59 Safari/77 camaro brakes...upgrades?

[negativematt]

Hi all,

I'm doing an Turbo LS swap on my wife's 59 Safari wagon. I bought a set of Fatman Fab spindles (only company to make them for the wagon) and they use a 77 Camaro single piston caliper. What upgrades would be worth doing to this setup? I will use drilled/slotted rotors, but this will be a daily driver, so I don't want pads that will wear out quickly. Is there a good direct bolt in caliper that would be worth looking into?

thanks!

Matt

[Apogee]

If the brakes are essentially second-gen F-body components, than any of the upgrades for those spindles, what we would refer to as a GM tall-spindle (GMTS) application, should apply to the Fatman Fab spindles. Given your intended use, I'm not really clear whether you want to increase the performance and capacity of your existing system, or if you just want to improve the aesthetics. While there are several aftermarket D52 caliper, pad and rotor options available, none will vastly improve the brakes due to their inherent limitations with respect to thermal capacity and general design. If it's in the budget, then your best bet to increase performance (and aesthetics by default) would be to consider a performance brake kit...any performance brake kit, whether it be Wilwood, Baer, C5/C6, etc, take your pick. More rotor equals more thermal mass, larger pads will extend pad life, lighter calipers, etc, it all adds up to overall higher performance than the OE GMF2 brakes you have now.

HTH,
Tobin
KORE3

[negativematt]

Thanks Tobin! The spindles use the 1LE Fbody rotors, so I'll use a drilled/slotted set, but a larger set isn't out of question. I have the Wilwoods on my truck, but a c5 setup would be fine on here. Do you offer a bracket set for something like this? I added the info from the instructions if it will help. This wagon won't be autocrossed or anything like that, but we are planning on a cross country trip and with 18" wheels up front, I suppose aesthetics are important to me. Oh, the car has factory power brakes and I have a few Astro van hydroboost setups as well if I need to go that route.


3) You can match the Pontiac 5 on 5” bolt circle used on the stock rear axle by using the following brake parts:
’73-’87 Chevy PU rotor 12” x 1” thick Wagner BD60476 or NAPA #4885596

Standard bearings, seals, dust cap and spindle nut kit for that PU
A-3 outer bearing Nat’l #8871/NAPA #19984 seal NAPA #730-2438 cap
A-6 inner bearing NAPA #630-1323 nut and washer kit

Calipers, pins, and pads for a ’70-’77 Camaro. Buy a loaded caliper with those parts together to save money. A brake hose from the same Camaro is 15” long, and should work well for you, along with a pair of Banjo bolts for the hose, NAPA # 82698. We also have a complete braided stainless hose kit with all needed parts if you prefer.

Some folks have already used the Scarebird disc kit on their stock Pontiac spindles, using a 77-78 Bonneville rotor (Wagner BD60464 or NAPA #4885581). That will also fit by using an A-34 as the outer bearing.
If you prefer to use a 5 on 4 ¾” Chevy car bolt pattern, get a pair of ’88-’92 Camaro 12” x 1” rotors for the 1LE optioned cars. Again, the A-34 outer bearing is the only other change needed.
Be sure to use a dual master cylinder designed for front disc brakes. A 1” bore cylinder from a ’75-’80 Camaro manual brake car is generally correct for this system. If you have run rear disc brakes as well, use a ’76 Corvette 1” bore manual master cylinder. The power brake cylinders are larger bore and will increase your pedal effort too much, unless a booster is added.

[Apogee]

Matt, aside from appearance and weight, there really aren't any major negative performance issues associated with the D52 calipers you have now, so I'm not really clear what you're hoping to gain. You can paint the calipers or replace them with a Wilwood D52 or some other aftermarket aluminum option to reduce unsprung weight, however most will also decrease the overall brake torque due to smaller effective piston areas. Rotor finish will have a minimal effect on brake performance, but can negatively impact rotor life in the case of drilled finishes, so buy what you want knowing that most drilled rotors do not recommend resurfacing, but rather replacement.

If you want to increase your braking capacity and overall performance, then that's when you should be considering upgrading to something a bit more exotic than the venerable, tried and true D52's. All complete aftermarket brake kits will require some fairly basic spindle modifications since the existing caliper mounts will need to be removed. With aftermarket kits you can easily get 12.80 to 14 inch rotor diameters, many 1.1 or 1.25 inches thick, providing substantially more thermal mass and therefore lower average operating temperatures. Calipers with multiple pistons do a better job of providing uniform support for the pad, which is what allows the larger rotors and everything to fit inside the wheels...fixed versus floating, each has it's pros and cons, but either can be made to work very well.

Tobin
KORE3

[negativematt]

Tobin,

Thank you for the excellent info! With this spindle swap, I am converting to discs, but at this time I do not have any parts yet. better braking is of course the goal, but once I add up the cost of new calipers, bearings, rotors, hoses, etc...I'm not too far off from a decent aftermarket set of brakes. My Studebaker sets on an S10 chassis and I modded the spindles to accept the Wilwood 6 pistons, so I don't mind doing that to these spindles as well. I just wasn't sure since these aren't a "belltech" or some other name brand that it would be possible to do so. If these are "tall ball joint" style spindles, then I'll look into what is offered and make a decision. The car will be disc front, drum rear (factory 9.3" safe-t-trac) so I want it to be able to stop decently, and a good looking set of brakes never hurt anybody either! ;)

[Apogee]

Do you have a link to the spindles on Fatman Fab's site or anywhere else?

[negativematt]

http://www.fatmanfabrications.co/products/1959-1964-pontiac-dropped-spindles/

I emailed the tech guy at FATMAN and he said these will only accept the 77 Camaro style caliper...so I might be limited to that

[Apogee]

http://www.fatmanfabrications.co/products/1959-1964-pontiac-dropped-spindles/

I emailed the tech guy at FATMAN and he said these will only accept the 77 Camaro style caliper...so I might be limited to that

That may be so, however if the spindles are machined to accept the '77 Camaro dust shields, then you should be able to install just about any aftermarket brake kit relatively easily since most modify and use the existing dust shield mounting holes to install a caliper mounting bracket. The picture doesn't show dust shields, so maybe they aren't manufactured with those in mind, however that doesn't mean that you could machine them yourself if you were so inclined.