2005 Silverado Front Brake Upgrade

This is a pretty specific question and I don't expect many if any answers, but I was wondering if anyone on the site has ever done a front brake upgrade on this body style truck? Specifically, mine is 2005 Silverado 1/2 ton with the 5.3L. It has discs up front and rear drums. The jist of it from what a know is you can do oem replacement parts from a later body style which has larger rotors, pads, calipers, and I think upgrades from a 1 to 2 piston setup. There are plenty of videos of this online but I was curious if anyone on here had some real life feedback on this as opposed to the totally random comments from Youtube and such.

The brakes on my truck definitely seem lacking so I'm planning on servicing my brakes soon and figure now would be the time to do it.

I have that exact truck. I bought it used and have never done an upgrade on the breaks but I'm pretty sure mine has a dual piston caliper already. I thought it was factory that way but with you saying that now I wonder if it was upgraded before I got it? The only thing I can think of is make sure your wheels are large enought that a larger rotor and caliper will fit. My truck has 17" wheels and I know there's not much room between the caliper and the wheel. I know this because I almost lost a caliper bolt one time and just the slack from that made the caliper rub the wheel.

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I have the same truck but haven’t seen a need for upgrade. Most heavier trailers it has hauled were brake equipped. The lighter trailers ( boat, yard, etc.) it has handled just fine. Best of luck with your truck.

My 06 1500 has dual piston calipers already. From what I am reading trucks with drums in the back already have the big front brakes.

Regardless it's a lot of work for not much gain. If you're pulling something heavy enough to want more stopping power, it should have it's own brakes. And yours might just need updating, new rotors and some semi-metallic pads may do it a lot of good. The rear drums do more than you think too, may be time to go through them as well.

I have pulled up to my truck's rated capacity with no trailer brakes and haven't felt like the brakes were lacking.

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Originally Posted by sweathermon

I have that exact truck. I bought it used and have never done an upgrade on the breaks but I'm pretty sure mine has a dual piston caliper already. I thought it was factory that way but with you saying that now I wonder if it was upgraded before I got it? The only thing I can think of is make sure your wheels are large enought that a larger rotor and caliper will fit. My truck has 17" wheels and I know there's not much room between the caliper and the wheel. I know this because I almost lost a caliper bolt one time and just the slack from that made the caliper rub the wheel.

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I try to do as much work as possible on my own vehicles but for whatever reason I've never messed with the brakes on this truck. I think every time I got tires I got the breaks done out of convenience. So I really don't know what I have under there. I do have the factory 17" wheels so it may be a tight fit. I see some people casually post about grinding down calipers which sounds insane to me lol.

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Originally Posted by SpeckledSlab

I have the same truck but haven’t seen a need for upgrade. Most heavier trailers it has hauled were brake equipped. The lighter trailers ( boat, yard, etc.) it has handled just fine. Best of luck with your truck.

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I run a brake controller with a couple of my trailers. I only pull a couple pretty light boats so I really dont have a problem with any of that stuff. Where I notice it lacking is if I pull a heavy trailer with brakes but opt not to use them (not often). Sometimes I will pull my empty equipment trailer with the brakes disconnected and they feel terrible considering the trailer empty is just a hair over 2500 lbs (per spec sheet when I bought it, not weighed myself anywhere). Part of why Im now noticing it is that my wife went from a Honda Pilot to a 2018 Yukon XL back in the fall and the brakes on that are definitely better than my old Silverado.

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Originally Posted by Atimm693

My 06 1500 has dual piston calipers already. From what I am reading trucks with drums in the back already have the big front brakes.

Regardless it's a lot of work for not much gain. If you're pulling something heavy enough to want more stopping power, it should have it's own brakes. And yours might just need updating, new rotors and some semi-metallic pads may do it a lot of good. The rear drums do more than you think too, may be time to go through them as well.

I have pulled up to my truck's rated capacity with no trailer brakes and haven't felt like the brakes were lacking.

