Brakes are the first performance mod everyone tells you to make to your car. If you’re like me, though, there are a couple of parts where you’ll get tripped up. One is that brakes are relatively unexciting, and the other is that big brakes can get expensive. It isn’t rare to spend $1,000 per axle even on lightweight platforms. Compare that to the smiles per dollar of a throaty exhaust and it’s no wonder why people cut this corner so often. But you don’t have to, because you can pluck a cheap Brembo brake upgrade straight from Cadillac’s parts bin.
Being General Motors’ luxury brand, Cadillac isn’t an intuitive first choice for affordable performance parts. The economies of scale behind GM and its tendency to use parts in as many vehicles as possible means even its go-fast components are often surprisingly cheap. That is, provided you have the right part number and adapters. These enable you to fit Cadillac ATS and CTS-V Brembos on a surprising variety of makes and models.
It’s a little-known fact that from year one, the Cadillac ATS used four-piston Brembo front calipers, even on base models. (Their one-piston rears aren’t cared for, though.) These calipers are typically branded as GM’s in-house parts brand ACDelco and are widely available new for less than $150 per corner. Combined with an adapter kit that typically costs less than the calipers, you can upgrade to four-piston Brembo front brakes for as little as $500 all-in on some platforms.
A more popular upgrade, though, is to pull parts off the spicier CTS-V, which the aftermarket will help you fit to a much broader range of chassis. They come in two flavors, with the first-generation CTS-V using four-piston Brembos at all four corners, while the second-gen upgraded its fronts to six-piston units. The latter are pricier, but still on the cheap end for six-piston performance calipers—especially if you’re willing to buy off-brand eBay parts.
As for what they fit, it’s easiest to just list the sites I’ve found that sell adapters and which makes/models they support. For starters, CTSVBrakeSwap.com does ATS adaptations for the Subaru WRX (making a discount WRX TR), the BRZ, Forester, and more, plus CTS calipers for DSMs, the Nissan S-chassis (Silvia, 240SX, etc.) and the Z32 300ZX. S&S Engineering makes ATS and XTS brakes compatible with the Ford Mustang and Ranger, while SCG Performance makes CTS brakes fit a wide range of Nissans and Toyotas. In addition to the S-chassis above, it supports multiple generations of Z and Skyline. Its Toyota kits are targeted at the broad family of JZXes and JZAs, which include everything from the Crown and Soarer to the Altezza, Supra, and Lexus IS and SC. (Some of these are also supported by Killswitch Motorsports.)
Note that there’s still some degree of getting what you pay for, as many of these kits aren’t matched by bigger rear brakes. That could throw off your car’s factory brake balance, while the extra brake pistons mean you’ll need to depress the brake further for the same stopping power if you don’t upsize your master cylinder. Also bear in mind that bolt-on brake upgrades can be more complex than you’d expect in terms of installation, not to mention unnecessary if you haven’t already met the limits of the brakes on your car.
I’m sure I’ve left out plenty of shops and the cars they cater to, and I can’t dwell on the Corvette-sourced brake upgrades some of them offer. But the point here is to introduce my fellow enthusiasts to cheaper ways of achieving their performance goals. Those of you who have been hung up on the price of Wilwoods can now skip paying that premium, and maybe set yourself up for some interesting car meet convos about why you run Cadillac brakes.
Got a tip or question for the author? You can reach them here: james@thedrive.com