I am thinking of either boosting(dual bowl mc on the booster)my drum brakes or doing a disc swap. What are the pros and cons of each? Which one would I get my moneys worth on? Thanks in advance.

 

Disc you will have to get new rims. I really can't think of anything wrong with a Dual MC, guess because I have one.

 

Right now you're running your original single bowl master cylinder. If one wheel cylinder fails... or if one brake line ruptures... you have NO brakes! Not weak brakes, or slow to stop brakes.... we're talking brake pedal goes to the floor and the car doesn't slow down by so much as 1 MPH.

Switching to a dual bowl master cylinder assures you of at least front or rear brakes in the event of anything other than a severe master cylinder failure. Having the master boosted reduces brake pedal effort and makes the car more "user friendly".

Front disc brakes disipate heat much more effectively than drum brakes. Drum brake "fade" will be reduced/eliminated with front discs.

There are some great, cost effective front disc conversion kits available on the market. All of the headache of searching for parts has been eliminated with these kits.

Here is an example of a disc brake swap kit. Page 18, RC-132 kit. Mustang Steve has some nice kits on his website.

http://www.rcmotorsports.net/5895_rod___custom.pdf

Good Luck!

Dave

 

My car is an I6, so 4 lug wheels. Is this a problem with doing a front disc swap?

 

It's not a problem per se, it just limits the available choices for kits. There are disc swap kits for I6 cars, just not many.

Dave

 

Most disc conversions say you have to have 15" or larger rims. I have seen one that said 14x7 or larger.

 

http://www.ssbrakes.com/ has a kit for the 4 lug cars and http://www.abspowerbrake.com/6466mustang6.html has a kit even one to make it a 5 lug too.

 

The OE 65-67 KH-style disc brakes (available from CSRP) should fit under 14" disc brake wheels. They fit under my aftermarket 14's just fine. If you have steel wheels, they'd have to be designed for discs rather than the old drum wheels. Otherwise you'd need to upgrade.

I'm right behind Dave in recommending a dual-bowl m/c upgrade before anything else. That's a vital safety component and shouldn't be ignored on a daily driver. It's by far more important than power or disc upgrades.

I think many people would be happy with power drums. I got along just fine with manual drums in my 67 for 7 years of daily driving. A drum system in good working order and adjustment will stop the car ok, as long as you realize that it's not a performance braking system. Power drums won't decrease the stopping distance, but they will make stopping easier to control by decreasing the amount of required pedal effort.

There was no factory disc option for the I6 models, so if you want to stay with 4-lug you're going to have to get the SSBC kit Andrew mentioned. If you want to upgrade to 5-lug, disc upgrades are more readily available. Discs are definitely superior to drums, but more for the improved braking control and resistance to fade than any improvement in actual stopping distance.

 

Yeah id never drive a car with 4 wheel drums ever again front disc at least or all 4 wheels.

 

The bad thing about front drums is that when you hit the brakes, it wants to dart one way or the other, just depending on how the adjustment is on each side. The only way to prevent it is to adjust the brakes everytime you drive it. If it were my car, I would upgrade to power disc in the front, and convert it over to 5 lug. This will allow you soooo many more options, from wheels to actual brake kits, rotors, calipers, etc. Of course, you will have to upgrade the rear axle to an 8 inch or 9 inch to get the 5 lug in the rear, but if you are planning on dropping in a V8 anytime in the future (or even beefing up the 6), this will be a good investment to do now. The disc brake conversion I did on my car is one of the best mods I have done. I used all factory style parts, and like somebody else mentioned, the stopping distance isn't really all that much better, but itis 110% more user friendly than the drums.