Baer Brake Kit

Old Skooler

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Feb 27, 2012
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So the Baer Pro + 6P brake kit is ordered as well as the manual brake conversion and master. Upgrading to 31 spline with the ford Motorsport trac-loc. for some this maybe a WTF moment but I've decided to keep the car 4 lug, why you ask, I have 3 sets of rims including the staggered 17" pony's that I just don't want to replace. The car will never see the track being 3 hrs from my house, so I invested in what I believe to be one of the best braking systems and retained my rims. Win Win!!

Any reviews on this system or switching to manual brakes? I had to make the conversion due to the cam and lack of vacuum hovering around 500.
 
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Any reviews on this system or switching to manual brakes? I had to make the conversion due to the cam and lack of vacuum hovering around 500.

Manual brakes take a ton of pedal effort, you can move the pedal so it has more leverage with a maximum motorsports kit. In my opinion, manual brakes are a last resort option. I had no vacuum for the brakes and i added a comp vacuum canister and that helped a bunch. The tune also was part of the problem. I added some air and fuel to the car at idle and it brought the idle way down in the fuel table and that also helped.
 
I have 4 piston aerospace calipers on all four corners of mine and a manual master cylinder as well. At best I see 3 inches of vacuum at idle and that certainly isn't enough for power brakes. My pedal effort is not bad and the car stops great on the street. I moved the pivot point as instructed during the master cylinder install which only resulted in a small complication for the brake light switch. A 15$ pressure switch plumbed into the brake system was the fix for that, easy peezy japaneezy
 
Most manual brake kits require a properly sized MC and sometimes relocation of the pivot pin on the brake pedal.

I've seen kits that work well, and some setups that are absolutely terrible. So research is key here
 
I've heard the maximum motorsports kit is really good also comes with the brake light switch. Baer recommended a strange master from TRZ Motorsports so I went with that.

I was getting a lot of brake fade even with the vac canister, that's why I went with the conversion. Wasn't my first choice. I'm not sure what to expect.
 
I run an Aerospace kit similar to 84Ttop's. The only difference is I have stock SN disk brakes in the back. This has lead to some trouble, but it's not going to be an issue with your setup since you are going to new brakes all around. The pedal effort is a little stiff, but not too bad with big brakes. It really sucks with stock brakes. I relocated the leverage point on the brake pedal. It's no fun to do, because in order to drill that pedal, you pretty much have to take the whole pedal assembly out. The factory stoplight switch will not work. I made a new bracket to mount a stoplight switch out of an 85' Camaro. It is on a threaded rod, so it has nearly endless adjustment, and it's like $3.

DSCN0223.jpg

Kurt
 
Oh, and I used to have two vacuum canisters mounted in series, it was still hopeless with 9" of vacuum at idle. I used to have a vacuum gauge hooked up to the booster so I could monitor how much vacuum I had stored up. I just got sick of having inconsistent brakes.

Kurt
 
I just switched to manual brakes. Strange front and rear, manual MC from racecraft and redrilled the pivot point. At first the brakes felt a little spongy but after using stranges break in procedure the car stops awesome. Not saying its like a corvette or anything but its way better then stock brakes. Also dumped 63 lbs I think it was and 20 of that was rotating mass. Cant really beat that. Think I might bleed them once more for the heck of it too.
 
Is there a reason you had to goto manual brakes?

If you have a larger cam engine there are really only 3 options. 1. manual brakes 2. vacuum pump 3. Convert to hydroboost. The large cam ruins your engine vacuum, and there isn't enough of it to pull on the brake booster. The stock brake booster spec is a minimum of 16" of vacuum at idle. My last cam did about 9" and this one only does 12" at best. The brakes go from hard to soft all the time, and it becomes hard to drive. If you have 3" like Ttop, then just forget it.

Kurt
 
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