year it only saw about 1200 miles. Looking to beat that this year, but gas prices are up. I've had it for about 5 years now, plan to keep it for many, many more years.

JGrabowMSt > CB
07/22/2019 at 15:13

Yes. It's just been snag after snag. Noticed a small leak at a fitting this morning, so I need to figure out if that's my fault or what. Weather isn't on my side though. Plenty of work to do still to it, many more updates to come.

JGrabowMSt > AfromanGTO
07/22/2019 at 15:14

The Magnum is essentially an E Class wagon from the mid 2000s. The reat subframes are almost identical. In fact, there's a pretty small number of parts that are different between the cars. Was almost a bolt on affair, aside from some of the unseen issues as I got to work.

JGrabowMSt > Long_Voyager, Now With More Caravanny Goodness
07/22/2019 at 15:15

The motor blew up at 147,572 miles. Dig back through the hemiwagon tag for info on that ordeal.

E90M3 > JGrabowMSt
07/22/2019 at 15:21

That’s pretty cool, I didn’t know anyone here had a V12 Mercedes anymore.

Wrong Wheel Drive (41%) > JGrabowMSt
07/22/2019 at 15:53

Holy shit you posted something on kinja!

Also, since you were at Autozone, nice dodge caliber you got there.

AfromanGTO > JGrabowMSt
07/22/2019 at 18:10

That’s pretty amazing! I knew the Charger/300/Magnum were based on the E class chassis, but I didn’t know some many parts were interchangeable .

Doing these brakes required no adapter brackets correct? I didn’t see them mentioned anywhere. On my GTO I had to use adaptor brackets to mount 6 piston CTS-V/ZL1 Camaro front brakes and trimming the dust shield and spacer for CTS-V/ZL1 Camaro 4 piston rear brakes.

I will have many powder coated from yellow and black to blue next time I do the brakes.

Do you have any side shots with the new brakes and wheels?????

Also keep on flushing the lines until all of the super blue is replaced with motul. If it is green keep on flushing them.

JGrabowMSt > AfromanGTO
07/22/2019 at 18:54

I had normal DOT4 in it, Mopar didnt have crazy fluid like Benz does (my R129 has blue coolant). The Motul 5.1 is safe to mix with DOT4, it will just reduce the boiling point and the water resistance (the biggest factors with choosing the DOT5.1 to begin with).

No special brackets, amazingly. The rear calipers required the new rear spindles, there’s no bracket on the market to get around that issue. The fronts have no special bracket, but I had to biggify the mounting holes for the calipers, they are thankfully not threaded. Went from about a 3/8" hole to a 9/16" hole. No other modifications needed. The caliper then required 3mm of spacing out. If you use the OEM SRT front spindles, from what I understand, the bolt holes are already larger, but theyre shaped differently and may require some grinding to get the caliper to clear and bolt up cleanly. I think I am the only person starting with a Magnum RT to do this swap, all other swaps I’ve read about started with other SRT cars, so some of what I am dealing with is specific to my swap, but I also wanted to keep as many OEM or off the shelf parts as I could.

The end goal is to be able to participate in events like the optima street car challenge or drag week or rocky mountain race week. If something goes wrong or I need a replacement part, I want to be able to get it as quickly as possible. Once I start modifying parts, repairs become more difficult.

JGrabowMSt > E90M3
07/22/2019 at 18:55

I never let go of mine. Dont want to either. I think there was an S65 or two. One user, many years ago, told me about buying one of the last 85 Veyrons when that was a thing. Another guy had 2 Ford GTs, he’s a great guy too.

JGrabowMSt > Wrong Wheel Drive (41%)
07/22/2019 at 18:57

Ugh make it stahp.

Yeah, I figured I would keep the updates coming. This morning I felt some stray fluid around one of the repair kit bleeders, not sure if it wasnt tight enough or what, but I was having trouble making sure it was tight before, so that may be it.

Wrong Wheel Drive (41%) > JGrabowMSt
07/22/2019 at 20:06

Your struggles with brake fittings reminds me of the damn neon. I wish after all of that trouble, after finally getting it right, my dad didnt go and break the damn timing belt. Good times though haha.

