I've been doing tons of research on FF and other sites, and I'm trying to find a consolidated DIY of sorts for replacing the rear drums with discs but also upgrading the standard fit calipers to something with a larger rotor.

I am currently living in the UK with my USDM 09 sport and have acquired a rear axle from a breakers yard. Unfortunately, it didn't come with the calipers or e-brake cables, so I figure I might as well upgrade the calipers before I put this onto the car. I have seen BMW Alpina's work and it was very impressive, and while he has been a great resource in most of my research, I didn't see a whole lot about what he did with the rear. I know it was a JDM RS axle, and I recall seeing the use of ITR rear calipers, but was that it? Does the JDM RS rear come with 260mm discs already? According to Brembo's website, the standard rear discs on the jazz are 239mm, with a 33mm height, except for the jazz hybrid, which comes with 260mm with a 31mm height. Does anyone know if the ITR rear calipers are a bolt on to the fit? Are differet e-brake cables required? I can't seem to find any data on the hybrid caliper size vs ITR, and just want to know if anyone has any info on this. If you are still out there BMW Alpina, I would love to get some feedback on your setup.

 

I swapped mine to discs last year. I live in the states for reference. I required a milled and machined bracket to mount the 02-06 Acura RSX (Think its the Integra over there) and it came with 11 inch rotors (260mm?) I didn't need new parking brake cables, but I did need to use this L shaped bracket between the cable end and the brake lever on the caliper.

 

Red 05- do you have more info on your rear disc swap? '02-'06 RSX is 5 lug. Did you instead use '02-'03 EP3 Civic SI, which shares the same chassis with the RSX, for the 4 lug rear rotors, calipers and brackets? What actual caliper brackets did you use/ machine? What adaptor did you use for the emergency brake cables?

Actually, instead of me hijacking this thread to ask my questions, why don't you consider posting a thread that details what you did? It could help a lot of people looking to convert to rear discs. Thanks.

 

The calipers are indeed from a RSX, I remember the part reference I wrote down when the time comes for new pads, but I never got a clear answer for what the rear rotors are from. I think they're '00 Integra GSR rear discs. Don't quote me on it though. I used this kit from Fastbrakes.com when I did the job. Now I see they sell the kit sans the calipers and pads for about half price now, which includes the adapter. Both kits come with the hardware for hubcentric rings, parking brake cable adapters and braided steel lines. Beware they can and do send the wrong length braided length for the calipers. The passenger rear supplied brake line was nowhere near long enough to work, so we made a 12' custom hardline fastened to the swingarm to make up the difference. The instruction were pretty lame, not very specific and omitted steps. Mystery bag of hardware had us guessing what went where. It went together in one afternoon, however. Took two trips into town and later a trip to the ER when I passed my kidney stone.

I found all the information for doing my rear swap from here, but I admit OP's experience and mine weren't quite the same. I didn't take much of any pictures during the install. I took one pic of the drum before disassembly in case we had to reassemble for lack of a part. Also, wasn't in a great state of mind during install because I was in pretty intense pain in the middle of July in Alabama.

EDIT: for grins and giggles look at this. How about that for a conversion kit.....

 

Thanks for the info thus far. I'm guessing the folks who have done the conversion to disc have mostly done the fastbrakes kit and have not swapped out the rear itself. Not sure if it would be worth me bringing back a handful of rears for conversions, I'm sure most folks have either moved on to the GK or are modifying something else all together. I know that the EP3 Si is the 4 bolt variant of the RSX brake setup and I'll try to dig one of those up and take some measurements. Not sure what the European civics run as they are completely different from the US civics. I'm also looking at upgrading the master cylinder, but I will start a separate thread for that, as the cost for the J's racing part is insane and goes against what I'm trying to do here, which is keeping all the modifications to the car as pure OEM.

*Note: That Ksport kit is one hell of a rear brake upgrade, a bit overkill if you ask me, but different strokes for different folks.

 

I think BMW_ALPINA has done the CRZ master cylinder conversion on his. No idea if that's the truth or if I've made that up though.

 

Last post of his I recall seeing was a japanese odyssey master cylinder with an ek civic brake booster. I really wish I was back in the states at this point, I could roam around u pull it yards and compare master cylinders out of all types of hondas and acuras. There must be SOMETHING that is larger than 3/4 that doesn't need to have the brake lines modified because its built for the wrong side of the car. Not that its a big deal that it is, but if something already exists in the US that works, I'd much rather do that. I'll look into the CRZ master cylinder and the fit hybrid, they may be larger units.

 

I'd swap with you if I could. Been toying with the idea of importing a halfcut for the interior and JDM front end conversion. I mean it's a cheap economy car but I like what I like, would rather have something I like for a long time.

 

What do you need for the JDM front conversion? The UKDM cars should be the same as the JDM with regards to dimensions, its just the engines that are likely different (1.2, 1.3, 1.4). They do have an Si Jazz here, never bothered looking at the interior though.

