I was reading Dion's thread and I got an idea-

backstory:
I have an old harley davidson that originally came with a poorly designed single piston rear disc brake (banana style). I took an aluminum multi piston caliper from the front of a crotch rocket and adapted it to the brake- since it had pistons on both sides, all I had to do was make a bracket that located the rotor on center.

the point:
There are two reasons why this made me happy- first, because crotch rockets are largely driven by people that don't respect them there are lots of cheap parts floating around. Second, I like having strong brakes with good feel.

the challenge:
In the realm of A-Body mopars there seem to be a few high dollar options for disk brakes- wilwoods, SSBC, etc. You can also go with '72 and earlier discs that seem hard to get parts for, or '73 and later discs that call for large bolt pattern, and aren't that big in diameter. These stock disc parts are hard to find in my town.

Has anybody on here adapted stock calipers from some easy to find in the junkyard American (heavy) performance car? I don't know that much about what is available for cheap used, but maybe a mustang at a upullit? Or even just at the local pep boys parts counter?

details:
And what about using a disc that slips on inbetween the wheel and the hub? I am not a professional mechanic, so Ive only worked on my own stuff, but don't later model cars have a seperate hub and rotor? Would one in particular maybe match up well? Could a bracket come right off the bolts for the spinle to the lower ball joint assembly?

I'd be really interested in anything

thanks
Kevin
in philly

_________________

madam im adam

Dr. Diff on Moparts has been selling (I think) a custom setup using Mustang Cobra calipers and rotors. Reason I say "I think" is, I can't seem to find anybody that will come forward and report on the performance. I do know of at least one person that has installed them, but no report that I can track down. Dr. Diff's kit is $800.

AndyF (AREngineering.com?) has a couple of kits that use a couple of different Viper calipers. One is only $180 and uses stock 11.75" rotors, but you have to source Gen I Viper calipers, and they can be spendy ($750 new, each?). The bigger kit uses 13" Mercedes rotors and Gen II Viper calipers and goes for $900(?), but I think you still have to source the calipers ($250 new, each?) and rotors (about $90 each on RockAuto.com).

Personally, the Gen I Viper caliper doesn't offer any improvement, other than less weight, and the Cobra kit is only a first level upgrade to me. I am going to want something bigger.

If you don't care about weight, look into a 2001 Tundra 4 piston fixed caliper. You could put them on 13" Cobra rotors, and they have bigger pistons than the Gen II Vipers, but they weight about 15 lbs each. You could also look into 90-96 Nissan 300ZX calipers, the early ones were aluminum and they have the same piston area as the Gen I Viper calipers, but you can't put them on 13" rotors (12.5" max?).

In the end though, this is all definitely taking your life (and everyone elses on the road) into your own hands. If it fails, it could be bad. Just an FYI.

_________________
'15 Chrysler 200S V6
'74 Duster 360, factory 4 speed car

www.scarebird.com has cheap and effective disc brake swaps for Mopars, using parts from midsized and large GM cars.

_________________
一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

Whoops, forgot about them. Probably because I don't see it as a performance upgrade in the range I want. Great if you want to get rid of the drums, but not something I would run around a road course with for very long on.

_________________
'15 Chrysler 200S V6
'74 Duster 360, factory 4 speed car

and they aren't charging $1000 for the privilege, just an honest price on a piece of sheetmetal and a little more for R&D.

Their prices make it cheaper for me to go with their setup instead of making my own!

Thanks fellas

_________________

madam im adam

Has anyone used the Scarebird brackets on an early A body(ie 62 Valiant), they originally had the brackets listed for 1965 and newer, but I see now they have the bracket listed for 1960 - 1972 A bodies with 9 inch drums.

Mike

_________________
64 Town Panel
225 A745 3-speed
[img][img]http://i110.photobucket.com/albums/n93/62toad/64%20Town%20Panel/TPsignature.jpg[/img]

Unless you're going really fast (more than 150 mph) all you need are a set of good brakes up front and the stock drums in the rear. Here is a picture of a customer's car who runs 17x9 rims all the way around and has the 13 inch Viper brakes up front. This car has re-drilled Viper rotors and Viper calipers. It takes custom hubs and custom caliper adapters to make this work. This setup will work just fine on a road course with a 400 hp motor. More power than that and you need to step up to even bigger stuff.

I can add that with 250hp in a 3250 lb Dart 11.75" factory rotors and Raybestos Super Stop pads work pretty well on a road course, but you need to have air ducting to the rotors. Those pads are perfectly street worthy too. If one was to sacrifice street worthiness the brakes would have handled more horsepower.

_________________
Joshua