• Welcome to the Contour Enthusiasts Group, the best resource for the Ford Contour and Mercury Mystique.

    You can register to join the community.

NPG upgrade brake kits

MadDog

Veteran CEG'er
Joined
Jul 27, 2012
Messages
618
Location
Augusta, GA
Anyone have any experience with the NPG upgrade brake kits ? I was thinking of getting the kits to mount 300mm front rotors and 278mm rear rotors, but the description indicates some fitment required. I emailed NPG a while back on what "fitment" precisely meant, but I have had no response.

As for the rotors, are there any preferred makes ? I was thinking of plain rotors with slots (not drilled).

thanks,

Mad Dog
 
It means some mods will be required. I don't believe they're that extensive. Take a look around the suspension & brake forums. You should find sumthn. And yes, the npg kits work perfectly well
 
The front brake adapter kit bolts right up using the 300mm rotors with no modifications needed. Bingo bango.

Using the 278's on the rear is more of a hassle, as the 278mm rotor thickness is CONSIDERABLY greater than the original rear rotors, so you have to do some grinding on the insides of the caliper bracket to get it to clear. You also can't use new pads with new rotors - again, because the thickness is too great for the caliper to fit around it. So you have to either have the rotors turned down a little, or shave the pads down. And finally, the inside diameter of the 278mm rotor hat is slightly too small to fit over the rear hub, so you have to either grind a little on the inside of the rotor hat or grind a little on the outside of the hub, to get the 278mm rotor to seat on the rear hub. AND once you have everything fitting together, the pads only sweep about 65% of the rotor face, so you should probably coat the unswept portion with some high-temp brake paint to keep the rust away.
 
The only thing I have to say is the rear pads or rotors do NOT need to be shaved down. Same goes for using the Focus SVT front rotor on the rear of the Contour. Grind the brackets. New pads. New rotors. No problem.
 
I should of mentioned first that I am doing this because my rotors are thin and should be replaced soon. This is not a track car, nor am I tough on my brakes but I might as well upgrade if I am there.

So if I understand correctly:
1) 300 mm SVT Focus fronts + NPG brackets = no problem
2) The 278mm rear rotor might require some shaving to fit over the rear hub (1 answer yes, 1 answer no ?)
3) grind down the rear caliper bracket interior to clear the thicker 278mm rotor - am I thinking of the correct part:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Disc-Brake-...tour|Submodel:SVT&hash=item3f48b2ef94&vxp=mtr

Is there any danger by installing the 300 fronts and not putting on the 278 rears at the same time ?

As always, I appreciate your help.

thanks,

Mad Dog
 
The only thing I have to say is the rear pads or rotors do NOT need to be shaved down. Same goes for using the Focus SVT front rotor on the rear of the Contour. Grind the brackets. New pads. New rotors. No problem.


When installing the rears on mine, with the caliper piston COMPLETELY bottomed out, there was no way on earth that a loaded caliper would fit over the new 278mm rotors I had just bought. Just doesn't open wide enough. Not sure why you didn't have the same issue; maybe it depends on the brand of rotor and the brand of pads, and the thickness varies.
 
My Guess would be that it depends on brand of pads. The ones I used with my 300mm rear kit were used pads that I had on for a few months before and they cleared without issue. Its that close that brand thickness or pad material could make it sway eitherway.
 
I ordered the front and rear kits for my car a couple of weeks ago from NPG. The kits came in yesterday and Joey emailed me the files for installing them today. He answered the phone the first time I called to ask about the kits and he called several times to clear up the delay in shipping the kits to me. He was on his honeymoon so I understood. Once he returned, he shipped my kits promptly and kept me in the loop by email with a tracking number. Just thought I'd let anyone know who was thinking about ordering from Nautilus Performance.
 
Well, I thought I would post some pics of the finished product and let you know of how it went. The front was a breeze. I had to grind a small amount on the strut mount for the bracket clear and enlarge 2 holes
 
Well, I thought I would post some pics of the finished product and let you know how it went. The front was a breeze. I had to grind a small amount on the strut mount for the bracket to clear and enlarge 2 holes. Otherwise, a piece of cake. The rear was much more work. Grind some on the rear shock mounts. Grind the inside of the rotors, which were the old front ones, to get them to fit. Grind some, install, check for clearance, repeat several times. Grind some on the caliper mounts. After that, I needed to cut the mounting bolts down from the kit because they were bottoming out on the caliper brackets before they were tight. The fronts were tapped all the way through, the back, only halfway. Once I completed one side, I was able to do the other rear in about 40 minutes. All and all I'm happy with the finished product. It looks so much better with the larger rotors and I can't wait to mount up the other wheels to show them off.
100.jpg
200.jpg
300.jpg
400.jpg
500.jpg
 
Did you have to sand the pads down on the rears to make them fit? Or turn the rotors? Anyone tried the 300 kit for the rears?
 
No need to sand the pads. I used new rotors up front and had my front ones turned before installing them on the rear. I think the bias would be all wrong with the same size front and back.
 
Is it important to install larger rear discs at the same time you install larger front ones ? I am thinking if you install harder braking (larger) front discs, this might cause the rear to fish tail under hard braking if it only had the OEM rear discs ?

thanks,

Mad Dog
 
Is it important to install larger rear discs at the same time you install larger front ones ? I am thinking if you install harder braking (larger) front discs, this might cause the rear to fish tail under hard braking if it only had the OEM rear discs ?

thanks,

Mad Dog
70%ish of your braking is handled by the fronts to begin with.. I dont think this would be affected nearly as much I believe are cars are equipped with proportioning valves on the brake hard lines themself... I believe these are there for this exact reason.. to help displace the difference in pressure due to different lengths on brake line itself..

I could be wrong but I don't think it i will adversely affect it under "normal use" Now if you are going to track the car every other weekend..then maybe further down the rabbit hole you must go.
 
Just to add my experience, I have had the NPG kit on my car, front and rear, for about five years. The brakes perform just fine. I didn't notice much difference in braking performance at normal speeds, but hard braking I would say is a bit better. They look good with the larger rotors, and installation isn't too hard. The front kit is very easy. The only thing needed is to drill the stock mounting bracket holes a bit larger as the bolts that NPG provides to attach their brackets are larger. The rear kit takes more work. First, you need to grind the inner surface of the stock brackets to gain more clearance, and since these are made of hard steel it takes a lot of grinding. I tried various methods and found that a carbide bit in a die grinder worked best. Be prepared for a lot of grinding and test fitting. Second, I had the inner rotor hats turned down .020 in order to fit over the hubs, and this worked fine. When I do my next brake job I am going to grind down the edges of the hubs so I won't have to pay for the machining. Third, I had to have my rotors turned down. Once I had everything assembled I could hear some scraping and figured that the pads were too thick, so I had the rotors taken down .010 on each side, and this solved that problem. I used EBC red pads. I plan to use Mintex pads the next time, I don't care for the EBC pads all that much, so maybe they will have a bit more clearance? If you have any questions, feel free to ask.
 
Back
Top