I was wondering what donor vehicles are compatible with a 71 Nova, to fit the master cylinder and booster. I am not sure if a 70's Camaro, or Chevelle will work.

The setup I have now are NO POWER drum brakes. I am currently doing a disc brake upgrade, and was curious if I should just change the master cylinder to a disc/drum, and install it without the booster? Has anyone driven a car with disc brakes, and no booster? How does it feel and perform? I am guessing that there is a noticeable difference over the drum brakes with no booster.

Any info would be great!! Thanks in advance.

So-Cal Jack :beers:

'69 up will use the single piston metric style disk brakes. Size of vehicle (GVW) determines the size of the components, though all will bolt on. In other words a Chevelle is heavier than a Camaro/Nova (which are direct interchange parts), and an Impala B-body car is heavier still with larger discs and pads that will still bolt on (think of it as HD parts without the HD price).

Were you start to get into trouble is on the spindle size, as they change the bearing diameters (ID and OD) with time in a effort to make the cars as cheaply as possible. Any good parts counter guy at a bearing supply house can interchange bearings that will make stuff work, but it is better to get things all off one year and make so that any Autozone-Napa corner store can get you needed parts by application.

The joy of our GM heritage is that parts interchangeability goes across model years and styles so that they have the fewest number of parts in the warehouse to make the greatest diversity of cars and trucks from. Unlike the guys at the blue oval camp that have to know the day their car was made, the color of the paint, and whether the part was used for more than three months of production (otherwise it is a special order part not available to the restorer or mechanic.

(As an aside I once owned a 1970 302 Maverick Grabber 2 dr sdn that had a leaky slave cylinder in the power steering. I went down to get a part to replace it and discovered that no less than eleven different parts were used in that one model year, for that single application. Talk about a better idea).


Big Dave

You will notice a big difference between disk and drum in the front ,my 74 had drums a/a .It was a bear to stop once the shoes got hot .My 76 has a disc drum set up with no booster . It stops amazingly well since I put new pads and rotors on it.Go for the booster ,It will help. Contact Year One they should have everything you need .Their parts list for your 71 is staggering.Just wish they had more for my 76.

Thanks guys,

I will look into it. I was concerned about how to change the location of the brake lines if I added a booster and master cylinder. Just changing the master cylinder would be a lot easier to line the brake lines up. I guess in the long run, a master and booster will be a better setup.

What vehicles donor master cylinder and booster vehicles fit a Nova? If anyone has an idea...

So-Cal Jack