i would stick with oem. i have made the mistake of cheaping out on brakes and tires before. Corollas already have weak brakes for such a lightweight vehicle. It takes about 140-ft to come to a complete stop from 60mph in a corolla(dodge neon 120ft, civic 128ft, Mazda 3 125ft). Reasons for poor braking symptoms can include small tires, small pads/rotors, poor quality pads, overheating brakes, use of drum brakes instead of discs and lack of ABS. In case of 1999 corolla the vehicle suffers all of the above. I am not sure if recent brake pads/rotors sold by toyota have improved in quality since 1999 perhaps fish has more info about this. However i don't think any aftermarket brakes surpass oem brakes (for the price). So do not further decrease your already poor braking performance and stick with oem. If you want aftermarket try Brembo, Zimmermann, PBR or Hawks performance brake pads for the front. Ensure to replace the rear brake shoes with good quality brakes as well; a vehicle with a much more sticky front brakes is more dangerous than one with mediocre brakes all around.

ps. i did get aftermarket monroe shoes and had the drums machined. since about the same time i have been experiencing a squeal noise sometimes when i depress the brakes about half to full. this noise only lasts for moments and goes away but it is very annoying and i can't tell if its the front or the rear. not wanting to steal your topic but if anyone had any suggestions on how to figure out wether its the rear or the front this would help me a great deal

Thanks guys. You suggestions are great.

 

I run 93 calipers (larger than 91), drilled/slotted rotors, and green stuff pads on my MR2. It is also light-weight but, with 250 whp and agressive driving, I have taken it to the lock-up limit a few times. I should probably put big brakes on it someday.

I run Centric solid rotors and Hawk pads on the Evo. Haven't approached the limit on these yet. It's an RS so it doesn't have ABS (it is a stripped version intended for track), but doesn't have any trouble stopping.

I am not sure if ABS makes much difference when steep braking. On ice, gravel, or uneven surface yes. But on the freeway, no, I modulate the peddle anyway. I know a little about ABS as my Supra has it with stock rotors and pads. I drive it as hard as the MR2 and Evo but those brakes never seem to get ruffled (and, yes, I have caused the ABS to go on many times).

I drive the Corolla like our old Civic hyrid 5 speed (basically baby it) but there are times when you are in the carpool lane and someone pulls in front of you. Then and for a while afterwards I notice the pulsing (I read this to mean the brakes are heating up quickly and warped rotors). I just want the pulsing to go away.

i hear ya, i had to brake once with 5 people in the car downhill, the car just didnt wanna stop (oem pads). im getting hawks hps ($80) installed tomorrow on the front with oem rotors, and as fish suggested i will get the rear brakes greased up to reduce noise. I do not recommend hawks ceramic for corolla...my understanding is that hawks ceramics only provides improved friction when hot (under constant high speed braking). So it contains more carbon material and this makes it fade free. In basic street driving, ceramics will provide less bite than oem. Also oem honda pads that came with my RDX and TL are pretty impressive in their initial bite but not as effective as say HPS in lockups. So maybe try getting oem Honda pads if you can for cheap,,, it's certainly better than Toyota's, i have tried this.

So:

Metallic brake pads OEM: Good initial bite, low-dust, low-noise, brake fading

Semi-metallic (hawks hps, brembo blanks): Better and more consistent stopping power, less fade, best all around

Ceramic Brake pads: fade-free, mediocre cold friction (street use), superior hot friction (track use), horrendous amount of dust and noise

ps. cross drilled/slotted rotors are prone to warping and extreme damage. "whenever you are taking away the rotor’s structural integrity by drilling holes or cutting slots into it you are weakening it, now add high temperatures to the mix and the formula for damaging rotors is complete." This why i stay away from these kinds of rotors and i have always found oem rotors great. I mean unless you drive at 200+ km.h i dont see the point of cross drilled brakes, specialy for lightweight vehicles such as mr2. Auto marketing is huge right now and best sellers are CAI, Xenon lighting, cross drilled brakes, spoilers and loud mufflers. To be honest none of these things really add to your vehicles performance and are total waste of cash. I have added CAI on several vehicles and have never noticed any gain in power. If you even check K&N website you will see their marketing schemes they pull on you. The graphs they display with 5+ HP claims are totally bogus. The difference in horsepowers are almost always shown at different RPMS! Of course the vehicle will make more horsepower in higher rpms, this has nothing to do with the CAI!! Most of the import vehicles already have good air flow. and xenon lighting, what is the point of xenon lights with reflectors??? honestly all you are doing is creating huge amount of glare, you will not improve your long distance vision without projectors. Loud mufflers wont give you the extra economy or horsepower just create noise...and cross drilled brake i have already explained. I would save the cash in here and spend on headers, light-weight crank pulleys, superchargers, 6 speed manuals....stuff that make a difference. Though even superchargers cost more money than they provide in return generally...for example most transmissions are only capable of taking stock level engine torque anything higher your tranny will be toast...so add 3000$ for a new transmission on top of the couple grands you just spent on the supercharger!

i hear ya, i had to brake once with 5 people in the car downhill, the car just didnt wanna stop (oem pads). im getting hawks hps ($80) installed tomorrow on the front with oem rotors, and as fish suggested i will get the rear brakes greased up to reduce noise. I do not recommend hawks ceramic for corolla...my understanding is that hawks ceramics only provides improved friction when hot (under constant high speed braking). So it contains more carbon material and this makes it fade free. In basic street driving, ceramics will provide less bite than oem. Also oem honda pads that came with my RDX and TL are pretty impressive in their initial bite but not as effective as say HPS in lockups. So maybe try getting oem Honda pads if you can for cheap,,, it's certainly better than Toyota's, i have tried this.

