Hello, just recently got a '13 G37X Sedan and looking to start changing stuff around. I bought it knowing that the brakes were kinda messed up, and the calipers are sticking nonstop, so I am looking to fix and upgrade. I don't really want to invest more money in buying larger wheels because I actually don't mind the 17" wheels (I'll get around to changing wheel designs in the future), and I'd rather just put my money into other performance items before I work on aesthetics. Anyways, I was hopeful about the Wilwood 6/4 piston front and rear kits, but then I found out from their website that they are only supposed to fit the RWD model of the car and not the AWD model (not exactly sure what the difference is brake-wise). These are the kits I was looking at:
Front: https://www.wilwood.com/BrakeKits/Br...+Brembo+Brakes
Rear: https://www.wilwood.com/BrakeKits/Br...+Brembo+Brakes

So now I am kinda stuck. I thought I may have found a 6 piston BBK that would fit my stock sedan AWD 17" wheels, but looks like I am out of luck. I've been looking around and I can't seem to find any other info on this (which I guess isn't a good sign). Anyone have any recommendations here?

EDIT: Regarding the Wilwood's, is it possible that these kits just don't fit the AWD model or is it more likely that the calipers are the issue? I was looking to buy everything separately anyway because I didn't want to spend that much on pads and rotors ($230 for each rotor is a little too steep for me), so if theres still hope that the calipers will fit the sedan X model then I guess I could move in that direction. Thanks in advanced.

 

I called their tech line looking for an answer, and I got something a little more obvious than what I expected: the spindles are different bc of the different drive shaft configurations between AWD and RWD. This is giving me a little more hope that I might be able to get away with the calipers in some way, but still may have a fitment issue. Any suggestions on this BBK or other BBKs for 17" wheels are appreciated.

 

You will save money by buying a set of wheels, tires, and OEM Akebono brakes. Unless you plan to rally the car, where the extra tire sidewall helps, there are no performance benefits to staying at the 17" wheel size and using those Wilwoods other than weight.

 

@bPChaos Yeah thats what its looking like. I don't think anyone makes a set of these for smaller wheel diameters and X option sedans. Though, how would I be saving money? Seems like new wheels would cost $300 each minus whatever I can fetch for my current OEM ones.

Kind of just a side note question, the larger brakes would still improve braking performance, regardless of wheel size right? Just a little thrown off by that last part of your response.

 

Setting aside labor, you can pick up a set of used 14" Akebono (the OEM fixed piston calipers) for about $600. Add in pads, rotors and lines, and you're right at about the $1,000 mark. Based on your initial budget of ~$3,400 (for the Wilwoods front and rear), that leaves you about $2,400.

You can get a brand new set of wheels for anywhere between $1,200-$1,600, depending on what you buy and where you buy. Tires are the rest, again, depending on what you want. These will offer you better sizing/compound options (18" is a very very common performance tire size) as well as the look you want, since that was already in your consideration set. Obviously 19"s will be more expensive, but I don't know what you prefer.

As for performance, the Wilwoods wouldn't offer you more stopping power than your stock brakes. It would give you increased feel and ability to repeat high speed stops, but overall braking performance remains the same unless you change the pad compound. A larger brake offers greater swept area (contact area between pad and rotor) that's further out on the rotor (more torque). That's where you get your gains. You also get way more thermal mass to act as a heat sink since the rotor is physically larger.

This leaves me to my question - what do you want to do with your car? If you're looking strictly at performance, this will dictate what you should be doing.

 

Entire akebono BBK setup can be had on rockauto for about 622 shipped. This is minus the lines because the oem lines can be used. Of course these are reman calipers but I've used them many times and I have a set on my car right now.

 

Yeah when I said brake performance I was speaking in terms of heat dissipation and bite (I warp cheap brakes really quickly), not just stopping distance, thanks for the clarification. But good to know that the larger wheels would actually help braking performance in this situation, never thought of it like that.

Also my budget isn't $3100 unfortunately (wish it was). The kits I linked have some really expensive rotors (each rotor is $230, without the hat, which is $170 each), as well as some probably similarly steep pads, and I was planning on getting other performance options for much cheaper off RockAuto, just making sure the width and diameter requirements are met. I was really only interested in the Wilwood calipers (and I would have to buy the brake lines), and was using this kit as a sizing guide basically. Sourcing all the parts from other retailers (Amazon for calipers and RockAuto for the rest) got the final price down to about $1300. That's why I was really hopeful that these would work.

Wheel preference is definitely on the smaller end, so if I am going to make the switch to up the brakes then I would probably stick to 18". Not super big on huge wheels which is why I wouldn't have minded just sticking to my 17" wheels. Do you have a recommendation for where I can browse through wheels? If I am actually gonna go this deep, I want to make sure the wheels I get are nice at least lol.

