Brake suggestion

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Motion427
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Joined: Sat Sep 26, 2009 7:21 pm
Location: NB,Canada
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Brake suggestion

#1 Post by Motion427 » Tue May 10, 2011 4:39 pm

Hello everybody,
Wondering what brake systems that most of you are running?(street and strip cars)
I have a street car that runs at 120mph at the end of the quarter mile right now.Planing to do enough work that maybe will end up close to 130mph.Right now I have the stock brake system
Disc front/drum rear,stock master and booster.my engine is only a mild 502.Planning to run a 540 or a 582 street motor pretty soon.I have pretty good brakes right now on the street,but at the track,I do notice at the end of the quarter,that I do not have enough vacuum to run the booster.The engine tries to stall at the end of the quarter,I have to apply light throttle to keep the engine running until I'm almost stopped.

I was thinking about Wilwood brakes because of the weight savings and the 4 piston calipers,and other goodies that is available.

Can I still run power brakes or should I go to manual?I never ran a car on the street with manual brakes.I've seen that electric vacuum pumps are available for low vacuum engines.Does it really work well or not?

Also,if I upgrade the braking system to a nice Wilwood setup.With the extra braking power,I may not need the power brakes anyway????????

I don't mine spending the coin,I just want to do it once.I know,sometimes it's hard to do that.lol....

The car is a Chevy Nova 1975
Thanks in advance
1975 Nova SS
11.39@120mph so far.

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wikd69
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Location: Rocklin, CA
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Re: Brake suggestion

#2 Post by wikd69 » Tue May 10, 2011 8:21 pm

Motion427 wrote:Hello everybody,
Wondering what brake systems that most of you are running?(street and strip cars)
I have a street car that runs at 120mph at the end of the quarter mile right now.Planing to do enough work that maybe will end up close to 130mph.Right now I have the stock brake system
Disc front/drum rear,stock master and booster.my engine is only a mild 502.Planning to run a 540 or a 582 street motor pretty soon.I have pretty good brakes right now on the street,but at the track,I do notice at the end of the quarter,that I do not have enough vacuum to run the booster.The engine tries to stall at the end of the quarter,I have to apply light throttle to keep the engine running until I'm almost stopped.

I was thinking about Wilwood brakes because of the weight savings and the 4 piston calipers,and other goodies that is available.

Can I still run power brakes or should I go to manual?I never ran a car on the street with manual brakes.I've seen that electric vacuum pumps are available for low vacuum engines.Does it really work well or not?

Also,if I upgrade the braking system to a nice Wilwood setup.With the extra braking power,I may not need the power brakes anyway????????

I don't mine spending the coin,I just want to do it once.I know,sometimes it's hard to do that.lol....

The car is a Chevy Nova 1975
Thanks in advance
Well, I'll give you my 2c...

69 Camaro - I'm running stock discs in the front and Aerospace Components discs in the back on my 12-bolt (with Olds housing ends) and I'm very happy with them. Aerospace Components is out of Florida and has given me pretty good Customer service.

I'm not a big fan of depending on anything which relies on engine grunt (power steering) or vacuum (power brakes). I have visions of wiindowing a block at speed and suddenly finding out that both steering and brakes are pretty much not there...

I run mostly on the street but I'm able to cross the stripe at 125 mph - more than that pretty soon - and I don't want any surprises in my life at that point.

I researched things when I got rid of the drum brakes in the back and went to the discs - folks recommended a 1.125 diameter master cylinder piston (Corvette / Big Block manual setup) - this should give ya enough fluid displacement to drive the big calipers though your mileage may vary. The new MC cost me around 40 bucks at the parts house.

If you want to stay with power brakes but want to get away from relying on engine vacuum you can pick-n-pull an OEM electric vacuum pump and add a vacuum reserve canister to be safe. There's lots of different threads on doing things this way.

Hope this was a help.
1969 ProStreet Camaro RS Best 9.75@139 1.46 60'
Blown 427 BBC, TH400 w/Brake, Back-Half Ladderbar
Narrowed 12-Bolt, 4.10 Gears, Spool, Moser 33 Spline

http://www.marsh-racing.com/harrys_camaro-1.htm

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Bruce69Camaro
Posts: 1799
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Location: PA

Re: Brake suggestion

#3 Post by Bruce69Camaro » Wed May 11, 2011 6:37 am

Can't help you on the power assisted issue because none of my street cars/ drag cars ever had them.

I'm using 11" disc's up front and a Strange drum setup on the rear of my Camaro with a Strange M/C and a adjustable proportioning valve.

Oh yeah, Welcome to the site :thumb:

Bruce
Those who think they know it all have no way of finding out they don't......... :scratch:

Motion427
Posts: 2
Joined: Sat Sep 26, 2009 7:21 pm
Location: NB,Canada
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Re: Brake suggestion

#4 Post by Motion427 » Wed May 11, 2011 4:16 pm

Thanks for the info, so far,It looks like I'm going to use the booster as a freezebee pretty soon.....
lol.....
1975 Nova SS
11.39@120mph so far.

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