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Brembo brakes off 500 on a 124?

8K views 23 replies 12 participants last post by  rdass623 
My wife wanted the Brembo's on her Abarth and they seem like unobtanium unless custom ordered. I told her that I would add them once she had the car.

Two months in with the car and she keeps asking.

Anybody know of updates?
if you are specifically looking for brembo, you have a task on hand. if you are looking for an upgrade, the wilwoods are going to be the easiest way to go. the factory brembo package is only brembo front brakes. the rears are the standard calipers painted red. if you are looking for improved braking for the streets and occasional autox, the four piston front and rear wilwoods are a great upgrade at a reasonable price (about $1200). if you are looking for a bit more stopping power, you can go for the six piston fronts with the four piston rears (about $1500), both will work well on the stock rotors. if you are planning on tracking the car there are numerous rotor options which are available. considering the factory brembo option was over $3000, the wilwoods seem to be a win win option...... just my $0.02
 
Interesting, didn't know that. I wonder why they went with Brembo front brakes only.
the vast majority of the braking is done by the forward wheels in the direction of travel, so the braking of the trailing wheels is not as important, so when you are looking for bang for your buck a front brake upgrade is the most cost effective option. up until the mid 90's the idea of four wheel disk brakes were a rarity and drum brakes were generally used on the rear wheels of cars. still today, a lot of the trucks are still using drum brakes on the rears. as most of us who tow with our trucks know, good brakes are a major safety factor, and may consider a disk brake option with the purchase of a new truck.
 
No argument - but what I find odd is the discs on the A124 are all the same size ....279mm front & rear !!

These fronts are smaller (just) than the standard A500, let alone my A5oo with 305mm Brembos
as you may have noticed, most of the 124 is in fact mazda miata... if fiat's engineers decided to make changes to the 500, and they own the production facility, those changes can be easily done. if the engineers are farming out to another manufacturer's facility, chances are there are limitations on which changes to the chassis design are allowed or cost effective for production and meeting price point. as far as I am concerned, one of the factors which weighed heavily on my decision to purchase my 124, was the fact of a miata chassis and the ability to upgrade the platform using mazda parts, which are far more accessable and less expensive than what would amount to being a much smaller production run as a fiat based platform. for a long time the miata has been a favorite of club racers, and the support form the aftermarket suppliers has been great. although fiat has recently re-emerged into the usa market, their presence is miniscule on comparison to Mazda's, which is shown through the multiple sources for go fast goodies and also for this thread the slow down goodies as well......
 
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