I spent a good part of today working on my Miata’s front brakes.  I had acquired a set of used brackets from a ’94 Miata from Mike’s Place, downtown Phoenix.  Mike, the owner, obviously, has a shop that specializes in the maintenance/repair of Miatas and at the same time, he sells used parts taken off salvaged vehicles or the like.  I was able to get used brackets for $100 for all 4 wheels.

The next thing I needed to do was sandblast them, clean them, then painted them with aluminum color Dupli-Color Brake Caliper paint.   That makes the brackets match the color/paint of my existing calipers.

History in a nutshell:  The 90-93 Miatas have 9 inch front rotors (roughly) and the 94-97 Miatas have 10 inch front rotors. Usually an upgrade to solid rotor (not cross drilled/slotted) rotors will handle the extra weight of the 302 and the beating of driving fast and quickly. To prove my point, look below (left is ’93 and right is ’94):

Solid vs. Cross Drilled/Slotted rotors:  Solid wins at all corners, especially when using ceramic pads.  Ceramics have no need for gas relief due to their high heat dissipation capability.  So, maximize the surface area for better braking ability and heat dissipation.  Cross drilled/slotted rotors these days are for cosmetic purposes only and can play a drawback to ceramics and semi-metallic because of the shaving of the most critical material while braking.  Ceramics perform better when they’re heated up to a certain point. Cross-drill/slotted rotors were in response to the technology of materials used in pads back in the ’70s when disc-brakes became a mainstream product.

Ok, onto the job…

First, of course, remove the wheel…

You get presented with an apparatus that looks like the following:

You would remove the bolt as indicated:

Then remove the caliper by sliding it out by the remaining slide bolt (the bottom one).

You will be presented with this apparatus:

Go ahead and remove the clips, pads, squealer, and then the bracket by its two bolts, as shown:

You would take a mallet and bang the splash cover back just enough to provide clearance for the new rotor as shown:

You could grind/cut the right angles off if you don’t want to do this easy/lazy way to do it (the banging method works fine for me to this day).

The new bracket was supplied with Napa’s UP83093A front bracket kit that includes all the rubber fittings and metal guides, clips, and squealer.

In both slide-bolt ports of the bracket (where the new rubber fittings went), I filled them with some high-temperature disc-brake grease.

Reverse the disassembly as you did above with the new rotor, pads, clips, and squealer (squealer isn’t required).

This is what you get:

With wheel on:

Cost of front brake project:
Front brackets $25 a piece ($100 for all 4's divided by 4)..$50
UP83093A Hardware Kit from Napa.............................$19
OEM Front Rotors from Mazda $45 a piece.....................$90
Wagner Ceramic Premium (kit for 2 wheels)...................$40
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Total.......................................................$199