JGrabowMSt > Wrong Wheel Drive (41%)
07/22/2019 at 20:11

I definitely miss that thing. I was thinking today about if I blow up the 1.6, I should SRT4 swap the miata. Definitely good for dumb power, lighter than an LS.

Wrong Wheel Drive (41%) > JGrabowMSt
07/22/2019 at 20:14

LFX swap is all the rage in a miata.

slipperysallylikespenguins > JGrabowMSt
07/22/2019 at 22:38

That is really awesome that those brakes work with the steelies. I have the same wheels on my 2008 Charger patrol car. I tried to downsize to a 17 inch wheel and they woul dn’t even clear the stock brakes. I’ll have to remember this for when I need new brakes in a year or two.

slipperysallylikespenguins > JGrabowMSt
07/22/2019 at 22:38

JGrabowMSt > slipperysallylikespenguins
07/23/2019 at 09:32

It was not a bolt on affair, I have 1.25" hub adapters on the car due to the offset of the steel wheels. Later on down the road I would love to send a wheel over to Detroit Steel Wheels and have them make a wider set with correct offset so I dont need the hub adapters. According to NHRA rules, hubcentric hub adapters will p ass tech, as there is more than adequate thread engagement between both the hub adapter and the wheel. These are just street wheels for me, so I dont anticipate running into issues with it. The Viper rep wheels will also have more than adequate thread engagement, so those would be the wheels I would put on for any event that would require I pass tech anyway.

Using just spacers would jeopardize passing tech (doesn’t mean it wont pass) as it was explained to me. I do believe with the 14.6" rotors I have now, the correct offset 17" wheel could clear these brakes, as the S class had a 17" wheel option, but I could be wrong, it would really depend on the wheel.

StndIbnz, Drives a MSRT8 > JGrabowMSt
07/23/2019 at 09:34

Man, it has been a long time! I remember hearing on the forums that the 8 pots were a nice upgrade, had no idea it was that much work to make they fit though! What rotors are you using for them / how are they mounted to the knuckle?

Good to see some more progress on this build! Long live the Magnums!

E90M3 > JGrabowMSt
07/23/2019 at 09:38

I knew there were a couple people, but I know one got rid of it and I don’t think I’ve seen the other in a while.

JGrabowMSt > StndIbnz, Drives a MSRT8
07/23/2019 at 23:19

I drilled out the existing RT bracket holes to 9/16" and it was a perfect fit for the calipers to bolt right on. I could have also just gotten the SRT front spindles, I believe those are the correct size already. I used the 2016+ police package front rotors, they were $38 from RockAuto. Hard to argue with that. Helped me stay within budget.

I actually yanked the driver front caliper. The bleed screw repair kit isn’t working, blew my hopes for taking the car to PA for this Sunday. Oh well. I need it to be correct, not rushed. They’re heavy calipers but lord do they have stopping power. I went through bedding the calipers already, within 10 mins of hot lapping my neighborhood using the hill to get to speed and mashing the brakes, all four corners were smoking. This is no joke of a big brake kit. The rear setup is 100% factory parts. Managed to use a washer with the SRT banjo bolts and Stoptech SS flex lines for a good fit. There’s still air in the brakes though, so once I get this caliper done, I’ll be bleeding it as far as I can go before sending it off for alignment, where hopefully they can cycle the ABS pump. Apparently there’s no way around it if you’re starting with a dry system. I also got the interior dirty again. A little more pissed about that than having to send the caliper out again, but whatever.

Once this is all over with, I plan to clay bar the car. Needs it bad. Also need to adjust the roof racks. She'll be out hurting feelings soon enough.

StndIbnz, Drives a MSRT8 > JGrabowMSt
07/24/2019 at 08:47

Amazing work, nice job. That is a ton of braking power, the stock SRT 4 pots haul it down nicely but I’ve never been on a track with repeated abuse. Love seeing your build updates!

Anthony Sanchez > JGrabowMSt
05/17/2020 at 12:52

Yo, how can I get a hold of MountainCommand (Mike?)