modern manual brakes

[WS6]

Are the modern manual brakes much easier to operate than the old school manual brake from the 60s and 70s? I see so many people swapping over to manual and I figure they had to be but didn't know. Getting rid of the booster(hydraulic or vacuum) really cleans the firewall up. Any disadvantages to going with manual instead of boosted?

[brownz]

would like to know the same thing??

[andrewb70]

Mine work awesome!

Andrew

[Apogee]

You can get manual brakes to work great with the proper pedal ratio, master cylinder, caliper, and pad combination. The only drawbacks IMO are that the pedal travel is going to be greater than a boosted system and the effort will likely be slightly higher at lockup. This can be viewed as a plus though as it makes threshold braking easier since the system is less sensitive to small inputs from the driver.

Tobin
KORE3

[Vegas69]

I like mine on the open road and cruising. Around town stop light to stop light is where it takes a lot of pedal efford. Pedal effort seems to decrease with speed. I like the clean firewall.

[6'9"Witha69]

You can get manual brakes to work great with the proper pedal ratio, master cylinder, caliper, and pad combination. The only drawbacks IMO are that the pedal travel is going to be greater than a boosted system and the effort will likely be slightly higher at lockup. This can be viewed as a plus though as it makes threshold braking easier since the system is less sensitive to small inputs from the driver.

Tobin
KORE3x2 on all counts.

It does take some readjustment coming from my assisted DD HHRSS, but that usually only lasts a couple minutes. For me, the biggest issue (if you can really call it that) is dragging the brakes a little on cold mornings due to my pads being in a slightly higher heat range.

[ProdigyCustoms]

I really like the manual brakes. All out personal cars have manual Wilwood set ups. I put them in Lisa's Project EmptyNest, all 110LBS of her.

I especially like them in autocross where one second your trying to push the gas pedal through the floor,the next second your on the brakes. I have a bad tendancy to lock power brakes as I am just not good and pushing the gas pedal hard and the brake pedal lightly.

[parsonsj]

Love mine too. It's all a matter of getting the master cylinder and brake pistons diameters working together.

Call Frank... he's got the skinny on all of Wilwood's offerings.

jp

[XLexusTech]

Great info Guys! For a Gen 1 camaro anyone know which manual master would work well with c5 Brake calipers?
How about C6?

[WS6]

I have had the worst issues with the 4WDB on my 79TA. Literally, if it wasn't for those damn brakes, I probably wouldn't have parked the car so long ago. Before I get the car on the road again, I've basically decided to rip the original system out(yes, it pisses me off that much) even if I have to go with a simple solution that'll fit behind the stock 15inch snow flakes until I can afford a C5 upgrade. I figured a manual system, if I could piece one together that wasn't high dollar, would be a cheaper and less prone to issues route. So long as modern manual brakes worked well which is what I had no clue on.

Thanks guys.

[andrewb70]

I have had the worst issues with the 4WDB on my 79TA. Literally, if it wasn't for those damn brakes, I probably wouldn't have parked the car so long ago. Before I get the car on the road again, I've basically decided to rip the original system out(yes, it pisses me off that much) even if I have to go with a simple solution that'll fit behind the stock 15inch snow flakes until I can afford a C5 upgrade. I figured a manual system, if I could piece one together that wasn't high dollar, would be a cheaper and less prone to issues route. So long as modern manual brakes worked well which is what I had no clue on.

Thanks guys.

Keep in mind that if you are using a system that needs to go inside a 15 inch wheel your braking effort will be much higher. My system uses large, C6 Z06 calipers and 14" rotors. I am using a 15/16" bore MC and my pedal ratio is about 6:1.

Andrew

Andrew

[Apogee]

Great info Guys! For a Gen 1 camaro anyone know which manual master would work well with c5 Brake calipers?
How about C6?

C5 and C6 setups are virtually the same with respect to caliper piston area. That said, the 7/8" universal Wilwood master cylinder is an excellent option for manual setups and I'm sure Frank at Prodigy would be more than capable of hooking you up with one for a good price.

As Andrew stated, he's running 15/16" bore MC but with a more rotor diameter than the base level kit, somewhat offsetting the reduction in hydraulic force with his effective braking radius making his pedal effort less than what it would be on a base level kit. Many are running a 15/16" master cylinder in manual setups with C5/C6/C6Z51/C6Z06 kits with good results.

Tobin
KORE3

[andrewb70]

Ideally I would love to use the Wilwood 7/8" bore mc, but it's hard to argue with the $25 price tag of my 15/16" MC.

Andrew

[Ron S]

I had a Baer track setup on my Cuda,in normal driving it felt like power,in fact Baer recommends manual.At the track at 110 mph you had to apply a little more effort,but even then they worked great.Ron

[airrj1]

I have an old school (aka cast iron caliper) 4 wheel manual system on my Chevelle that I have been very happy with. And I had them on the car with 15" Rallys before I switched to my Z06 rims.

