Brembo brakes

[Austexican]

Has anybody mounted Brembo brakes on the '65 coupe? Yesterday I drove the CTS-V at Circuit of the Americas in the Cadillac V-Series Performance Lab. I was impressed with the Cadillac's Brembos and I wonder how a Brembo setup would compare to the stock Wilwoods.

[Hankl]

To my knowledge, if things haven't changed, Wilwoods are not stock on the Coupe kits. You select a brake package that fits the supplied front spindles, which can be the base Mustang calipers and rotors, or any after market kits that fit the original Mustang spindle configuration. As to the Brembo's performance standard vs, other caliper packages, in the racing community, they are looked at as the "More money than Brains" choice. There are many more packages available that provide superior performance at an equal or lower price point. Tom Coon mentioned his use of the AP caliper package, and that choice is far superior to any Brembo package (of equal performance) that you'll find. Even though the AP system looks initially more expensive, the AP disc come from the UK, the "new" Brembo disc come from china..... As to the use of other brands, taking the time to select the correct package will pay big dividends. Some say that the Wilwoods don't perform like "Real Racing" brakes, and I have to disagree with that. For example, we had a Coupe racer that used Wilwoods and was overall satisfied with the performance, but ran into wear problems during endurance racing. Problem was, they had selected the street version of the 6-piston caliper to run in endurance track events. The street version uses a .650 thick pad, and the race version uses a .800 thick pad. On the face of it, doesn't seem like a big difference, but the more than 1/8" increase of thickness, is the different between changing pads at the 19 hour point, or finishing a 25 hour racing without a pad change.

Basically, don't paint yourself into a corner of what you need to have for good brakes, by selecting a particular brand of brakes. Look for the package that provides desired performance that fits within you allotted budget. Other good brake manufactures are, SSBC, Stop-Tech, and a new player on the block, Rotora. It's your pocket book, so you need to make the best choice that fits all of your parameters.

One suggestion, or I should say, from my experience, stay away from drilled rotors!! Use plain or Slotted rotors, drilled rotors have become the bane of the brake community, people want them because they "Look Cool" but in reality, they are only really functional on a race car. The drilled rotors you see on race cars, are "one time use", they are discarded after each cycle, as they develop too many problems for re-use.

http://static.summitracing.com/global/images/prod/mediumlarge/wil-140-10309-r_w_ml.jpg

http://www.myhotmustang.com/productImages_thumbBIG/1229455294368067.jpg

http://www.myhotmustang.com/productImages_thumbBIG/124517134094538.jpg

Hank :cool:

[loeffler1]

Thanks Hank

I'll scratch Brembo off the list. I've got to do somethong about my brakes. The problem I have is I've got 15" wheels and Wilwood does not make a package of 4 piston calipers and rotors for the front, only for the rear according to one of their spokesman. I thought I might try replacing the pads for a start to see if that helps with EBC Yellowstuff pads as someone suggested recently on one of the forums. However I run into another problem. The rear ends are 87-93 Mustang 59 1/4" wide and according to EBC those rear ends are drum types and they don't list pads for them obviously. Does anyone know the correct part numbers for 87-93 rear disc pads and the SN95 front spindle pads in the EBC lineup??

[Hankl]

Bill,

According to Summit, on the fronts, you have these part numbers for the fronts, you just pick what compound you'd like.

EBC-DP31131C
EBC-DP41131R Yellowstuff
EBC-DP31143C
EBC-UD600
EBC-DP21131
EBC-UD412

Rear 93 Disc
EBC-DP41172R---Yellowstuff
EBC-DP21172
EBC-DP31172C

Hank :cool:

[Austexican]

Thanks for the advice, Hankl. I know that I'm comparing apples and oranges and that a power-assisted setup for a 4000+ lb. Cadillac is not ideal for a 2400 lb. Daytona Coupe. Nevertheless, I felt that the Cadillac was providing a greater degree of driver feedback that made it easier for me to achieve trailing braking than the non-assisted Wilwoods on my Daytona Coupe. So what part of a brake setup contributes to improved driver feedback?

[Hankl]

There are several items that contribute to feed back, one of the most important is educating your feet. Sounds funny, but the connection from your brain to the pedal, is your foot on the brake pedal. Other seldom thought of things can be simple as, a small amount of air in the system, your brain would interpret the pedal as being "vague" or "soft". If the master cylinders are not correctly matched to the calipers, the pedal could be what your foot would interpret as "hard" or "stiff". The reason that modern cars feel so much different than some older models, is the amount of engineering that goes into optimizing all the parts of the system for correct operation. Items like pad makeup, rotor size, pedal ratio, brake balance, front/rear, etc, all contribute to, or affect the brake feel.

