M-B S500 MK3 Supra Big Brake Swap
So there’s a lot of confusion on this, and I’m going to write down everything I know about this to help people out. NOTE: The original creator of this mod is Edwin Rohena Ellis, I DIDN’T COME UP WITH THIS, I just wanted to help clarify what worked for future reference, as a lot of posts I found on this subject are very vague.
This swap gives you a 324mm rotor with a four piston Brembo caliper in the front, vs. the stock 302mm rotor with a single piston. The most critical part of the entire swap is the calipers, of which there are several variants people use. The one that definitively worked for me is the following:
This is the correct caliper design.
This is the brake caliper for a 2000-2002 Mercedes Benz S500. The part number on Rock Auto for it is 0014208283, and according to them, they came on the: CL500 2000-2002 CL55 AMG 2001-2002 CL600 2001-2002 S430 2000-2002 S500 2000-2002 S55 AMG 2001-2002 S600 2001-2002
The ear length (the circled section) is 110mm apart and 120 mm from the top of the caliper to the base of the ear.
It is critical you get one for specifically these years however as the red circled part is different in later brakes, pictured below:
The above caliper design is incorrect. It is pictured to show the difference between an early MB caliper and a later one.
Once you have the correct calipers, next are rotors. I am using 2007 Nissan 350Z Track Package rotors, measurements below:
As with before, there are several variants of this rotor and it is critical that these measurements are met.
There are two sizes of Nissan 350Z rotor. The larger 324mm disc, pictured above, which is correct, and the smaller 296mm disc that came on the non-Brembo brake packages of the base model. The 324mm disc is the one that fits; do not get a 296mm base model disc. On Rockauto, the part number is 40206CD005 and its applications are:
INFINITI G35 2003-2004 (Brembo Package) NISSAN 350Z 2003-2009 (Brembo Package)
Using this setup, there is about 3mm of clearance to the top of the bracket
For a brake hose, use the stock Mercedes hose that fits with the caliper, and thread it into the Supra stock upper hose (where it connects at the bracket). According to Rock Auto, this hose was used on the front brakes of:
CLS500 2006 CLS55 AMG 2006 CLS550 2007-2011 CLS63 AMG 2007-2011 E320 2003-2009 E350 2006-2009 E500 2003-2006 E55 AMG2 003-2006 E550 2007-2009 E63 AMG 2007-2009 S350 2006 S430 2000-2006 S500 2000-2006 S55 AMG 2001-2006 S600 2001-2006 S65 AMG 2006
Next, installation. The calipers do not naturally center over the rotors, and so washers must be used for spacing, and the bolt sizes are different between the stock and Mercedes calipers.
There are 9 mm of spacing between the bracket and the caliper, using an M12 x 1.50 pitch 40mm bolt to hold it together. This is for both upper and lower caliper mounting point. I recommend having a single piece machined for this step as the washers can cause issues with the bolt backing out (guess who found this out the hard way)
Final Fitment Issues:
The caliper protrudes from the disc forward 63.5mm vs. stock 36.5mm. Additionally, the stock rotor is set back an extra 13 mm in thickness vs. the Z rotor, as the hat size to rotor thickness ratio is different. In total, this means that the new caliper protrudes 40 mm further to the outside of the car than the stock setup. I am running 17 x 9 +22 offset wheels and have about 1-2 mm of clearance from my wheel face. Additionally, the center bore of the Z rotors and the hub of the MK3 is different. As such, you need 60mm to 68mm hubcentric rings to center the new rotors on the hub face. If you have questions, please email me at anths95 (at) gmail (dot) com and title your email Supra Brake Swap so that I know what the email regards. I hope this helps some of you so you don’t have to buy two sets of everything as I did.
