Anyone with experience on the Willwood big brake upgrade kits?

Looking at both the 14" and the 16" options, but not decided on either yet. Looks like the pads are specific to only willwood so I am not liking that much.

Just looking to get soem exerienced opinions.

Other options are AP and any of the other bbrake kit upgrades, not just a +sized rotors.

 

Hey bdubb - fancy seeing you over here, LOL!

Check my reply to your post on my header thread, I want to see your Denali in person!

 

Some day I want to upgrade my brakes also so if any one has some info please share.

 

I've had the big brake kit for about 4 years. Like'em very much, Wilwood is easy to deal with. What specific questions do you have?

 

Any issues with the caliper or other items?

Do you have to use only Willwood pads?

General impressions and comments to pass along on rotor life, pad selection, quality of product...

 

Any issues I had with my brakes was my own fault really. I've swapped these brakes onto two different trucks and on one specific brake swap at the very end I had accidentally installed a brake pad in backwards!!
That little goof ended up causing me to rebuild the calipers 4 times. On the fourth attempt Wilwood offered (free of charge) to take a look at it and it's at that point that I learned that I had some bent pistons in one of the calipers. They replaced the bent pistons and did some testing to make sure everything was hunky-dorey and gave them back to me and they've been great ever since.
All in all I have about 40K problem free miles on them (aside from my goof) and they work great. I don't know if I can get brake pads from elsewhere, I've only gotten them from Wilwood directly, however if in fact I can only get pads from them I don't consider that to be a big problem really. I can understand your concern but to me, custom parts = custom problem/inconveniences. It's not an OEM/mainstream product so I don't expect to find replacement parts at pep-boys or the GM stealer-ship. You ring them, ask for some new pads, a few days later they arrive in the mail.
I've mentioned it to friends, it's one of the only purchases if given the change to do over that I would. Not the case for alot of other aftermarket products.
Hope that helps.

 

Good feedback, thank you!