Brake upgrade info.... I want a rather cheap method for reliable improved stopping

[StreetDreamsGT]

Now that i'm improving the acceleration and handling performance of my car I figured it's just as important to improve the deceleration. I want something that will help the car stop well...plain and simple. I've done some research so I know all my options... going to 5 lug with discs all around, going 4 lug discs with turbo coupe rears, or just upgrading pads and calipers in the front and upgrading the rear drums.

What will give me good enough performance for a daily driver (including winters) that can run mid 12s? I'd prefer to keep the budget to around $300....but if I can get better performance for a little more money i'll set my budget cap to $500.

Note.... I bought a 90 gt and a bunch of parts from a friend and it already had calipers and 5 lug front spindles.... (maybe even an sn95 master cylinder...don't know didn't look closely at anything yet) So if it's simple I'll just buy an sn 95 rear and bolt it in.... but seeing how I already have 3.73s I'd like to be able to keep them.

Thanks guys

 

[phutch11]

Hawk pads, stock rotors and SS brake lines will make a huge difference over stock.

Posted via Mobile Device

 

[2000xp8]

Your post is kinda confusing me.
Are you trying to stay 4 lug or go 5 lug?

If you have 5 lug parts, 100% that's the way to go.
Investing money in the stock stuff IMO is just a waste.

If you can't afford to finish up the 5 lug now, save up or compile parts until you are ready.

If you are saying that you have 95 spindles, that's a big portion of the money needed to get the front done.

I completed the front on my car (bullit pbr setup) for under $500, that's with me purchasing spindles.
And for the moment you could swap your axles and drums out in the back with junkyard parts to five lug, then do discs later.

 

[jrichker]

Been there and done that! With success!

Do the 87-88 T-Bird Turbo Coupe rear end swap!

Auto trans 87-88 Tbird Turbo Coupes come with 3.73 gears and manual Turbo Coupes come with 3.55 gears.
Cost is $125-$300 for the rear axle. Add another $100-$200 or so to complete the brake upgrade.

I choose 3.55 since I do more highway driving. Both ratios have 10 5/16" disk brakes with vented rotors as standard equipment.

It takes 2 guys the first day to get the old rear end out and the new one bolted in place.
It takes 1 guy another whole day to do the brakes.

You will need a several sets of fittings, I recommend that you get them from Matt90GT's website,
87-93 Mustang 5.0 Brake upgrade pages. Improve your 60-0 times!.
Read Matt's instructions thoroughly, everything you need to know about the brakes is all there.
You need to be patient and follow all the internal links, and there are many of them.
You will need 2 fittings in the rear to adapt your old brake tubing to the TC disk brakes.
The fittings go between the steel tube and the caliper brake hose.
You will need another set of fittings to make a 2 port to 3 port adapter. To make life simpler,
just buy the kits from Matt. You could piece them together, but it's not worth the time unless
you work at an auto parts store with all the fittings ever made.

You will need to drill the quad shock mounting holes 2” below the holes drilled for the Turbo Coupe
mounting points. The bolts are metric, so don’t loose them or the nuts. A 15/32” drill should be
about the right size unless you have access to metric sized drill bits. Going without quad shocks is
not an option.

You will need a proportioning valve, Summit has one for $42 + shipping. Wildwood 260-8419
You will need a kit (FMS makes the part) to gut the stock proportioning valve, Summit also
has that, about $18. Ford Racing M-2450-A

You will need a new master cylinder, see Matt's site and make you choice. I used a 94-95 Mustang
master cylinder. Note that rebuilt 94-95 Mustang master cylinders do not come with a reservoir.
That means a trip to the junkyard and some more money spent.

Your brake pedal may be very hard and almost impossible to lock up the brakes. I had to replace
the front calipers with 73 mm calipers from a 91 Lincoln Mark 7 to get the braking performance up to par.

You can use the stock 5.0 booster if it is in good working condition. No need to replace the booster.

Bleeding the brakes will require 2 people and some coordinated effort. I don’t recommend using your
wife or girlfriend to pump the pedal – they get offended when you yell at them. I used a homemade
power brake bleeder constructed from a garden sprayer and some fittings from Home Depot. It cost
about $25 and was worth every penny. See how hard is it to bleed brakes? - Mustang Forums at StangNet
for details and pictures.

See Mustang Central.net FMS M2300K Brake Install for help with the emergency brake. The red words
link to some very useful photos on how to modify the handle. The stock setup tends to lock up and not release properly.
All in all I have been very pleased with the results.




Identifying a Turbo Coupe rear axle:
1.) Measure the rotors - a TC disk brake uses 10 5/16" vented rotors.
2.) Measure the length of the quad shock mount arm and compare it to the mount on your existing stock axle.
The TC quad shock mount arm is about 8" long if I remember correctly.
3.) Measure the distance between the axle flanges and compare it to stock. The TC rear axle assembly is
3/4" wider per side, or 1 1/2" wider for both sides.