So:

Metallic brake pads OEM: Good initial bite, low-dust, low-noise, brake fading

Semi-metallic (hawks hps, brembo blanks): Better and more consistent stopping power, less fade, best all around

Ceramic Brake pads: fade-free, mediocre cold friction (street use), superior hot friction (track use), horrendous amount of dust and noise

ps. cross drilled/slotted rotors are prone to warping and extreme damage. "whenever you are taking away the rotor's structural integrity by drilling holes or cutting slots into it you are weakening it, now add high temperatures to the mix and the formula for damaging rotors is complete." This why i stay away from these kinds of rotors and i have always found oem rotors great. I mean unless you drive at 200+ km.h i dont see the point of cross drilled brakes, specialy for lightweight vehicles such as mr2. Auto marketing is huge right now and best sellers are CAI, Xenon lighting, cross drilled brakes, spoilers and loud mufflers. To be honest none of these things really add to your vehicles performance and are total waste of cash. I have added CAI on several vehicles and have never noticed any gain in power. If you even check K&N website you will see their marketing schemes they pull on you. The graphs they display with 5+ HP claims are totally bogus. The difference in horsepowers are almost always shown at different RPMS! Of course the vehicle will make more horsepower in higher rpms, this has nothing to do with the CAI!! Most of the import vehicles already have good air flow. and xenon lighting, what is the point of xenon lights with reflectors??? honestly all you are doing is creating huge amount of glare, you will not improve your long distance vision without projectors. Loud mufflers wont give you the extra economy or horsepower just create noise...and cross drilled brake i have already explained. I would save the cash in here and spend on headers, light-weight crank pulleys, superchargers, 6 speed manuals....stuff that make a difference. Though even superchargers cost more money than they provide in return generally...for example most transmissions are only capable of taking stock level engine torque anything higher your tranny will be toast...so add 3000$ for a new transmission on top of the couple grands you just spent on the supercharger!

Thanks, the brakes on the MR2 are cross-drilled cryogenic rotors. I have used them for over 5 years and am about ready to replace the pads. There have been no issues with the rotors. Here is a write up from the Illinois Police Department on cryogenic rotors:

http://www.cryo-ice....olice_fleet.pdf

I think that manufacturers have cross-drilled rotors figured out. They are used on BMW and Porche cars. Besides, they look cool

Not all add-ons are a waste of money. I check the reviews of products before looking into buying them. Compact Sport used to be great at this. They would test with an unmodified car, dyno it, and then dyno it again with the mod. The truth is in the print-out.

Except for our Corolla and Ecipse GT, all our cars are turbocharged. A free-flow intake and exhaust makes a big difference. A stop watch verifies this easily whether it is 0-60 or passing a slower car. I once installed a turbo kit on a Dasun 620 truck and ran it with and without an exhaust. The difference was hugh.

Speaking of modding an economy car. Other that adding an intake and or exhaust I wouldn't do it. The cars are usually built just to their budget and are not designed with extra capacity. I blew up that truck motor by the way..

Forced induction is different. Obviously turbocharging will increase power big time but since my rdx came turbocharged all i did was reflashed the ECU to get extra and more consistent psi accross the rpm ranges (30 hp gain). but i never noticed any difference with non-turbo vehicle mods such as mufflers, cold-air intakes, exhausts etc. you will probably get 3-7 hp? turbo vehicles however can benefit from from 3" sport exhausts a great deal, although turbocharging a stock vehicle can be harmful to the transmission and god knows how many people i have heard complaining of screwing up their tranny this way. Also i think the corolla is a great vehicle to turbo-charge, specially the 98-02 models,,, they have lots of space in there lol. Also the compression is not too high unlike the 2zz-ge and it is a longstroke. Swap in a heavy duty 6 speed and you'll be surprised. I'm not going to do this of course not now anyway i just need this car for carpooling in the city but later on before its end of life who knows lol

i installed the hawk HPS today and very happy with them so far. The squealing noise i complained about seems to be gone?! i thought that was the rear or maybe they only squeal when cold, i guess ill find out later. As expected the hawks have excellent stopping power on hard braking but they do need a bit of warming up. There is no fading however, not that i noticed anyway. I decided to bed in the brakes by braking moderately 7 times from 35 to 15mph and then doing 3 45-15mph hard braking. I coasted for about 10min and continue normal driving. The only complain is a bit of pulsating noise right before coming to a full stop on moderate braking. overall a good product and worth the 80 bucks.

