Cbarison said: I want to make some upgrades to get about 50-60 horsepower more on the car, I figure I'd better start by improving braking performance (safety 1st). Also, when I drove the car hard around some curvey mountain roads, the front brakes were smoking, which did not seem normal to me, could be I'm wrong about that.
So what your saying is, I should try to replace the brake pads and see how that works before replacing rotors or calipers?
Cbarison
If you have smoking brakes, either you're pushing them hard or there's something wrong there.
HP in and of itself makes no difference, it's how you drive it. If it was mine I'd start with what you have and go through it to see what condition it is in before planning changes or upgrades. If you weren't driving it hard and you had smoking brakes then I'd start by seeing if everything is releasing properly. Next would be checking the condition of the pads and rotors. Part depends on which or whether both brakes were smoking. If both were, then I'd suspect either both aren't releasing or (more likely) you're pushing it very hard and using alot of brakes and likely don't have the right type pads/rotors for the style of driving you do. I'd look at the condition of the pads and rotors before going too far. If shot, then maybe replacing with something bigger may be your best option but that depends on what you find in checking them out. If on the other hand the brakes are working properly and the rotors are in good shape, then maybe consider looking into something like ceramic pads and see how that works out. If ceramics take care of your problems, it would definitely be less expensive and time consuming that replacing all the brake system along with getting new tires and rims to fit over bigger calipers.
Sorry but IMO you need to start working through your issues in a logical sequence. If it turns out to be something like the ABS pump or brake lines plugged, changing out the calipers, rotors etc won't get you anything IMO, you'll still be having problems.
My opinion. Good luck