I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to get this info out, I’ve been dealing with some of those life issues.
As the title of this thread states the factory SPF brakes aren’t what they should be.
My car #239 had the Olthoff big brake kit, and still they required way more effort than I felt comfortable with, so last year I started working to fix it.
I did what most people do when they think their brakes aren’t good enough, I threw calipers and rotors at the problem. And like most, I wasn’t happy with the result.
Then I decided, my failure was because of the master cylinder/power booster, so I fabricated a dual master cylinder mount with remote reservoirs to go in the stock location.
Cool!!
Yea not so much.. that was worse than the stock set up!
It serves me right, I should have really looked at the problem and taken it all apart, measured everything and then spent the money and built parts.
The issue with the SPF brakes is not caliper, rotor or solely M/C related.
The issue is the pedal ratio.
After all of this work, and dismal results, I looked at the only piece of the puzzle left.
The brake pedal…………
When I removed the brake pedal (a royal pain in the arse!!) and measured it, I found the ratio to be 3.6/1!!! That is roughly half of what all of the aftermarket pedals ratios are. (6/1 to 8/1) When you couple that with a large diameter M/C , motors with weak vacuum signal and you get what we all suffer from.
The fix is really a higher ratio.
So, just re-drill the hole for the brake rod 2 inches closer to the pivot to raise the ratio…
Now the problems:
Because the top of the Power booster is near touching the underside of the fender, it can’t be raised when you re-drill the pedal. That rules out using the stock booster.
Also the brakes rod to MUST stay as close to perpendicular to the M/C bore as possible.
So that rules out the stock mounting location.
The only option I see is to remove the booster and M/C assembly. Fabricate a new M/C mount like I did, but raise it to match the new hole in the pedal to keep the rod angle correct.
Here are some pics of how I got there.
I was able to get a 12.720x1.25 rotor and a Superlite 6R caliper inside the stock 15 wheel. I also swapped in a set of Wilwood’s forged aluminum hubs, which are considerably lighter. So all of the effort wasn’t a total waist
I wish I knew why the “power that be” at SFC felt it necessary to put a power booster on a car like a cobra.
Jason
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