i installed the hawk HPS today and very happy with them so far. The squealing noise i complained about seems to be gone?! i thought that was the rear or maybe they only squeal when cold, i guess ill find out later. As expected the hawks have excellent stopping power on hard braking but they do need a bit of warming up. There is no fading however, not that i noticed anyway. I decided to bed in the brakes by braking moderately 7 times from 35 to 15mph and then doing 3 45-15mph hard braking. I coasted for about 10min and continue normal driving. The only complain is a bit of pulsating noise right before coming to a full stop on moderate braking. overall a good product and worth the 80 bucks.

my only problem now aside from the minor noise is excessive brake pedal travel or "spongy brakes". i had the fluid bleeded out last year which i dont think made any difference. i dont know how to fix this. how can you stiffen the brake pedal or make it more sensitive like newer corollas (03-05)

toyota asks for 100$ to bleed out the fluid. small shops ask for same price range too. So im not sure if im going to do this again im afraid i will not see a difference. The problem is whenever i drive my other vehicles and then drive the corolla i become so surprised when i brake having to depress the pedal quite a lot to get some braking. I asked a few people and they claim that this car has soft brakes and there is nothing wrong with them, its more like a you get what you brake for. My brakes are soft until about halfway where they become stiff.

toyota asks for 100$ to bleed out the fluid. small shops ask for same price range too. So im not sure if im going to do this again im afraid i will not see a difference. The problem is whenever i drive my other vehicles and then drive the corolla i become so surprised when i brake having to depress the pedal quite a lot to get some braking. I asked a few people and they claim that this car has soft brakes and there is nothing wrong with them, its more like a you get what you brake for. My brakes are soft until about halfway where they become stiff.

http://www.sears.com/shc/s/p_10153_12605_00947058000P?sid=IDx20070921x00003a&ci_src=14110944&ci_sku=00947058000P

If you follow the product directions, it can be a one-man operation. It is more complicated when you have anti-lock brakes. I pay someone else to bleed those.

you have to press down 2 inches to get a bite?? I just tried measure my brake pedal travel and found that it needs 1.5 in to actually engage the brakes with some force. So pressing 1.4 in of pedal actually doesn't do anything just turns the brake lights on. The sharpest brakes i've ever seen were on a suzuki sx4 which engaged at the slightest touch. anyway i did not feel any difference switching to hawks hps from 30$ pads in the brake pedal. The braking is improve quite a lot if you do some hard braking but in general day to day braking there is no difference. On my TL when i just replaced the rear pads the braking was really improved, i could feel it in the pedals too (no change in brake pads brands both were oem). In my corolla i never noticed a difference when i first installed monroe shoes and machined the rear drums last month and also when i replaced the front with hawks recently.

Anyway i've dropped off my corolla at the dealership to change brake fluid and have it bleed out. I will post back results when i get it back.

The brake pedal feels much better now, brakes engage at about 2cm (0.8 in) and stay pretty linear. They flushed the brake fluid and got new toyota brake fluid in...also they bled all 4 brakes.

thanks for the help.

nope they didn't say anything, just asked them to replace brake fluid and flush. brakes work great so far, did some high speed braking in highway and was pleased with the performance. however there was a smell of burning flour? sort of like the smell in a bakery lol. Im guessing that was the brake pads.

Where can I get braided stainless steel brake lines for my '03 Corolla? What is needed to install them? Brake work is one area of auto maintenance I haven't explored -- yet, but I'm willing to give it a try!

heres my 2 cents on this subject. my personal car is an 04. at 9k i upgraded the brakes with braided stanless hoses(d.o.t. approved) and swithed to ECM green organic disc pads. mild performance steet pads. the breaking improved dramatically along with 205/60 tires. i could release pressure on the pedal on firm stops once the heat would build up while slowing comeing to a stop. dust didnt increase dramatically either. at 80k i drove home frome work one night with the parking brake slightly on. smelled the heat when got home. very hot. splashed some water on drums and turned to steam. decided to do brakes all around. drums turned,napa shoes,new rotors from auto zone and new ebc green pads. it took some fiddleing around adjusting the rear drums and parking brake. now there just as good as before. i do believe a better quality rotor might help some. i didnt turn the stock rotors due to time constraints and inconvienence. compare to all the corollas at work that are route cars driven 200 plus miles daily in chicagoland traffic its a bit better. my work route car is an 09,i put 78k on it so far. all original brakes,soon due. the other 9th gen. corollas have had some break jobs. one turned into a disaster. mechanic used autozone rotors and ceramic pads. the pads ate the rotors to pieces in now time. i ocassionally drove this car. these rotors/pads were replace by same autozone rotors and semimetalic pads. worked smoothly good brakeing. thats why i chose autozone rotors,most of the fleet use them and they never been the problem,its the pad choice thats the culprit. f.y.i. my 04 has more pep and snappy shifting than the 09 i drive daily at work. i use work corollas as reference cars. independent mechanic does route car work,not in house.