Searching for Alternative Brake upgrade

Rick Parker · #1 (**permalink**) 10-22-2009, 07:10 AM

Has anyone used the Kelsy Hayes 4 piston calipers from 65/66 Mustang in their build? I was at a Mustang restoration shop recently and was looking at them and wondered if they were a viable alternative (read less$$$) than Willwood, Bear, etc. This is for a street car looking for upgrade. Currently using Granada rotors and early 70's GM non-metric calipers. With Mustang II spindles. I have access to CNC machine shop to fabricate mounting adapters (or are they currently available??).

I welcome your thoughts.

rustyBob · #2 (**permalink**) 10-22-2009, 08:15 AM

Rick Speedway has a kit from Wilwood thats $613 bucks you get the 4 piston calipers brake pads 10.75 rotors aluminum hubs and all the goodies to install it and you dont have to machine anything.

Cobrabill · #3 (**permalink**) 10-22-2009, 10:01 AM

Is "braking"an area where you really want to"skimp"?

terry mason · #4 (**permalink**) 10-22-2009, 04:41 PM

Rick,
I have used these calipers on severial street rod projects. They are not the floating type so the brackets need to be right. It is a good idea to change the pistons to SS as they tend to pick up rust when sitting. But then my experience is in the froozen north. There is a slight difference between the 65 and 66 units.
By the way your Cobra is sharp!

Rick Parker · #5 (**permalink**) 10-22-2009, 09:08 PM

Cobrabill: If its done correctly it won't be skimping. If they work on a Shelby GT350 in Vintage Car racing, and were good enough for OEM application on thousands of Mustangs and Fairlanes they will certainly work for what I have in mind. It's only "Skimping" if you do it incorrectly.

RustyBob I've got access to Cad Design and a CNC machine shop. The rotors are already done and in use, just looking to improve & upgrade the calipers. I have the cable to adjust the brake bias if & when necessary. From what I can see I would need would to design the brackets to correctly anchor the Calipers in position.

terry mason: Do you know what the difference is between 65 & 66? Bad weather is very infrequent here, the car would never intentionally see rain. Do you know of a source for the adapters that will fit the Mustang II spindles and utilize Granada Rotors. Thanks for the compliment.

427mudflap · #6 (**permalink**) 10-22-2009, 10:32 PM

The 1965 & 66 calipers use a .375 X 24 hose fitting, the 1967 use a 7/16 X 24 brake hose fitting. I had Wilwood 4 piston ( 1.75 dia. ) pistons on the front of my 1965 mustang and could never get it to lock the front wheels, changed to the stock cast iron factory calipers and they work great, don't use the aftermarket stuff unless you have to, alot of it is junk. Cast iron has 3 times the flex strength of cast aluminum. They only weigh a little more than the wilwoods.

PANAVIA · #7 (**permalink**) 10-22-2009, 10:57 PM

We perform brake upgrades to 65-70 mustangs all the time with the 4 piston KH calipers.

There are repro brackets you can obtain that should make this easy and usually we end up milling a few 000" off of something to get this to work. The same thing with the willwood kits, they are available, and we usually end up having Bob on the Mill with a micrometer and a pentel sharpie.

Having access to cad and a cnc is neat but sometimes you just need a little manual milling.

We would be more than happy to help, plus I dont think we have seen a NAF car, it would be interesting to see how it is constructed.

--Steve

kitcarbp · #8 (**permalink**) 10-23-2009, 01:27 PM

I too use the same caliper/spindle and front rotor combination as Rick P and would also like to know what OEM caliper (not aftermarket) would be a better choice (braking performance-wise meaning reduced stopping distances) than the 70's GM non metric.

I'll stay tuned.
Bill

terry mason · #9 (**permalink**) 10-23-2009, 01:50 PM

Mudflap is right the 67 caliper is the one that is different. ECI Brake co. has a Mustang II brake kit that uses big GM clipers I have used that combination and it works well.

Woodz428 · #10 (**permalink**) 12-30-2009, 08:41 PM

Someone listed an adaption of late model Mustang Cobra 4 piston calipers and rotors to MII spindles...actually pulled this up in my search for the thread...... back to the search.