2004 Chevrolet Silverado Aftermarket Brakes Install - Short Stopping

  |   baer Brakes Eradispeed Bigger Brake System tire Brake That's The Brakes!Let's say you buy a big set of cool, shiny wheels for your truck. You bolt them up and roll out to show them off. The next thing you know some jerk-off cuts you off and slams on his brakes in front of you. Your brain processes this and tells you: No problem, the truck will stop-just hit the brakes. Your foot pushes on the pedal, and the truck starts to slow down, but there is one problem: It's not stopping like it did before. You tighten up your grip on the steering wheel as you push harder on the brake pedal, only to hear a horrible sound-Bang! You've run into the back of the guy in front of you. How did this happen? The truck has stopped shorter than that before. Why the increase in stopping distance? Bigger wheels are heavier and, in turn, tax your brake system much more just to stop rolling. The brakes the factory installs on your truck were engineered to stop the truck, but that's with the factory wheel and tire package. If you modify things like rim diameter and heavy tires that effect the brakes, they will become insufficient. So, what is the cure? The answer is a bigger brake system, of course. With bigger and better comes other stuff like high price and exotic hard-to-find pads. Luckily, Baer Brakes has a solution that will stop the truck and won't completely drain your savings account. The company's EradiSpeed setup is designed to cure the big wheel problem without changing unnecessary parts. The kit comes with new larger 14-inch rotors that increase the leverage advantage of the brakes and new brackets to relocate the factory caliper-that's it. You can still go get factory brake pads from the normal supplier when it's time for a change. We hooked up with Marcel Venable of Venable Koncepts to install the EradiSpeed system on his '04 Chevrolet Silverado 1/2-ton Crew Cab. The truck has most of the typical mods, including a drop kit, a supercharger, and a set of 20-inch wheels. He uses the truck for hauling parts and towing a trailer, and the factory brakes aren't enough to handle those tasks anymore. The installation took about two hours and was done with normal handtools. The parts set us back 1,300 bucks, which is much cheaper than the typical 4 grand or more that the high end stuff will cost. Once the brakes were installed, the truck stopped much better on the first try, shaving off nearly 2 feet from the stopping distance. Now, 2 feet may not sound like a lot, but it will get even shorter as the pads and rotors bed in. The Baer stuff really started to shine on the fourth and fifth stops when the factory stuff would start to fade. We saw almost a 15 feet of reduction on the fifth stop. The Baer stuff held tough and stopped the truck like the company said it would.

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The Final Word
After reading this story, you will come away knowing how easy this stuff is to install and why you might need it. To recap, the install took about two hours. The parts set us back 1,300 bucks, and we shaved 2 feet from the first stop and almost 15 feet on the fifth stop.