The 87 brakes are marginal with stock tires. With taller tires IMHO opinion, you dont have enough brakes. The factory upgraded in 88 with good reason.

If your going to the trouble of buying rotors buy the V6 ones. You will already have the rotor and calipers off for the swap.

You will need a the V6 caliper, mounts and backing shields.


Simple explanation. The brakes convert kinetic energy (movement) into heat. The heat is generated at the friction surface, that heats the faces of the rotors.

Heat is transferred away from the rotors by three methods.

1: Radiation 45% of heat removal
2: Conduction 10% of heat removal
3: Convection 45% of heat removal

The metal of the rotor adds what could be called capacitance, it will store a limited amount of energy that can be dissipated later.

(Edit) The issue that the slotted and drilled rotors address or attempt to address ( depending on who you believe) is reducing brake fade. My experiance with the brakes on the 87 is the larger problem is they dont generate enough torque. Yes, you can get them too hot, but even on initial application when cold, they just dont have a enough to deal with an emergency stop when you have larger than stock tires.

There are a few ways to address this. One is to install larger diameter rotors, that provides more leverage. The other is to swap in the V6 brake booster that has two diaphragms and offers more assist. The better brake booster is usually combined with a larger master cylinder. The larger cylinder will increase pedal effort but reduces pedal travel. For your situation where your trying to generate more torque it ends up increasing pedal effort. However, the V6 booster more than makes up for the larger diameter piston.

My recommendation is to upgrade to the V6 rotors & calipers first and then the V6 booster.

When I first got my 87 with 31's highway traffic was dicy. My wife refused to drive it, at 60 MPH, I couldn't slow down fast enough to be safe in heavy traffic. After the brake swap, the stopping was a lot better and I feel it was a lot safer.

If it were my truck I would go for the rotor caliper upgrade as a first step and then look for a V6 booster and master cylinder. Rock Auto has new master cylinders for the 89 V6 for about $70.


Kevin