Seat time at a track is going to be the best way to find out what your brakes feel like, and spending time evaluating your cars system. Its best to make small changes to get where you want the brakes to be. Do a simple mechanical check of the system, a good bleed, replace the rubber hoses in the system with Teflon Braided, change the brake fluid yearly as a maintenance schedule item. The Brembo's most likely had a more abrasive compound, to make the braking system "Feel" better, so you could also approach your system the same way.

Hank :cool:

[Austexican]

Good advice, Hank. I bought the coupe from the second owner last May. My seat time is limited to public roads on the weekends. The pedal feels very hard with minimal travel. I've just run the odometer up to 7,000 miles. Perhaps both of us need a few more miles.;)

[MikeJones]

Bill, I switched my street pads to Carbotech AX6. Made a huge difference although I'll likely go to a larger rotor and multi-piston setup at some time. I called them and had several good conversations before ordering, and they helped to ensure I had the right part #'s.

Regards, Mike

[Gordon Levy]

I have brake kits that will fit your 15" wheels

[loeffler1]

Hank, Thanks for the info. I'll be calling Summit Mon.

Gordon, Aslo thank you, if new pads don't work I'll be talking to you next. my MC set up is the twins from Wilwood. I'm not sure what size they are. I'll try to look tonight, but it is tough to see in the footboxes with everything assembled.

[Gordon Levy]

They should be 3/4" front and rear.

[jkrueger]

I am running Brembo racing calipers and rotors on the front of my coupe. 13" x 32mm thick rotors. They are a caliper/rotor package that is used on the rear of NASCAR sprint cup cars. A lot of work went into finding the correct rotor size, caliper piston size, pad compound, master cylinder size and pedal ratio to get the right setup for my car. I have a friend that used to work for Alcon racing brakes and had a great spreadsheet that you put in all those variables and it spit out pedal travel and pedal effort. I really like the brakes on my car and can stop just as fast as most modern day sports cars, and have had no problem with brake fade during 40 min track sessions.

I would agree with Hank in that the AP racing setup is a good package.

http://i250.photobucket.com/albums/gg253/jkrueger485/Daytona%20Coupe/IMG_5821.jpg (http://s250.photobucket.com/user/jkrueger485/media/Daytona%20Coupe/IMG_5821.jpg.html)

http://i250.photobucket.com/albums/gg253/jkrueger485/Daytona%20Coupe/IMG_5819.jpg (http://s250.photobucket.com/user/jkrueger485/media/Daytona%20Coupe/IMG_5819.jpg.html)

http://i250.photobucket.com/albums/gg253/jkrueger485/Daytona%20Coupe/IMG_5818.jpg (http://s250.photobucket.com/user/jkrueger485/media/Daytona%20Coupe/IMG_5818.jpg.html)

[loeffler1]

Hankl
I purchased the Yellstuff pads from Summit Racing. As you said DP41131R for the fronts and DP41172R for the rear. They did not fit whatsoever. I sent them back this morning to Summit. The rear EBC pads looked like they were meant for 2 piston calipers as they had 2 circular indentations on the piston side of both pads while my calipers are one piston. The fronts were not at all like the original pads from FFR and didn't fit into the caliper. They looked like they were meant for 4 piston calipers as they had 2 round spring clips on the piston side of both pads while my calipers are 2 piston. I don't know what FFR uses for calipers but they certainly don't match up to the part numbers EBC has for Mustang caliper pads. The rear calipers that came with the kit look pretty cheap as compared to the front PBR calipers. Could not even find a brand name on the rear calipers except for some numbers, probably casting numbers. Seems as though FFR really dropped the ball here when it comes to braking which would seem to me to be a rather dangerous issue and given the quality of the rest of the kit is perplexing. I would surely have paid more for the kit with 4 piston Wilwoods included but that was not an option at my time of purchase. I guess I'll give one last shot with Mike Jones suggestion as to the Carbotech pads and if that fails it's on to the big buck stoppers from Gordon Levy.

[CHAZC5ZX]

Hay Bill. my car #467 came with the PBR front brakes and they are the same as my 03 mustang. I used A 98 mustang rear end with disk's I changed to the EBC green stuff pads and they made A massive improvement. You could look on A auto parts store web site for pic's to try to indentify what you have.
Chaz...

[CJBergquist]

Mike maybe this will help. My kit number is #441 and it was a complete kit. The original brake pads that FFR provided were Wagner MX804 for the front and PD627A for the rear. I upgraded to Hawk High Performance Street pads HB274F610 front and HB183F585 for the rear. In hind sight PLUS there is an "I told you so" included, I should have gone with the Hawk HP+ swap the "F" for a "N" to get the HP+

In the Hawk catalog the fronts are listed under 1999 - 2004 Mustang GT 4.6 and the rears are listed under 2003 -2004 Mustang Cobra 4.6.

Some photos here that may help. http://www.flickr.com/photos/51103049@N00/sets/72157621399986948/