 

Well you raise a fair point, I've never considered the UK Jazz. Would need most of the underlying framework plus fenders, hood, bumpers, lights, ECT to make it work on a US Fit. There's a thread around here somewhere with the conversion, it's not very easy if memory serves well.

Depending on what sort of interior the UK Fits got I might still go JDM, just because some of those got amazing options.

 

Just as a small update, it turns out the Jazz hybrid came with 260mm rear discs, almost identical to the EP3Si. While that makes purchasing the rear discs super easy, I don't know of a way to confirm if the EP3Si bracket bolts up the same as the 239mm bracket of the standard Jazz. Does anyone have any insight on this? Has Honda always used the same caliper bolt spacing when attaching to the assembly? The Jazz hybrid brakes are hard to find, the powerstop set for the EP3 can be gotten painted for $200, which is why I'm inquiring. If somebody has the bolt spacing on the caliper bracket moun on the EP3Si I can measure the spacing on the standard Jazz.

 

Holy hell, I've been waiting for them to do this. There was no way I was going to pay close to $800. Now I might actually do the ITR front brake upgrade!

It's honestly a very safe assumption it will be the same bolt spacing, but your results may vary due to offset spacing... The rear calipers on both the Jazz Hybrid and '02-05 Si use the same rebuild kit, however the rotors' part numbers do not match between the two. Standard Jazz utilizes the 99-00 Si's rebuild kit but again the rotors' part numbers do not match. Mildly annoying OEM Honda parts diagrams don't separate the caliper bracket.

 

I spent $260 on the front swap. Best thing I've done to that car in years. 280mm mini rotors make it hub centric.

 

Have you driven your Fit with the upgraded front brakes but factory drums? I have two pairs of front calipers (will rebuild one pair) but unsure if I should wait until I get the rear disc conversion or just install the fronts anyway.

 

I drove them for about 20 hours before installing the rears, didn't yet have them bed in fully but I could tell a big difference. I swapped all the brake fluid to new DOT 4 stuff during install which might have helped brake feel. (I was overdue to swap it anyway).
​​​​​​
I reckon the fronts feel like they do the majority of the stopping anyway but there was a noticeable difference in brake pedal feel after doing the rears. There was a level of confidence I've never experienced in anything short of my father's Mustang GT. The pedal is very easy to modulate, feels like the throttle now in that the weight of my foot is enough to stop comfortably, but if I need to stop sooner just a little more effort and it hauls down. It'll dive the car pretty good on a dry road if I wail on the brakes. Worth every penny to me.

 

Red 05, did you swap out the master cylinder? I'm probably thinking its overkill to do, but it sounds like if you are happy on the stock master cylinder, then I need not worry about that swap over (saves me time/hassle). I'm going to take a shot with the EP3 Si caliper setup on the jazz hybrid rotors. If it works great, if it doesn't, i'll get the hybrid calipers. They are both the same size, but for some reason those hybrid calipers/brackets cost more. I'll try to score both sets of brackets to see if there is a noticeable difference, but hybrids are hard to find in the breakers yards for scavenging parts. I'll have a set of 239mm caliper brackets to sell if anyone wants them.

 

I am still running the original master cylinder. I've seen a few guys swap over to the CRX cylinder but I'm pretty happy where mine is now. Went out a few days ago with my brother on a fun road he knew, and I have really high confidence on brakes no matter the attitude of the car.

 

I've got a '13 sport that I already converted the front disc brakes to the larger ITR brakes about a year and a half ago and am very happy with the upgrade. And FYI- I didn't replace the master cylinder or booster, and it seems to work fine as is. I just ordered a Fastbrakes rear disc brake conversion partial kit for the rear of my car that includes everything included in the larger pricey complete conversion kit except the calipers and pads. This kit includes re-drilled rotors that are 278mm (10.94"), and his (Brian Hasty- owner of Fastbrakes) adaptor brackets for use with the stock Fit drum emergency brake cables. This in itself takes away the tedious hassle of replacing and adjusting the replacement EP3/RSX emergency brake cables that were a part of his original kit. (The kit also contains hub centric rings for the rotors, caliper adaptor brackets plus braided stainless steel brake lines.) The kit runs $375.00 plus shipping.

I just bought a pair of used EP3 rear calipers as cores for purchasing rebuilt calipers for the conversion. I just did a measurement on the caliper bolt spacing and it is approximately 3 7/8". I hope this helps in your comparison for fitment to the Jazz bracket.

 

Hey let me know if you're anywhere near Alabama. I can't remember if I've asked you this or not before. But if you're close and depending on work I can make a day trip up to help install if you plan to do it on your own.

 

Red 05- thanks for the offer- that's very generous! Unfortunately I'm a long ways from Alabama- I'm in California in the SF/Bay Area. Unless there is some giant snafu, it looks to me like with air tools it's like a 2-3 hour job plus bleeding the brakes. I am looking forward to the back half disc conversion! Thanks again for the offer though.......