And in terms of what I want to do with the car--in general, it is my daily, but I still want to soup it up. My daily driving is almost always pretty spirited, and me and some friends like to drive around nearby hilly/windy roads. They're not mountainous, but after a few laps, braking on the last downhill always results in some serious shaking and warping. Thats kinda the reason why I wanted to hold off on picking out new wheels--its not that I don't want to change the stock ones (they're a bit ugly), just that I'd rather throw in a nice set of coil overs first before dropping $1200-$1600 on wheels. And since my calipers are seriously messed up right now, either way I'm gonna need a brake overhaul so I wanted to just switch to BBK now rather than pay $800 to get it fixed, and then later down the line, pay $1300 to up to BBK.

 

Going to bump this, I am moving up to 18x8 wheels and looking at my options now. I still have no idea why the Wilwood brakes can't fit AWD and even found a thread where someone managed it but no details on the actual process or if they had to machine custom parts to fit their car: https://www.myg37.com/forums/brakes-...awd-sedan.html

I've called Wilwood and a supplier that does a lot of work on these brake kits for these cars (TCE Performance), both said they don't have a definitive answer as to why its noted that it won't fit AWD vehicles. I would prefer to go with the Wilwoods bc they look amazing and the 6/4 set up would probably be crazy. In any case, if anyone has any ideas please shoot em over. I really need new brakes lol (current ones are pretty bad, driving less because of the safety concern).

 

Used infiniti parts are your best friends for your budget. Even used 18 in infiniti wheels. My best recommendation is to go to car-part.com and search in your area any infiniti with sports brakes.
Then if they have wheels on them see if they're willing to do a package deal.
This works best in person and all $100 bills.

You might walk out of there for wheels and brakes for $1200 or less. We know you want the Wilwoods, the OEM option is far better for the price.
The wilwood is an assumption, assuming that more is better, assuming that you need 12 pistons of stopping power because the car is awd/heavier/etc.
More than likely it will do about the same as sports brakes, in the end the master cylinder will decide.

 

Thanks for the suggestion. I am aware of the other options I have, options I may end up going with in the end. However, for the time being I am going to continue researching this kit and try to figure out if they fit or not. I don't have a set budget, and I am willing to pay more for something that is nicer both aesthetically and in performance (I think its a safe assumption to make that the 6/4 vs 4/2 will be more powerful and better at dissipating heat). And as I noted before, the calipers can be had without the rotor/hat/pad set for $920 for all 4 corners, so the kits I linked are not representative of the price I anticipate paying for this set.

 

About performance, its true you're buying a product that can offer better performance, but it's not likely to be used in any practical circumstance.

First, tires are your limiting factor in stopping this car. All this equipment goes to waste if you're just going to run cheap all-seasons from general or whatever. Iirc on the OEM wheels (Conti Extremecontact or something) difference in stopping distance between OEM base and sport calipers is <6ft. I can also share from my track time with both setups on the same car on Michelan PPS, that it's about the same (from 80ish to 0). idk about stopping performance on R-compound or Slicks, but that's not for the street.

Second, brake fade/overheating is mostly a function of brake fluid, pad composition, and pad & rotor size. Too many variables to make assumptions about performance, but I can share my experiences.
Autocross: On a clean flush of DOT4, I was ony able to overheat OEM pads on the base calipers after 15min of constant heavy autocrossing (0.3mi converted go-cart track), and I didn't even notice until I was off the track and the wheels were smoking.
Flat Track: sport calipers (with Powerstop Z26 street pads & drilled/slotted rotors, which actually offer worse heat dissipation than solids on a non-off gassing pad) didn't even start to overheat until deep into a 30min hot lap session at Thompson, CT. The track is reasonably hard on brakes, going into turn 1 you brake from 110-10mph, followed by a 65-20(turn 3) , 65-30(turn 5 into bank), 80-20 (turn 6) within the ~1.5 mi track. I'm absolutely sure that with racing fluid (RBF600) and any dedicated track pad, I wouldn't have had any problems with these heat cycles.

So imo, given your daily spirited driving (assuming over the legal limits, but under criminally negligent speeds) even OEM kit with upgraded pads would be plenty to safely stop.
Those big Wilwoods on a street car are purely a cosmetic decision.
Pushing a modern car beyond it's limits without crashing completely is a skill that takes many hours of training.

That said, Wilwoods look hella cool get em if you wanna. But please pick any other rim but the "duck feet" that was on the xS sedan models.

 

Yeah I realize this, I have come to terms with the fact that they will not make that big of a difference in my daily driving right now over the Akebonos lol (in terms of performance, again the larger brake and the Wilwood design is nice in and of itself), but I am also keeping in mind what I plan to do with the car in the future, and the plan is that I don't change these calipers any time soon. Right now, I am not tracking the car or planning to in the next several months, but I do plan to down the line. The only reason I'm even buying brakes right now is because the OEM ones came with the car As-Is and **** themselves after a week of me owning the car (didn't seem like the caliper was sticking when I was at the dealership, but it definitely is now), if it were not for this fact I would be putting this off for much further down the line. However, I am here with this problem now, and so I want to get a brake kit I know will last for the foreseeable future, and a brake kit I can enjoy looking at and will likely never change out.

