If you have a TC, is it worth replacing your front and rear brakes with SN95 brakes? From doing some research, I see TC front and rear calipers have bigger pistons in their calipers. TC's also seem to have better rotors.
I'm just curious to see what the brake gurus have to say about this.
I've had the stock 10" disks and drums, (front and rear, stock Sport set up) TC front, and 10" drum rear, and now currently have SN95 fronts and still waiting on the rear, probably going to use Mark VII stuff when I have time to get the axles and hardware, backing plates, etc.
As far as stopping feel, I liked the TC front/10" drum rear setup, but to be fair, right now it doesn't have rear brakes, so obviously it's a biased argument.
Now if you could get SN95 Cobra fronts.....hmmmm....
From what I've read, SN95's have smaller front rotors than TC's (10.5" I think. That would mean TC's have bigger front rotors AND bigger caliper pistons squeezing the front pads, so I'm not surpized you liked the feel of the TC fronts better. I read that TC rear rotors ar 10" and vented, whereas SN95's have solid rear rotors (10" too I think) that are pr0ne to building up a lot of heat. Couple that with the smaller caliper pistons SN95's have out back and I don't see why anyone would opt for SN95 brakes over TC ones. Maybe I'm missing something though.
I feel the advantage to SN95 brakes, are the ability to upgrade. :)
Now THAT makes sense. I knew there had to be a reason. I'm gonna do a search to see what kind of good upgrades are out there for them. If I find any good ones, I might upgrade the brakes on my TC this summer.
Not just brake upgrades - your wheel choices are far greater, too...
Exactly...GT500 wheels won't clear Mark Vii hubs w/o machining. For the work needed, just upgrade to SN95 stuff and leave on the table the ability to upgrade the brakes later. Win, win.
I'm sure my car will stop better once I get the rear brakes in, new soft hoses (most likely SS) and a better master/booster.
at first, i didn't notice much of a difference.. after a few days of driving, i began to realize how well the car reacts with the SN95 setup. i'm not 1 to worry about braking power, as i don't race on a road course or screw around on the street, but it's really a vast improvement over the stock the car came with.. it really compliments the power the car makes very well
It will be nice already having an SN95 MC and 93 Cobra booster on my TC. When I'm ready to install SN95 rotors and PBR dual piston calipers, I'll already have the right MC and booster to handle the big calipers on the car and ready to go.
That's my plan, the '99+ dual piston jobs, my Stanger buddy has 'em for his '86 Notch.. Worlds better than stock stuff. If you're not expecting him to hit the brakes, you'll eat the dash if not buckled up lol.
Not quite the same but i went from a 11" single piston front brake setup to the sn95 99-04 dual piston setup and i could feel a big differance in my manual disc setup.
Ok. You guys need to stop talking about those dual piston calipers. You're getting me too worked up! :P
They are huge Vic, huge...ha ha ha!!!
Screwy thing is the '99 and up V6 or GT front calipers are PBR's and have 44mm pistons. The Cobra units are also twin piston PBR's but are 41mm. I tried to work up a bracket to adapt the V6/GT units on Cobra calipers but the Cobra calipers are so much thicker than the V6/GT calipers that it leaves very little room for error. The most likely outcome would be knock back (basically the caliper jamming on the rotor) and that is not something I find desirable.
One thing that makes the stock SN95 front brakes do much better than the TC front brakes is the rotors not being part of the hub which means cheaper rotors. Another thing is massaging the spindles to accept the '99 and up G6/GT calipers which gives a dual piston setup that is far superior to the single piston setup of the Fox calipers.
You guys should look into the '85 Lincoln Towncar master cylinder instead of the SN95 master cylinder. It has a 1" bore and the fittings are all SAE versus metric like the SN95 stuff. With the Lincoln TC master cylinder you do not have to do the 3-2 conversion.
Darren
I had some time and found an older thread where we talked about this in depth. No sure why Tom deleted his comments as he had some really good info.
http://www.foxtbirdcougarforums.com/showthread.php?31122-Brake-master-cylinder-upgrade
Darren
Seems like Tom has taken his ball and gone home. looks like he is deleting every thing he has ever posted
That sucks. He is a wealth of knowledge and will be missed if that is the case.
Darren
I wondered what all the 2 letter responses were, or what was going on. Thats too bad.
There you go, talking about those PBR calipers again! :P
I was wondering about something. When you swap TC rear brakes for SN95 rears, can you retain your TC parking brake cables, or do you have to buy SN95 cables? Other than that, I think I have all the particulars of this swap figured out.
Yesterday, I installed a 93 Cobra booster and the 95 Mustang GT master cylinder I mentioned earlier in this thread. I bent and ran all new brake lines for the front and used a tee to split the two front lines below the MC instead of worrying about going the 3-2 route. It came out CLEAN! I'm pretty good at bending tubing though, so it was a pretty easy job for me.
Today, I'm going to run all new rear brake lines. My Wilwood manual proportioning valve showed up yesterday. It's already installed on the car. All I need to do is connect the dots (from the MC to the PV and from there to the back brakes. Bleed the system and the car is good to go.
I can't believe how much room I opened up on the driver's side of the motor by replacing the ABS MC/hydrobooster with a vacuum-assisted set up. I can easily get to all the plugs now and it looks SO much better. Of course, I had to do a little work on the booster mounting holes to get that HUGE Cobra booster to slip in, but it wasn't bad. The end result was well worth it. That side of the engine bay looks so uncluttered now. I love it!
When you swap TC rear brakes for SN95 rears, can you retain your TC parking brake cables, or do you have to buy SN95 cables?
I used the TC cables on my '83. The SN95 cars are shorter wheel base and the brake lever is a center console type where mine is a foot brake type.
Darren
Thanks as always for the help Darren.