Cobra Brakes for the rear of a Super coupe any interest?

Richard Oben

Registered User
If I am out of line here, let me know. First post here but have lurked before. If I need support the site let me know.

I am a builder for Factory Five Racing. We use the super coupe rear ends (modified) for the IRS Factory Five cars. Any way, several people expressed and interest in putting Cobra Mustang rear brakes on the SC rear ends. So having done this type of stuff before, we make live axle brackets for the FX Mustangs for putting disc brakes on FX rear end. So, we decided to do a conversion bracket for the IRS.

What you will need is a Cobra rotor (11.65 inch diameter 94 up) redrilled to 5 to 4.25 for your wheels. Or replace the hub with the 99 Cobra hub, if you want 5 on 4.5 wheels. The Cobra hub will fit in the SC spindle/brearing and use the SC axle. Along with the Cobra Rotor a Cobra caliper will need to be used. The SC brake lines will fit with a little bending. I am not sure about the SC upper control arm clearance. We use the FFR arms and SC bolts without trouble. I don't think the arms would cause a problem. There is some grinding involved. The caliper has casting boss on the bottom that needs to be removed. Other than that it is pretty much a bolt on.

The part pics should be on my website in a day or two. If you want instructions, parts lists and pics email me and I will send them to you. My email is in the profile or direct from the website below.

Now for the most important part, price. The brackets, hardware and shipping are $150. The hardware is very specific and must be included. For this price we do not include anything else, like the rotor or caliper. Those parts are available from most parts houses and also from several on line sources. Calipers cost about 75 bucks each I think, and rotors about 60 bucks each.

Again if I offend anyone or am out of line let me know. I just thought there may be some interest for this part on this site.

Cheers Richard.
 
Yeah, Richard this is one of the items I'm planning on upgrading in the spring. Your info will be of much help. You are most definitely inline with your topic and the help, please keep on addind to the forum. Thank you.


ps you have mail..............Or at least you would have if the link worked for me.
 
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Hi Richard ...

We did a conversion on my 95 this year, like many people using Cobra rotors with the stock SC calipers ... the 89 - 92 calipers are different than 93- up. Have you looked at the attachment of the T-Bird parking brake cables to the Cobra calipers ?? I think that's the reason why people have just done the swap previously using the original calipers, there is an issue with reattaching the cables to Stang calipers. Also, the early Bird calipers use a larger surface area brake pad than the Cobra calipers I believe. Is there not also a difference in the hub hole diameter of the Cobra rotor being put on a T-Bird hub ? I haven't verified this myself, we did the 5 on 4.5" pattern conversion with Mustang hubs at the same time, but I have heard from other sources that a spacer ring needs to be put in between the Cobra rotor and Bird hub.


cheers
Ed Nicholson
SCCoO
 
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Cobra rear conversion doesn't interest me much... now if you could do us a cobra FRONT conversion, that would be very useful :)
 
On a 94 SC, the Cobra stuff bolts right on the front pretty much ... use your old hubs, redrill the Cobra rotors for SC wheel bolt pattern, get some Cobra 2-piston calipers and brackets, file down the banjo block on the right side flex hose ... and make sure you have big enough wheels to clear them !! :D

cheers
Ed N.
 
As always, Fast Ed has his facts straight!

I’ll just add a few things since I did this swap several years ago and now have about 15,000 miles on the setup.

I had a set of rear Cobra calipers that I was determined to make work on the SC. But the mounting of the brackets proved too difficult since the holes on the caliper brackets only needed to be moved out about ½ the existing hole size on the SC rear knuckle. These brackets were already designed to go over a larger caliper and I had hoped they would fit the SC mounting holes. They did not! Also, as mentioned the SC has bigger pads and the SC e-brake cable does not work well with the Cobra caliper. The SC caliper turned out to be a much better choice for the SC conversion.

The bore on the Mustang wheels is larger than the bore on the SC wheels. So anytime you use a ‘Stang rotor or wheel on the SC rear hub you need a hub ring to space this out. The wheels are designed to be centered by the hub and not the studs, so strange balance issues can show up when this spacer is not used.

Someone just pointed out to me in another post that SuperCoupe Performance makes a rear brake upgrade kit with a 12” KVR rotor (the Cobra is 11.65”). This is one option.

I’ll be happy to work with any vendor with information on making a rear kit. Choice is always good.

I also have the specs for the bracket I had machined that I’ll eventually get up on my website, in case someone has the resources to make their own.

And Doug Fraleigh has a great article on this conversion and bracket fabrication on his site:

http://users.rcn.com/fraleigh/Article.html

Here’s a pic of my bracket, caliper and adapter ring on rear SC hub:

scrcmt.jpg


Recent SCCoA post on a similar subject:

http://66.36.160.101/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=13764
 
Been there, done that, wrote the article :)

Picture5.jpg


Seriously, many people have asked about the brackets, and I think you could sell them. I also think you'll need to investigate the use of Cobra calipers as the parking brake cable exits at the opposite end from the stock MN-12 caliper, and can't be easily made to work. I know, I own both cars.

Frankly, retaining the stock caliper reduces the cost of the swap, and with almost three years and 40K miles on this swap, it's not a problem.

I also concur with George that you MUST include a hub-centric ring if you produce a kit with the intention of retaining the MN-12 hub and using SN-95 Cobra rotors.
 
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I think there would be more interest in just the spacer brackets to move the stock calipers out enough for the Cobra rotors.

I also tried to find a bracket to mount the front Cobra calipers and use a 12" rotor as opposed to 13". I would like to keep the stock wheels. Baer wants 174.00 each for a 12" mounting bracket for the front. If I had the means, I'd mod the Cobra brackets, but I do not.
 
sounds great richard. This spring I planned on doing the front cobra brakes, now i'm considering your rear brackets for the cobra rears.

Thanks,
Justin
 
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