1964 Corvette Coupe

[FLYNAVY53]

On to the brakes.... One of the main goals for this car is keeping it as simple as possible. To that end, I very much wanted to retain a factory style, manual brake system. I did a lot of research into brake system design, and what you need for a good manual brake system. This also resulted in a lot of math. At the end of the day, I determined that in order to have the proper level of clamping force, I needed to go with a relatively small master cylinder with calipers with a large piston area. The Baer 15/16" Remaster was a perfect upgrade to the original single master cylinder. As far as calipers go, for a manual brake system on this generation Corvette, you can't get better than the Wilwood D8 caliper (also the only aftermarket caliper that will fit inside a 15" wheel). I used the 6 piston front and 4 piston rear derivative. Both Baer and Wilwood offer a number of high end calipers that will fit these cars, but most of them do not offer the piston area needed for a good manual brake system. By going with the D8's, I also eliminate the need for a proportioning valve, as they maintain the factory front to rear brake bias. If I decide later on that I want to adjust that, I can always add the Baer prop valve to the master cylinder later.







These next few pictures show the proper installation of the Baer master cylinder using their tool to properly adjust the depth of the pedal pushrod in order to ensure you don't have any preload on the piston in the master cylinder. For 30 bucks, its money well spent...I've used it twice now as this is the second time I've used a Baer master cylinder.









For the brake system plumbing, I'm using NiCop 3/16 hard line with stainless steel -3 fittings. I have an Eastwood flaring too for the 37 degree flares. In an effort to make everything completely reversible, I used holes already drilled in the factory frame with RivNuts (or Nutcerts) to mount a couple of brackets I fabricated. I'm using Frangola stainless braided hose at all 4 corners thats wrapped in a black sheathing to make it look more factory. Due to routing constraints, and the ability to take the master cylinder off the firewall without having to break into the system, I'm using the same Frangola braided lines to connect the master cylinder to the bulkhead fittings on the frame.



On this generation Corvette, the brake line running to the rear is actually located on top of the frame, and can't be accessed without pulling the body off the frame. After draining the old fluid (which was in excellent condition) and inspecting the factory line, I decided it was in perfectly usable condition and just cut and flared the front end to align with my frame mounted bulkhead bracket. This allowed me to retain the factory routing of the back half of the system.