Calipers:
- '94-'04 Mustang Cobra rear calipers.
The Cobra part is important. The difference is in the caliper mounting bracket. The rear caliper itself is the same for all '94-'04 Mustangs. The Cobra came with a thicker, vented rotor. The caliper mounting bracket was different to allow more room for this thicker rotor. The 4Runner rear rotor is also vented. It needs the wider gap in the Cobra bracket to fit properly.
The easiest way to tell if you have the correct caliper mounting bracket is to look and see if the outside of the bracket is connected. If it is, you're good to go. You would think this is easy, but even the auto part manufacturers mess it up. I've purchased part #14-1042 from Cardone, BrakeBest, and Wearever. All of them have gotten it wrong. That is the part number for the correct caliper mounting bracket. Always open the box and look at the mounting bracket before you leave the store. It's about a 50-50 chance if the properly labeled box has the right part in it or not.
These are not my images, but they show the difference in the two brackets.
Brake Pads:
- '94-'04 Mustang Cobra rear brake pads.
If you want to make life easy, go with brake pads for a '94-'04 Mustang Cobra. The pad is slightly thinner to account for the thicker rotor. As mentioned, the caliper is the same. So in order to fit a thicker rotor in the same amount of space, the pads are thinner.
You can make pads from a non-Cobra work, but they will either be pretty tight until the get worn down or you will have to run them without backing plates/pads until they wear down a bit. They are much more difficult to fit and assemble than Cobra pads.
Rotors:
- '03-current 4Runner rear rotors.
When used with the Cobra caliper mounting bracket, these rotors fit great. The best thing about them is that they are a Toyota part and they don't need to be modified. The Montero rotors that have been used in the past have interference issues with the Toyota lug studs and the back of the rotor hat needs to be countersunk to correct the issue. This is not an issue with the newer 4Runner rotors. Everything fits without modification.