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I just looked up replacement calipers on Rockauto and all the images show a dual piston setup. I'm sure I just misread that elsewhere. Seems like everything bigger than a coupe/sedan will have dual pistons. I'll probably just have to research it more and make a decision. From a work standpoint I would already be replacing the pads and rotors so getting bigger ones wouldn't add anything to the job. Really replacing the caliper wouldn't be much more work at all either, just the cost of a pair of them. I would personally be fine with used ones myself if the price is right. Whatever I do, I am going to do a full brake fluid flush and bleed. I'm sure you are right though, new pads/rotors and shoes may totally change it. I'm sure the shop did a fine job last time as Ive had no issues but I don't 100% trust any place to give you the quality of stuff you pay for. At least I know if I do it, I'll do it right and use quality parts.

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Originally Posted by scout-j-m

I just looked up replacement calipers on Rockauto and all the images show a dual piston setup. I'm sure I just misread that elsewhere. Seems like everything bigger than a coupe/sedan will have dual pistons. I'll probably just have to research it more and make a decision. From a work standpoint I would already be replacing the pads and rotors so getting bigger ones wouldn't add anything to the job. Really replacing the caliper wouldn't be much more work at all either, just the cost of a pair of them. I would personally be fine with used ones myself if the price is right. Whatever I do, I am going to do a full brake fluid flush and bleed. I'm sure you are right though, new pads/rotors and shoes may totally change it. I'm sure the shop did a fine job last time as Ive had no issues but I don't 100% trust any place to give you the quality of stuff you pay for. At least I know if I do it, I'll do it right and use quality parts.

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Curiosity got the best of me and I looked into it some more. Looks like you can take 2019+ newer four piston calipers and rotors and swap them on our trucks pretty easily.

Four piston calipers do not have slide pins and have two pairs of pistons on each side that squeeze the rotor. They more or less bolt on but need to be shimmed so they are centered on the rotor, since they cannot slide and self center like dual piston calipers.

Seems like a decent upgrade, the rotors are an inch larger and I'm sure the calipers provide a lot more clamping force.

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Originally Posted by Atimm693

Curiosity got the best of me and I looked into it some more. Looks like you can take 2019+ newer four piston calipers and rotors and swap them on our trucks pretty easily.

Four piston calipers do not have slide pins and have two pairs of pistons on each side that squeeze the rotor. They more or less bolt on but need to be shimmed so they are centered on the rotor, since they cannot slide and self center like dual piston calipers.

Seems like a decent upgrade, the rotors are an inch larger and I'm sure the calipers provide a lot more clamping force.

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Ok, that makes sense. I remember reading about them needing to be shimmed to center them and it never occurred to me that this is due to no slide pins. I guess what I read was double the amount of caliper pistons and my mind automatically went to 2 as I'm not really familiar with 4 piston setups. I'll probably just crunch the numbers and compare a full brake job with factory replacement parts vs a full job with the upgrade and see how much more it may run me. My truck has relatively low miles for it's age at 155k but new calipers may be good to go ahead and upgrade while I'm in there.

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Originally Posted by scout-j-m

Ok, that makes sense. I remember reading about them needing to be shimmed to center them and it never occurred to me that this is due to no slide pins. I guess what I read was double the amount of caliper pistons and my mind automatically went to 2 as I'm not really familiar with 4 piston setups. I'll probably just crunch the numbers and compare a full brake job with factory replacement parts vs a full job with the upgrade and see how much more it may run me. My truck has relatively low miles for it's age at 155k but new calipers may be good to go ahead and upgrade while I'm in there.

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I can say I have hauled some pretty heavy stuff (maybe a little too heavy at times) with my truck and never had a problem with it stopping as long as your aware of it and give yourself plenty of stopping room. The 4 piston setup would definitely be an upgrade worth it if the price is not unreasonable. I did all four brakes on my truck last year but I don't remember the exact cost of it. I know since buying this truck with 100,000 miles on it, and it now having a little over 300,000, I have replaced both front calipers and believe they only cost around $75 a piece. If you do the upgrade please post back as your have my curiosity now too on how much difference it will make.

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