I agree that the manual system is much simpler and cleaner. Also once I had everything working well the brake performance was excellent especially the modulation and inital bite at autocross events. The pedal effort is slightly higher than stock, but not nearly as bad as the stock 4w drum manual brakes.

The system is basically stock GM single piston calipers and GM hat type rotors. The front calipers are off of a early '80's Surburban with the JD7 option and basic '70's vintage front calipers mounted on Firebird/Cadillac backing plates. The caliper piston diameters are 3 3/32" front and 2 1/2" rear. The MC is from a '68 vette with a 1 1/8" diameter. Front rotors are from a C3 vette and are 12"x1 1/8" and the rears are standard rear discs from the Firebird 11".

And the best investment I made, and the biggest difference between old manual brakes vs. newer is a set of Hawk HP+ pads.

If you want any more info I can send you some photos etc.

[Vegas69]

Mine work great...but I read a post on another thread that does makes alot of sense. Adjusting your brake pedal linkage to take up some of the slack makes sense. That is essentially what a booster does. Let me know how it works out.

[woody80z28]

I have had the worst issues with the 4WDB on my 79TA. Literally, if it wasn't for those damn brakes, I probably wouldn't have parked the car so long ago. Before I get the car on the road again, I've basically decided to rip the original system out(yes, it pisses me off that much) even if I have to go with a simple solution that'll fit behind the stock 15inch snow flakes until I can afford a C5 upgrade. I figured a manual system, if I could piece one together that wasn't high dollar, would be a cheaper and less prone to issues route. So long as modern manual brakes worked well which is what I had no clue on.

Thanks guys.

I have 12" 1LE front disc with Wilwood GMIII calipers on the front with 11.6" Blazer rear disc and a manual master on my 2nd-gen. It fills up those 15" wheels nicely, and the backing plates for the rotor hat ebrake are even right.

[protour73]

after finally finishing my build and getting my car on the road, I can finally say...............I love my manual brakes!!!!
Frank got me all set up with the Wilwood tandem Master, and 12" 4 piston, at all four corners. I haven't had it on the track yet, but street driving is a breeze, with a perfect pedal!!!

[SDMAN]

My project car brakes are all manual. Baer 6 piston F/R monoblocks with 14" rotors. Pedal is 7:1, and the front master is 13/16" and the rear is 7/8" on a balance bar. Havent tried them as yet (car aint done), but Im looking forward to it.

[mongoose]

any reason why you went bigger on the back?

[SDMAN]

All else being equal (pedal ratio, etc) larger diameter bore M/C's will move a higher fluid volume, but at a lower pressure. Using a larger bore on the rears is one way to have less pressure in the rear brake system.

[The WidowMaker]

sdman - i guess i need some more clarification. my thoughts are that if both mc rods move the same amount, the larger bore will displace more fluid. if it displaces more fluid, than assuming both vessels (front and rear system) are the same size, it would leave me to believe that the pressure will increase at a faster rate. therefore the larger bore will create more pressure for the given pedal movement.

tim

[SDMAN]

Im no expert. And Im sure there will be details I miss or get incorrect. Think of a common single master, manual brake system. Here is how the pressure thing works. You push on the pedal. Lets say its a 100# push. The pedal ratio is 6:1. So the force applied to the rod pressing on the master cylinder piston is 600#.

A 1.00" dia M/C has a piston area of .785 sq in. Dividing the force applied by the area of the piston will yield the line pressure created, so 600 / .785 = 764# line pressure.

If we swap out the 1.00" master with a .875", the line pressure increases to 998# with the same 100# push on the 6:1 pedal. Because the 600# force applied is onto a smaller area, the pressure increases. And as you noted, there is less volume. That may or may not be an issue based on the calipers being used. There are valves (proportioning, etc) used in a system like this to limit the amount of pressure delivered to the rear brakes to prevent lock up in hard stops.

With a dual master setup, you can also use a proportioning valve. But there are 2 other ways to control pressure to the rear brakes. One is to use a larger diameter master for the rear. The other is to adjust the balance bar so the force of the brake pedal is biased to the front master cylinder. Usually, you do both of these.

And remember, when you are working with 2 masters on a balance bar, you must calculate the offset(bias), and then divide the brake pedal force (600# in the above example) between each master cylinder based on the bias. So if the balance bar is setup to put 60% of the force on the front master and the remaining 40% on the rear master, the result is 360# on the front master cylinder piston and 240# on the rear master cylinder piston. This is why in a dual master setup the master cylinders are usually smaller diameter than in a single master setup.

And lastly, you can increase the pedal ratio, but you will also increase the pedal travel.

All of these variables need to be tuned on to bring the entire system into balance. But its really not as complicated as Ive made it sound.