The OEM Akebonos are nice, and I have no doubt they'll stop my car well, but for nearly the same price per new caliper (if they fit), I can get quite a bit more out of these. Again, I want to stress, I am not buying the kit I linked, I was using it as a sizing guide. I was not gonna drop $3300 just on brakes. The calipers can be purchased off Amazon (same part number, Prime shipping) for $240 each from a reliable distributor; rotors and pads, from what I understand, can be purchased anywhere else as long as they are the proper fit. I just need to make sure that the calipers actually fit. And even if I did want to purchase the kit, TCE Performance has it listed for ~$700 cheaper, and they do special pricing and all that jazz.

The tech at TCE Performance did bring up a good point--he said that if the Sport brakes on the RWD are the same exact kit as the Sport brakes on the AWD then the caliper mount should be same, and so the Wilwood brackets should be interchangeable as well. It seems that the actual spindle is the same between RWD and AWD front axles, and all that is different is a slightly altered knuckle shape. I don't know for a fact that the AWD and RWD sport brake kits are the same, but if anyone does, that would be helpful.

EDIT: Oh yeah and regarding the Duckfeet, I'm getting rid of the 17's I have now and replacing them with 18x8 Raijins from Enkei. Like with the brakes, its not that I didn't plan to upgrade to nicer looking and lighter wheels in the future, so I don't mind spending the money. I just didn't think I would be changing this stuff in this order. I had originally planned to get coil-overs before ever touching the wheels or brakes, but again, I am here now with this brake issue and I need to solve it now, so I am front loading these mods.

 

Alright so I have decided to just fold and go with the Sport Akebono set. I know, I made it clear that I was only interested in the Wilwoods or some other 6pot setup for now, however, I have to be at least somewhat sensible. After doing a few more pointless hours of research, there just isn't enough information out there on the fitment of these Wilwoods on these cars, I already ordered a new set of wheels, and didn't want to go with anything larger. Rather than test-buy a Wilwood caliper, see if I can fit it, and then buy all the rest of the parts, I decided to just go with the Akebonos, which I know will fit. My brakes are on their last legs right now, and the dragging calipers, although only dragging slightly, is probably putting some additional wear on my drive-train, so I want this issue solved ASAP, and given the amount of documentation on the Akebonos, it seems like the smarter buy right now. With a bit more time and maybe calipers that were working, I would have been all for test-buying the Wilwoods.

In any case, thank you to all who responded to the thread, hopefully I didn't come off in a negative way, I know I was being a bit stubborn on the larger BBKs.

Final question, besides the larger wheels (now running 18x8 Raijins), what else do I need to fit new Akebonos? Also, if I am looking to buy new, where can I find Infiniti-printed Red Akebono calipers? I've looked around and the only red Infiniti calipers I could find that were new were from Z1 and Z1 sells the entire kit with rotors and pads. I may end up going with the kit, but I think I can get the same or better rotors for cheaper off RockAuto, so I'd prefer somewhere where I can just buy the calipers and any necessary brackets or clips. If I can't get them in red (I was thinking of repainting them anyway down the line), can I get them repainted without losing that Infiniti logo in the middle? I actually really like it. Are there any other parts I will need to upgrade from the regular brakes to sport brakes on a regular X sedan? Any suggestions are welcome.

 

Back in 2014, blnewt installed Wilwoods on his 2009 Journey Sedan.

https://www.myg37.com/forums/brakes-...bbk-is-on.html

 

Thanks for the link. I've actually seen the thread before, but from what I know, his model is a RWD, and Wilwood lists incompatibility with AWD vehicles (mine). Additionally, I believe blnewt also went with a 4-pot set up anyway (so same as Akebonos), where as the kit I was looking at was 6-pot, so I may end up with clearance issues. I already bought 18x8 so I needed to make sure they also fit in those wheels. I am open to looking into the Wilwood kit more if anyone has any more information that would help prove they do in fact work on AWD vehicles, the only thing is, as I said before, I need to move forward with this process ASAP. My calipers are getting to the point where they are likely adding more strain on my transmission, so I need to move quick in purchasing the kit I am going to go with.

The big plus with the Wilwood parts is that the calipers and lines are on Amazon, and I have an Amazon CC so I'd get 5% off, plus prime shipping and all that Amazon customer service jazz. However, the one person that I know of that managed to fit these in the AWD didn't actually specify how they got them to work and hasn't been active since 2015. And on top of that, I believe his wheels were 20", but honestly, I think the Wilwoods were built to fit 18" anyway. Just not sure about the AWD/RWD thing.