In the continuing saga of Car Craft's project Mustang, with all the new Global West Suspension components on the car, the next step in the resurrection of our grandma-abused '67 fell to new binders. The original four-lug drum brakes had to go, so we contacted Stainless Steel Brakes for a simple conversion kit that would allow us to use our existing six-cylinder spindle but install something a little more aggressive. What arrived in the mail a few days later was everything we needed to do the conversion.
We swapped over to a performance-oriented four-piston caliper disc-brake system with an 11 1/4-inch-diameter rotor that simultaneously upgraded the Mustang to a more wheel-friendly, five-lug pattern. We haven't gotten far enough yet on the rearend to finalize the wheel backspacing and sizing, but we're already planning on a set of Toyo 245/45R16 skins on all four corners. As soon as we finalize the rear axle, we'll order a set of wheels. For now, we rounded up a pair of stock rollers to get us around until we can attack the rear-axle question. While a big, beefy 9-inch would be nice, we're looking into alternative axle assemblies that would be less pricey.
We ran our little ponycar over to Tim Moore's shop for the conversion, mainly because we'd rather use his hoist than bend over to do the conversion on our concrete floor. The hardest part of the entire swap was deciding where to place the adjustable proportioning valve and bending a line or two to make it all fit. The conversion took perhaps three hours to complete, and we didn't even have to break out the flaring tool. It doesn't get much easier than this.
The main parts of the kit include the caliper brackets, calipers, rotors, new wheel bearings, all the necessary hardeware including new flexible hoses and new pads.
The Kit
The kit is so simple, even the part number only has three numbers and one letter: A121. This particular Stainless Steel Brakes (SSB) kit is similar to the factory disc system on '67-'69 Mustangs. The critical components in the kit include the factory-style, four-piston caliper that mounts rigidly to the caliper bracket; an upgraded pair of slotted, zinc-washed rotors; and a cast-iron master cylinder. The kit also includes adapters for the rubber flex hoses so they bolt up to the existing hard lines. All the bolt-on hardware is included, as well a set of performance SSB pads.