if you have brake upgrades

James Kanteraki

Registered User
i want to know if anyone has had any problems, like uneven breaking actuation, more grab on the front or rear or vice versa?? Any ABS action??

I know everything should be alright, I know the stuff is designed to fit the car, but is it designed to work with the car??

I mean like proportioning, and taking weight distribution into account.

Has anyone noticed anything odd about pad wear/ is pad wear good (normal) or better or worse.


and what is the reccomendation: cross drilled or slotted?

And yes i am doing both front and rears at the same time

Thanks
jim
 
James, what specific brake upgrades are you considering ? Many people, myself included, have done the Mustang Cobra conversion, which is 13" front rotors with two-piston PBR calipers, and the rear can be done using the 11.65" Mustang rotors, and the stock SC calipers on a fabricated adapter bracket.

My car has only had the swap since about May of this year, and I've only done about 7500 miles in it since then, so take what I say with that in mind. No problems so far with uneven braking, I think if you just did the front upgrade only you would be fine. Lots of people do that on SN-95 Mustangs, Cobra brakes on the front only, and have no troubles. Something that you may find becoming an issue, depending on how much of the new-found braking power you try to use, is that your suspension is too soft, and you'll get too much weight transfer on to the front of the car, reducing the effectiveness of the system obviously. Not knowing what you have for springs and shocks, I can't comment on that. My SC has Eibachs, and did have Tokico Illumina 2s all around when we first installed the big brakes. My rear shocks were getting soft, and when I tried REALLY laying on the brake pedal, the back of the car would jack up like crazy, I even felt a bit of wheel hop / shudder on one occcasion. I should also note that I have pretty decent tires that have enough grip to take advantage of the brakes as well. So now I have Koni Sports in the rear only so far, going to do the fronts over the winter, and it's much better. When I get the front Konis installed and adjusted, I can do some more "testing" to see how the weight transfer is.

I haven't noticed any irregular pad wear, front to rear proportioning issues, or weird ABS activation. Overall I'm very pleased with the swap, a pretty straightforward bolt-on for 93-up cars on the front, and only some minor fabbing needed for the rear. And they look damn cool behind the spokes of the wheels !!

OK, I'll stop rambling now.

cheers
Ed Nicholson
SCCoO
 
thanks Ed,
you know i think you have replied to all of my post this past week.
anyway. heres where i'm at now. I'm trying to get all my stuff together right now so during winter break from school I can do everything.
1 bilsteins all around.
2 already have front spindles from 93
3 13 inch PBR break package from TCCOA
4 rear break package from Supercoupeperformance.com
5 wheels and tires (17x9)
6 all polyuerethane suspension
7 front rear swaybars, 1 1/4

I was planning to keep my original springs, because I REALLY don't want to lower my car.
It will be too low for me (driving style)

If worse comes to worse, i don't know what i'll do, especially cause I've heard of clearence issues with certain tire sizes and the amount of luggage in the car.
I take it you have the mustang bolt patter right.
i was thinking about that, checked Doug Fraleig (spelling??, sorry dough), which you led me too. my main concern there was that fabricated braket on the rears. ok plate steel and all but really for that area, i don't know.
I'm trying to find out right now if the 99 cobra rear nuckle would interface with the Tbird rear knuckle. I'm guessing it wouldn't because that should have been the first thing these brake "pioneers" would have looked at.

couple more questions,
for the 11.65 mustang rotors, are those cobra, or GT rotors or V6 or does it make a differece. Then what lets see you still buy Tbird break pads for the rear, and cobra pads for the front, right???

I don't know i still don't like the idea of fabbing a braket for the rear breaks, although, it does cut all costs by like more than half, and the selection of wheels, is increase like 150%

you this is hard, i want to get the best combination of quality and and quantity, I don't mind spending the money (well kinda) but I want to get things right the first time. And since I only have this break from school to do it all, its got to get done. Next semester, is back to school and work.

uhh sorry for venting. ha

jim
 
A few comments James ... shop around for the brake stuff on the Mustang-related sites. I'm not sure what TCCoA is selling the 13" brake kits for these days, but you can probably find it cheaper if you take the time to look around. As I mentioned in blksc's post about brakes, check the pricing at a Ford dealer on Bullitt Mustang calipers, the 1R3Z-2B120-AA and 1R3Z-2B121-AA come complete with pads and mounting anchors. All you need in addition to those are the 94-up Cobra rotors, and 94-up Mustang hubs (for a car with ABS) if you want to change to 5 on 4-1/2". You'll need some 93-up stab. bar end links when you change the spindles as well. The rear brake package from Supercoupe Perf is pretty expensive too, and IMHO you don't need two-piston calipers on the rear of an SC, not for street driving anyway. The front brakes do the majority of the work. The Cobra rotors with stock SC calipers will do the job nicely on the rear. They are 11.65", the base V6 and GT Stang rear rotors are about 10.0" like ours, but not vented. So to convert the rear, all you need is the pair of 94-up Cobra rotors, the fabbed-up brackets, and the 99-up Cobra hubs if you want to change the bolt pattern. Much cheaper than the $895 kit. You would continue using T-Bird rear pads, since the stock calipers are retained, and 94-up Cobra (or 88-96 Corvette) pads for the front. Mustang Cobra rear spindles will not work, their rear suspension design is very different than a Bird, the moutning points are all different.

As for tire clearance, go with a set of AirLift bags in the rear with lowering springs, and you'll have no trouble. With 255-45-17s on my car with 8-1/2" ROH wheels, and about 25 psi in the bags inside Eibach 1-1/2" drop springs, I had no rubbing issues carrying 5 wheels+tires, a jack, a tool box, some spare parts, and a couple days worth of clothes when I made a trip down to Watkins Glen 2 summers ago to instruct at an event there. I have 255-45-18 on the car now, a bit taller, and have the fender lips trimmed a bit for clearance since the tires are slightly taller than stock. But again, with the aribags inflated, the fenders will stay off the tires.

Please feel free to e-mail or p.m. me directly if you would like some more detail on this topic.

cheers
Ed N.
 
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