What, if any are the options for upgrading the Dakota brakes?

-Dakota R/T or Durango R/T brakes? Are they any different or better than the stock dakota brakes?

-EBC slotted and dimpled rotors? And their pads. Anyone have any experience with them?

-Ram/SRT/Viper brake conversions? How simple or difficult is this, has anyone done this, and was it financially worth it?

-Any other Big Brake kits oout there from Wilwood, brembo, or any other companies that are a bolt-on kit for our trucks? Ive been googling and searching the interwebs for the last few hours and havent turned up much luck.

 

Are the brakes on 2nd gens substandard? Is there a need to upgrade? What gains are you looking for/expecting? I know with the EBC stuff, some people say that it greatly improves stopping power. My experience was they were nothing that major over stock to warrant the extra cost. More like folks spending hundreds of dollars on a brand name cold air intake and telling everyone how much more power the "feel". Placebo effect, I spent this much money, it HAS to produce work better....lol

 

Well, personally I have discs all around and I've never felt like the brakes are sufficient for the weight of this quad cab. Might be interesting to see what else is out there.

 

The brakes are so so on these trucks. Making sure your lines are in good condition and that the rears are adjusted properly(if you have drums) You can do the viper upgrade but I think you need to have 16in wheels and the caliper has to be ground slightly(been a LONG time since I read up on them) Personally im running brakeperfromance pads and rotors(dimpled and slotted) They were having a deal on them so spent the coin for them. The rotors I got was their top of the line ones that have a lifetime warranty against defects and warping. Came with a free set of pads too. I think I have 400 tied up into it but im a 3/4 ton so a little bit more expensive. I think el cheapo rotors from autozone are like 50 a piece so spending the extra 200 on a good set was a no brainer. It helped my truck stop

 

Guess it was about 10 years ago i put a set of drilled rotors on the front , made in Canada.
installed some ? ceramic pads. Also a cheaper master cylinder. I think it was an improvement over what was or OEM ,
but both will be needing attention soon. I do think brake dust was way down which is nice.
so interested too...

 

Well, it seems as though the front pads commonly wear some grroves in the knuckles, from what I have gathered so far from several brake threads on this forum, plus I have drums on the rear and I plan on doing alot of towing with this truck. I am about to start replacing several brake components due to the mileage of the vehicle, and for my own peace of mind ( I just bought it); and i dont want to waste money buying new stock components now, only to turn around and buy new upgraded components shortly thereafter. If there is a way I can adapt a more robust disk brake system(one without the knuckle wear issues) from another similar Mopar vehicle, and also replace the rear drums with disks, and also have more stopping power for towing with less risk of overheating and warping the current ones when towing---then that is what I am looking for.

Would any of the Jeep Grand Cherokee or Ram 1500 brake systems be similar enough to ours that they would be worth looking into for adapting on our application?

 

You do know that around 70% of all breaking is done by your front brakes the main reason is control of any hard braking situations/ loss of control in hard braking. Your ABS will make this happen well most times anyway. So rear disk brakes are mainly for show and feel good as they are negated by the ABS. I don't believe I have seen anyone on the forum that has made any kind of brake swap from another vehicle.


I actually drove around for about 5 years with my back brakes frozen up non operable when I found out and fixed the problem I didn't notice any braking improvement well just a small improvement. How do I know they were frozen for 5 years well a shop installed new shoes at that time and when I pulled them off 5 years later they looked like they were just installed was I surprised all shinny and new looking.


Obviously the shop had done a very quickie brake job and never bothered to check things out just swapped out shoes.

 

Yeah I know that. But for towing the rears are important. and im gonna be replacing parts anyways, so i figure if theres better than stock stuff out there i may as well get it the first time.

 

for a rear brake experiment-

push your e-brake down 1.5 inches or so. You shouldnt feel it drag while driving, but tap the brakes and it will push the shoes into the drums sooner and grab harder. At least it does on mine.

 

I agree with magnethead


But what is happening is just that the rear brakes need adjusting as the self adjusters on the 2-nd gen Dakota don't self adjust they just don't work. You need to adjust them manually on a regular schedule I say every 3 or 6 months should do. Every time I adjust my rear brakes my braking power is restored and usually you notice your brake peddle doesn't need to be depressed as much as before same with the parking brake it catches sooner.


When my rear brakes were out frozen my parking brake still worked why they are mechanically driven not fluid driven by the cylinders as they were the reason my rear brakes stopped working the cylinders were not working frozen up.