heres the plan I have a 1" bore corvette master cyl for manual brakes and wanted to know if it will fit and how much of an improvement it would be in my brakeing I want to keep the manual brkes because of the bbc swap I plan on in the spring and dont want to mess with the clearance issues of the power booster

Hi Jim - It really depends on what brakes you are using. I have C5/C4 disc's front and rear (13"/12") and a manual 1" bore MC on my '69 Camaro. Everything works well on the street but suspect my leg would start complaining if I ever got out to an open track.

I still have the drums in it and its only going on the street with occasional trips to the drag strip.
This summer I plan on switching up to discs front and rear. But with the 454 in it I want it to stop a little better than what it does now

You won't like 4 wheel manual behind that big block on the street... The added weight of the BB will make the brakes worse. At the track you might get enough out of the drums to slow the car and get off the track

thats why the plan is to switch to discs eventually was just wondering if the M/C would fit and help for now

There was an ad placed today selling a set of disc's for your car. Don't know if you are ready yet, but might be a good deal.
http://www.novas.net/classifieds/showproduct.php?product=1251&cat=22

Also another option you may not be aware of is HydroBoost brakes from a Diesel car or pick-up truck. That way vacuum to operate the brakes is a non-issue with a hairy cam, and they move the master cylinder out not bigger around to clear BBC valve covers. Of course that assumes you are running a power steering pump to provide the hydraulic oil pressure.


Big Dave

I had thought of that Dave as my 1 ton has the hydro boost brakes and the last time I was at the treasure yard there were a couple deisel trucks with hydro set ups still in them and I do have power steering in the car but it might be awhile before the motor goes in
Seems that every time I turn around another problem turns up this weekend tried to put the new multi leafs in and found out the hard way that multi leafs dont fit on a mono leaf rear end and all the clip nuts that hold the front perch in place snapped and I cant find a way to get at them so I can get them out and replace them
I also thought that if I just went and bought the new perches I could just grind off the old ones and tack the new ones on then my buddy Rick could just weld them on and it would be fine but all that quick work added up and would have been around 350 to 400 bucks so I just bought a 8.5 10 bolt posi from a 76 Z28 and it seems like its 1 inch longer than my original oh well if there werent any problems it wouldnt be any fun

going from 0-60 really fast might be exciting, but if it takes a long time to go from 60-0 it can be down right hair raising! If memory serves me right only one on each side is to far resessed to get an angle grinder on. On the one down deep I used a dremel with a little grinder on it. Then you can get new J-nuts and bolts or do what I plan on doing. Use the existing hole as a referance and drill a hole up into the interior of the car to mark the spot. Drill it out large enough inside the car for a socket and castle nut. Then use an electrical box style plug to close the hole. If you ever have to go back and change anything you just pop the plugs out and put a socket on both ends to loosen it. Just make sure the hardware is grade 8.

that doesn,t sound like a bad idea I need to take them off anyway to put my sub connectors on and I might get offset spring hangers too so I can bigger tires out back while I have the rearend out the part that really sucks is this is my daily driver for the winter since my truck puked its valve train into the oil pan not sure if diesels are designed different but lifters dont belong in the oil pan

Does anyone remember the days when shoes were arced to the drums? Had a 72 Ventura with manual drum brakes, bought the car used [Dads work car] brakes barley worked. Did a brake job on it, had shoes arced to the drums and it about threw you thought the windsheild. It had a Pontiac 350 not a Chevy [MORE WEIGHT] With all the new shoe material out there I don't know if I would be in a big hurry to @#!& can the manual drums.

Drums work great. Once. Problem with drums is they retain heat longer so they are prone to fade faster. I use 11" drums on my rear end instead of the 9" diameter stock drums. they will stop just as well as four wheel disc brakes will, but once all that metal heats up it takes it a long time to cool off.

Most people no longer arc brake drums because breathing in all of that asbestos can cause cancer in small laboratory animals. Luckily for me I am not a small laboratory animal because I used to arc grind brakes for customers after I turned their drums when I worked in my local NAPA machine shop as a young lad after school.


Big Dave