 

[StreetDreamsGT]

xp8 what i'm saying is I don't care which I stay with... all i'm looking for is which method gives good improvement for minimal investment...

I considered doing what jrichker ( I searched before I posted ) but with needing to relocate the quad shocks and the rear being wider than the stock mustang rear I was wondering how that would affect the car's handling and all....

If I do the 5 lug swap i'll need to get new wheels/tires...etc. Which sucks because it's more money out of my pocket and more time I'm going to need to spend saving up. Also.... seeing how I've got 3.73s in the stock rear i'd like to be able to use those.... but if I upgrade to an sn95 rear then I'll have to get new gears right?

 

[StreetDreamsGT]

Oh and quick question because I read up a bunch but never found out... the "'99+ pbr calipers".... what does pbr mean?

 

[jrichker]

xp8 what i'm saying is I don't care which I stay with... all i'm looking for is which method gives good improvement for minimal investment...

I considered doing what jrichker ( I searched before I posted ) but with needing to relocate the quad shocks and the rear being wider than the stock mustang rear I was wondering how that would affect the car's handling and all....

If I do the 5 lug swap i'll need to get new wheels/tires...etc. Which sucks because it's more money out of my pocket and more time I'm going to need to spend saving up. Also.... seeing how I've got 3.73s in the stock rear i'd like to be able to use those.... but if I upgrade to an sn95 rear then I'll have to get new gears right?

if you went with a SN95 rear axle, the axles would be the same length as the Turbo Coupe Axles.

The Turbo Coupe rear end is the same one used in the 93 Cobra with the exception of the quad shock mounts. If you have a good 3/8" electric drill, re-drilling the holes for the quad shock mounts is no problem.

If you are considering a 5 lug conversion later, the Turbo coupe rear end can still be used with very little extra effort and parts.

Five lug Turbo Coupe conversion:
Use the 94-98 axles Mustang axles. Use 1990 Mazada MPV 3.0 V6 front rotors (10", 5 lug x 4.5" pattern, 2 7/16" offset ). While you are at the auto parts store, set a TC rear rotor side by side with the Mazada rotor and they are the same except for the offset.

The next step fixes the offset problem:
Use a Maximum MotorSports 1/8 spacer (MMWS6, Maximum Motorsports :: The Leader In Mustang Performance Suspension ) between the inside of the rotor and the axle flange. The spacers may need to have the OD machined to fit properly. The stock rotor offset is 2 5/16" and the Mazada rotors are 2 7/16" offset. The 1/8" spacer puts the rotor back dead center alignment with the calipers.

 

[StreetDreamsGT]

if you went with a SN95 rear axle, the axles would be the same length as the Turbo Coupe Axles.

The Turbo Coupe rear end is the same one used in the 93 Cobra with the exception of the quad shock mounts. If you have a good 3/8" electric drill, re-drilling the holes for the quad shock mounts is no problem.

If you are considering a 5 lug conversion later, the Turbo coupe rear end can still be used with very little extra effort and parts.

Five lug Turbo Coupe conversion:
Use the 94-98 axles Mustang axles. Use 1990 Mazada MPV 3.0 V6 front rotors (10", 5 lug x 4.5" pattern, 2 7/16" offset ). While you are at the auto parts store, set a TC rear rotor side by side with the Mazada rotor and they are the same except for the offset.

The next step fixes the offset problem:
Use a Maximum MotorSports 1/8 spacer (MMWS6, Maximum Motorsports :: The Leader In Mustang Performance Suspension ) between the inside of the rotor and the axle flange. The spacers may need to have the OD machined to fit properly. The stock rotor offset is 2 5/16" and the Mazada rotors are 2 7/16" offset. The 1/8" spacer puts the rotor back dead center alignment with the calipers.

This is starting to sound more and more like the way i'd want to go..... two questions though.

First off. If I went ahead and got the sn95 rear instead, do the quad shock mounting points still need to be relocated?

Second..... After reading up more on Matt's site it looks like I would be able to mount the 99+ calipers onto the stock 87-93 front rotors with slight modification to the stock lines or just going with SS lines. If I just kept the 4 lug, and upgraded the calipers front and back (using the tc rear) to the 99+ calipers that would seem like the best possible setup for a 4 lug fox right?

 

[2000xp8]

PBR calipers are the cobra, bullit, mach1, baer calipers.

I've never heard of anyone mounting newer calipers to fox brakes.
The only way i knew of to get better street brakes for 4 lug, is the baer kit, and that would blow your budget way out, that kit uses machined spindles.

