67-68 brakes better than 69?

[TheRoaringEagle]

Hi, I want to upgrade my brakes but I don't want to spend too much on the baer serious street system, and I do want to be able to run 15" wheels.

I was looking at a Camaro catalog and I've seen 67-68 4 piston calipers at 139 dollars, and 69 1 piston calipers for 49-79 dollars. I'm just wondering why it appears that the older 67-68 Camaros had better brakesthan the 69?

[nancejd]

I don't think they were better brakes, or GM wouldn't have replaced them. The earlier brakes were fixed calipers and the '69 brakes are floating. I'm guessing that the technology of that time wasn't good enough to build a good reliable fixed caliper braking system.

[vintageracer]

The 67-69 Trans Am Camaro's raced and won with the Corvette style 4 piston calipers mounted on the front and rear axles not the single piston floating caliper so you make the call as to which is better for braking. The 4 piston Calipers also used a larger diameter and thicker rotor.

The single piston calipers are much more reliable than the 4 piston calipers as the 4 piston calipers will leak rather easily if the car sits a lot. The piston bores on the 4 piston calipers were bad about rusting and leaking. Therefore the stainless steel sleeved caliper was started by Jonas at Stainless Steel Brakes in the mid 70's for the 4 piston Corvette style calipers.

The single piston calipers were much cheaper to produce, caused much less problems and provided adequate caliper pressure. After the 1968 model year, the only car using the 4 piston caliper was the Corvette. Rest assured the key aspect of changing to the single piston caliper was cost! Single piston calipers are cheap to produce with 1 piston, a seal and a caliper housing and 1 bleeder, 2 bolts to mount the caliper and 2 mounting bolt sleeves versus the 4 piston caliper with 4 pistons, 6 seals, 4 springs and 2 caliper halves, 1 bleeder, 2 bolts for the caliper halves and 2 bolts to mount the caliper.

[Apogee]

X2 what vintageracer said...the 4-piston calipers certainly have their shortcomings but there's a reason all of the '69 Camaros I've seen runing the vintage races use the C3 Corvette brake setup. IMO, one of the funky things about the calipers is that the seals ride on the piston rather than a groove in the piston bore. They seam much more prone to leaking than the more modern design.

The rotors are hella heavy for their size (pushing 20#), 11.75" OD x 1.25", and have straight vanes with no real performance options, just cosmetic drilled/slotted stuff on OE replacement castings. That said, they can take some pretty serious abuse when used in conjuction with race pads.

A weak link considering the amount of brake torque that can be applied with this caliper/rotor combined with race tires are the stamped steel mounting brackets. They flex like crazy, so much so that the calipers can hit the rotors where the bridge crosses over. Also, the pad alignment is poor on the small diameter rotor. You'd think the pad was designed to fit a 14" rotor given how much of the corners hang off above the rotor. Not sure what's up with that, but some racers will slot the caliper mounting holes in the brackets to slide the caliper down as close to the hat as possible to maximize the pad contact area.

All in all, a great break setup that will fit inside many 15" wheels. Not cheap by any means though if you price out all the parts required. There are certainly some improvements that can be made, but race parts cost race bucks.

[TheRoaringEagle]

Wow, thanks for all the great information guys! Helps me understand a lot.

I don't want race brakes though, I just want really really good street brakes that'll get me from 60-0 in less than 150 ft consistently

I've been reading up on a 68 Camaro that uses some parts from Wilwood. I do want a good setup and I want my brakes to be top notch. So right now I'm weighing the possibility of saving up for the Baer Serious Street, or going with Wilwoods all around.

But for now I have 69-style 1 piston calipers up front and drums on back. They're great on the street when road temps are down. But I lock them up pretty bad when the road is hot.

So I'm thinking about stainless brakes lines up front and some new tires. That should be a good upgrade until I get a new system. What do you think? I've heard somewhere on a thread that some s/s brake lines leak???

Any recommendations on how to upgrade my system would be greatly appreciated!

[Apogee]

Typically, the best way to shorten your stopping distance is new tires so you're on the right track there. Most high performance brake upgrades just allow you to do stop harder and more often before experiencing brake fade. They also tend to do it with more control and better feedback.

As for the brake lines, you need to be sure that you use quality hoses and that they're routed properly. Most braided stainless hose failures I've seen or heard about have been due to improper routing, exceeding the minimum bend radius, or poor quality hoses/fittings. Once the stainless braid begins to fray at the fitting crimp zone, it's only a matter of time before things start leaking or worse, failing suddenly. Stick with a reputable brand and you should be okay...as for pedal feel, that will definitely be improved with new hoses.

[CarlC]

Ditto on tires.

Mine braked 60-0 in 123' using cheapy rotors, $15 rebuilt single-piston calipers, and really cheapy semi-metallic pads. Using the same setup with a set of Hawk pads made them much better. The rears were just stock drums and shoes. Nothing fancy, but the tires made a world of difference.

For a street setup that is very capable and reliable you won't go wrong with a single piston GM caliper. Plus, you won't have to chase down specialized, expensive parts when repairs are needed.

[Rick Dorion]

Any tire recommendations for max braking?

[vintageracer]

If you REALLY want clamping pressure, a stock B body single piston caliper will provide over 2500PSI of clamping pressure. They are rather hard to adapt to anything unless you are using B body spindles as an upgrade on say a Chevelle. Of course EVERYONE on this board will tell you not to use B body spindles as they cause more problems with geomety than they solve.

Wilwood also make a "Gen III" aluminum B body single piston caliper that is a bolt on replacement for the stock B body caliper. The local round track guys use this caliper a lot. Very light, high clamping pressure and they allow the use of some fairly large rotors.

Go to Dave Pozzi's site and look up "Cheap Big Brakes" for lots of help and assistance.

[TheRoaringEagle]

Wow I can't thank you guys enough, I almost forgot about David Pozzi's site... didn't transfer bookmarks to my new computer, good thing pro-touring.com sticks in my head well - good link center.

As for big brakes versus small brakes, am I understanding correctly that the larger diameter reduces fade, thus brings about higher consistancy than smaller diameter rotors - more or less based on how much the rotor is being heated up with the larger surface area on the larger rotor? I want maximum performance on the disc setup that will fit my 15" wheels, and so would brake ducting be the best alternative?

I was thinking about kind of a retarded idea of shooting in some forced air, via small fans from under the top of my hood, with some louvers on top, that went directly ducted to the rear of the rotor, while having another set of ducts y-intersecting to the rotor from the other ducts, coming from below the the grill.

And can you over-cool your brakes?

[nancejd]

If you're getting brake lockup on a hot road, it sounds like your issue would be your tires and not your brakes. Better brakes might be more consistent, but if you're getting brake lock, you're losing traction with the tire.

[6'9"Witha69]

Rotor thickness reduces fade through heat dissipation, combined with proper directional vanes. Diameter allows more mechanical leverage of the caliper over the rotating mass.

And as for over cooling brakes, if you are running serious race pads on the street, yes. On the track at the start of a round or restart and the pads haven't warmed up yet, yes.
Using the correct pads for the type of driving application and you will never experience overcooled brakes. Most people on the track need more cooling.

Remeber, Brakes stop the wheels, Tires stop the car!

[TheRoaringEagle]

thanks 6'9" for the clear cut blunt info, and one more simple question to reassure me of my limiting factor: a 15" tire will never stop as well as a 17" tire with the same width measurement and tire compound right? because of sidewall height is stronger?

[6'9"Witha69]

Sidewall will help. 15"s and 17"s are very different animals due to the sidewall height affecting section width and contact area as well, not just strength.