Can you use rear calipers as front calipers?

[goinginzane]

Is it possible to use rear calipers like 996 or 986.352.425 and 426 as front calipers?

From what i looked op on the net the 352.425 and 426 use the same size disc rotors as the 986.351.421 and 422 so to me it seems it might work. Does anybody has any experience with this?

I would want to use them on my stripped 90Q so i think these rear calipers should be strong enough to hold down a 1250 kilo and 450 hp strong audi 90q.

[DarrenM]

even if you could get them to fit, surely they'd have no balls to stop anyway near that amount of power!

[BRY]

The pistons are too small in the rear Porsche calipers.
This reduces the leverage (ratio from master cylinder to caliper cylinders) and makes the pedal very hard.
It also makes a mess of the brake balance.
They have been tried and removed by various people.

[panzerwagen]

Yes you can. Don't let anybody tell you it can't be done.....

Check the archives I did it successfully 2 years ago using the calipers you have mentioned. All it takes is innovation, imagination and some ******** to tell the naysayers to stick it.

[goinginzane]

@panzerwagen : And how is the braking power?? With how much power do you run?

[kwlw]

@panzerwagen : And how is the braking power?? With how much power do you run?

Braking power? What is it? I'm running rears on the front.

If you will not use big rears, as GT2 or turbo 996 had, then you are limited to about 26mm of disk thickness. And that is bad. With bigger rears - you can run 28 or 30mm, like on normal mono's.

Second - S2 master cylinder is way too big for the rears on the front. This means hard as stone brake pedal, and locking rear way before front locks. Hard as stone - I mean it. To train your foot for braking, you can push the wall. About the same feeling with braided lines. You need to apply about 40-50kg to lock front tires. And your rear will lock at about half of that.

Even with the smaller MC It's very very hard on the street, however, I have noticed, that on the track, when you get pumped by adrenaline, and your heart bpm rises, pedal becomes quite soft . Fade resistance is the same as normal monoblocks (because bigger rears are essentially the same casting).

In conclusion I can tell you - you can live with it (DS2500 makes life easier), however, you save fraction of funds, and loosing half of the pleasure. Think about it.

Like everybody, I'm putting my rears away (for a while at least) for the next season, and changing front calipers to something with bigger pistons. Like 996 front mono's . In my setup it's just bolting another caliper to the carrier and here you go.

Sau

[S2_Dave]

Billzcat used to make a kit that used rear (IIRC) 996 calipers at the front. The website no longer works though (I've just checked) and I couldn't comment on how well they worked.

I'm sure BRY could supply you with some bigger stopping power at the front.