Disc brake conversion for the 1st Gen

I'd considered it on my generation 2. I guess everywhere else in the world it's available with disc brakes except in USA trim and Canada maybe or something along those lines so would just be a matter of ordering the backing plates and the calipers and buying fresh rotors here I imagine it might be the same for the generation 1 I've never looked so I don't know and then rigging up the cable parking brake which I never use so what wouldn't even matter if it worked but all of that stuff looks to be Corolla sized maybe matrix would work if they had four-wheel disc brakes

 

Odd that you should post this at this time as I've been considering this for the past week or 2. I've also been thinking on the logistics of it. The biggest problem with it so far is the parking brake (as Tom mentioned).

As the stock system is setup, the parking brake wouldn't be very effective on a caliper. It just couldn't provide enough pressure. Many people don't even use it, so if you're one of those people, you could likely disregard that. But I had an incident in the 90s that has made me very paranoid about leaving a car parked without the parking brake engaged. I ALWAYS use it! But, there have been plenty of cars that had an effective design for parking brakes on calipers.

The other is something that was brought up in another discussion. "The brake ECU controls line pressures to caliper pistons and wheel cylinders individually." This statement was not elaborated on, so I'll have to look into it and see how/if that will impact a conversion.

 

They used to say that about this brake conversions on Corollas and other cars that the proportioning valve would be different and on and on and on because of the disc drum disc disk combinations when we used to put disc brake conversions on Corollas We never touch the prop valve It just sat there on the firewall and fed the back brakes and we bolted on the backing plates the calipers dropped on the rotor hats bled the mess and that was the end of it no parking brake no problem most of these cars were manual cars back in the time so you just put it in first gear or whatever you're doing turn the wheels to the curb you'll never need a parking brake and the brake seemed to work spot on wonderful and we didn't have to change shoes anymore that was about the only real advantage was easier brake jobs the breaking to be honest about it was similar with the drums or the discs The Prius brake system is designed pretty well changing to disks in the back for me is only going to give me easier friction material changes which are long and far between anyway that's why I haven't pursued it very much