Anyone running big manual brakes?

[6togo]

Well here is the story i have 6 piston 14" front and 4 piston 13" rear wilwood brakes with all SS lines really wanting to do manual brakes for a few reasons exhaust clearance for the twins,clean looking,ect. but i dont want brakes that feel like crap or take a boat load of pushing to stop! I talked to Tobin from Kore 3 about the subject he recommended a 7/8" MC and gave a few pad options but stated i should try the BP-10 pads that came with the brakes as they are not to bad for street use. He said it should take about 75lbs of foot pressure to lock them up give or take and Wilwood responded with the 7/8" as a recommendation also but said it would take 100 psi pressure and that would produce 1000psi at the calipers.
So basically what i am looking for is if someone has a similar setup with real world exp. driving with them!

 

[RmvBfrFlght]

Running the '98-'02 f-body (aka LS1) brakes with a 7/8" M/C. With some no-name pads in the front and PBR pads in the back it was scary. Had to two-foot the stop pedal when trying to slow down from speed.

Replaced the fronts with Stoptech High Performance street pads. These are at the upper end of the FF rating. Made a huge difference. But I'm still not real happy with the stopping power. Although I haven't done actual tests on how quickly the car will stop. And with the large tires can't go by the 'they can be locked up' test.

Wilwood is correct in stating 100 pounds of force on the pedal will provide 1000 psi of line pressure. But need to know the piston area to convert that to clamping force.

The pads are what will make or break the system. I don't think the BP10's will cut it. But try them and see.

I'm considering the EBC Blue or the Carbotech AX6 pads on all 4 corners. Pricy, but we do need to stop these cars.

The pedal feel is OK, the firewall does flex some and am going to fab up a brace.

RemoveBeforeFlight

 

[Scott Atk]

Don't forget to take the pedal pivot point into account. It will make a tremendous difference.

 

[RmvBfrFlght]

What Scott said ^^^^^

The stock power brake (vacuum, not PM) has the hole for that pivot. I used a 3/8" grade 8 bolt with a thin nut for the pivot. Then a 3/8" Heim end on a grade 8 bolt that had the head removed, shortened to the correct length, and rounded on the end. I don't recall what I used to retain the Heim onto the bolt. Maybe drilled a hole and used a washer and clip?

The M/C I used has a deep well so no retainer was required. A M/C with a dimple needs a retainer for the push rod.

RemoveBeforeFlight

 

[Scott Atk]

I prefer the stock Powermaster adapter plate over the billet adapters that are out there. It has a rubber cup attached that's stiff enough to double as pushrod retainer.

 

[6togo]

The front piston area is 4.04 and the rear is 1.96 and i was going to ask about the adapters i like the look of the billet ones but know either will work. The stopping force was based on 6-1 ratio using the top pedal hole and Tobin said there are better braking pads that stop way better but you gain noise,dust,wear kind of a trade off but being i will not be driving this car allot i will probably go with better pads!

 

[Scott Atk]

I had the Wilwood 11" setup front and rear so this may be apples and oranges compared to your "big" setup. I didn't like the Wilwood pads that shipped with the brake kits. I swapped out the HAWK HPS and they we're exponentially better.