help choosing brakes

[dannyho]

In the ongoing plan of things to do to my car, I've run into brakes. I'm probably looking at 18inch rims.

Now I have a 71 B-body mopar, and its a big mother. I have been looking through for a brake upgrade. currently my car has drums all the way around, and I have a pretty tight budget.

I've only managed to turn up kits from wilwood and stainless Steel brakes. The willwoods being considerably less money. since I have drum brakes, it means a couple kits from other companies get thrown out the window, seeing as I'm not tracking down b/e body disc spindles anytime soon.

The wilwoods only come in 10.75, 11, and 11.75 diameters, and ssbc isnt much better. the width on both is about .8".

what my question amounts to is basically , is an 11.75" front disc setup enough for a 4000 pound car with 18 inch rims? I'm probably looking at a goal of 350-400 horsepower. and I'll match the rear brakes accordingly.

What would you guys recommend for brakes?

also, given the mass of this thing, am i right in assuming that I wont regret the decision to keep my power brakes? if my car weighed closer to 3000 pounds I'd probably chuck 'em, but what do the experts think?

Thanks!
Dan

[Bigblue73]

Check out AR engineering for the Viper caliper swap. Andy has done some really cool stuff with his early B-body (65). He has you covered and all you have to do is by the calipers. by the way, the caliper are extremely high, even used.

SSBC pissed me off on the Power Tour last year and they sit in the sun for all I care, really ****ty attitude toward mopar. Baer has some stuff for the b-bodies. The spindles and such on your b-body should be the same as my '73 e-body if your have disc brakes now.

Good Luck!

[6'9"Witha69]

One note on the wilwood stuff, they may have kits only up to 11.75, but the way the have the Hub, Adapter plate and rotor means you can buy the hub and all you need and an adapter rotor set to allow for larger brakes and a different caliper bracket. All these items are available fro Wilwood and they can help you piece it together (I have received great CS from them in the past. 5+ years ago the only kit for the front of my Camaro came in 10.75" and the rear kit was 12". Didn't make sense. So I called and they were able to help me piece together a larger kit for the right price. Give them a call and see what can be put together. If you do go Wilwood call Frank and Lisa at GP Superstore, I think they can always do good things with Wilwood pricing. Great people too.

[dannyho]

thanks! its nice to hear I've got some options. But now on choosing them. How big is big enough, If its not too pricey i'll swing for the 13" rotors, but is it necissary, might i be happy saving 500 bucks and going for 11 or 11.75 inch rotors? and power brakes, my car's so heavy, am i right to assume i need them?

[dannyho]

I also have a question, how do you think viper calipers compare to willwood dynalites, superlites? I'm not usually one to give into gimmicks, but theres something about a mopar with viper brake calipers...

[1970cuda]

i am putting baers on my cuda and they are really nice stuff.

[dannyho]

I've looked into this a bit and unless I'm mistaken viper calipers, at least the ones i can find are 4 piston 36 mm (1.41 inch) pistons. with the 13 inch brakes and my car weighing 3800 pounds and a center of gravity height of 18 inches (humor me) with a wheelbase of 115 inches and 45/55 distribution i came up with a line pressure of over 1400psi. this is calculated with a negative acceleration of 1.3 G's (humor me again) with a brake pad Coefficient of .35

are my calculations off? I know the master cylinder size doesnt matter in these calculations so i didnt assume to know what size i would need. its just calculating the pressure inside the caliper needed to apply the torque to the wheel given the acceration (deceleration)
1400 psi seems like a lot, i know people have bored out the viper calipers to 40 mm but does it come down to that these calipers are not for me with such a fatass for a car