Some say to use lincoln calipers, but i've been there, and it's a total waste of time and money.
a couple extra millimeters on the piston does nothing to aid braking. The pbrs work much better because you use a 13 inch disc, which dissipates heat better, and the contact patch of the pad is much greater with the two pistons.

 

[phutch11]

If this car is really only going to be a DD you are probably overthinking the solution - IMHO.

If you want 5 lugs for other reasons - looks, strength, wheel selection - fine. But a conversion really isn't needed for excellent DD braking.

Huge rotos and massive calipers are great on a Road Race car that will be making repeated full force braking efforts from high speed - but not a DD.

Just like how tire compound has more to do with "hooking up" than tire width, so too does brake pad compound have more to do with stopping power than rotor diameter and piston size.

If you've never experienced what a stock system can do with good pads (Hawk, etc) bedded well, and a good bleed with fresh fluid - you will be shocked.

Before you drop a ton of time and money on swapping stuff go spend $80 on some real pads and fluid - bed the **** out of them and see if you are happy with the car then.

Just my .02.

Good luck...

Posted via Mobile Device

 

[StreetDreamsGT]

If this car is really only going to be a DD you are probably overthinking the solution - IMHO.

If you want 5 lugs for other reasons - looks, strength, wheel selection - fine. But a conversion really isn't needed for excellent DD braking.

Huge rotos and massive calipers are great on a Road Race car that will be making repeated full force braking efforts from high speed - but not a DD.

Just like how tire compound has more to do with "hooking up" than tire width, so too does brake pad compound have more to do with stopping power than rotor diameter and piston size.

If you've never experienced what a stock system can do with good pads (Hawk, etc) bedded well, and a good bleed with fresh fluid - you will be shocked.

Before you drop a ton of time and money on swapping stuff go spend $80 on some real pads and fluid - bed the **** out of them and see if you are happy with the car then.

Just my .02.

Good luck...

Posted via Mobile Device

Sounds like solid advice and a good place to start...

I've never heard of anyone mounting newer calipers to fox brakes.
The only way i knew of to get better street brakes for 4 lug, is the baer kit, and that would blow your budget way out, that kit uses machined spindles.

It was mentioned on
87-93 Mustang 5.0 Brake upgrade pages. Improve your 60-0 times!

On that site it also mentions that the PBR calipers came on 99+ v6/GT mustangs... ...is that not the case?

 

[2000xp8]

Dreams.
I know the site well.
Never really heard anyone refer to the v6 and gt calipers as "pbrs" but i'm sure they very well may be.
It's the just the good ones come on the cars i mentioned above.

As far as newer calipers on fox discs, i'm pretty sure it's just not possible without 94+ spindles. You can use the v6 or gt calipers on 94+ spindles, but they really aren't worth the trouble.

I also agree phutch. I was giving advice based on you truely wanting upgraded brakes. But for daily driving, for the most part stock brakes in good condition are fine, as long as you don't repeatedly hard stop.

 

[StreetDreamsGT]

Oh I gotcha ...if I can't find em though i'm sure even the basic gt calipers are better than what i've got now. Well seeing how I've got the spindles already I'll start collecting parts an saving up for a 5 lug swap, but for the time being i'll just get new pads and bleed the brakes.

So I have two questions about it though. First off, if I used a SN95 rear I can't use the gears that are in my fox now can I?

Second, with the SN95 rear do you need to relocate the quad shocks like with the tbird rear?

 

[Mustang5L5]

Dreams.
I know the site well.
Never really heard anyone refer to the v6 and gt calipers as "pbrs" but i'm sure they very well may be.
It's the just the good ones come on the cars i mentioned above.

They actually are.


PBR is a brake company that manufacturers calipers. They make them for dozens of vehicles, but for the Mustang they make THREE calipers

94-98 Cobra
99-04 Cobra/bullitt/mach1
99-04 GT/V6

The cobra calipers are interchangable, just different castings due to the larger pistons 99+

99-04 gt.v6 (you can see the PBR logo on the left caliper)

BTW none of these will bolt to a fox spindle without some SERIOUS modification

 

[Mustang5L5]

So I have two questions about it though. First off, if I used a SN95 rear I can't use the gears that are in my fox now can I?

Second, with the SN95 rear do you need to relocate the quad shocks like with the tbird rear?

Just swap the SN95 brakes over to your rear end. You don't even need to take the rear out of the car. Just swap the brakes over and use 94-98 axles.

 

[StreetDreamsGT]

Just swap the SN95 brakes over to your rear end. You don't even need to take the rear out of the car. Just swap the brakes over and use 94-98 axles.

Thanks for the info, I already tracked down a set of 99 gt calipers glad to hear I can use them.

 

[Pur Pony]

good info