Just finished my orders.
I'm in the final stages of a major refresh of the El Camino SS that I've owned for 25 years but don't drive much.
I just upgraded to 16X8 GTA wheels with 225/55R-16 front and 255/50R-16 rear.
This wheel and tire upgrade really pointed out to me how factory brakes in these Gbody cars really are. I cannot lock up the wheels no matter how hard I push on the pedal. New ceramic pads too.
So researching told me that these G body cars have "low drag" calipers and use a step bore master and this is the cause of the mushy, long pedal travel that these cars have and you hear so many complaints about. Couple this with the small size (2.38" ) of the metric caliper pistons and the small 15/16" bore size in the master and these barely have enough clamping force for stock sized tires but fall way short with wider stickier tires. I can't lockup the rear wheels either.
So this is what I'm going to do. On order are:
1: A pair of 2.75" bore metric calipers from Wilwood.
2: A 1" bore master cylinder used on the Riverra, El Dorado, Toronado and a few others. This is Centric part# 13062036 and I got this idea from member malibudave.
3: Rear brake cylinders for an S10.
I felt like this front upgrade more sense for me vs. going the Blazer spindle and hub route for options with larger rotors because of the way I drive this car. I want it stop positively in a panic type stop but won't need any benefits that larger rotors would give me. I'll never heat them up with what I use this car for. (I do have Power Stop slotted and drilled rotors btw so that will give me a little better heat dissipation anyway.) If the Wilwood calipers give me the stopping power to lock the wheels up and give a positive pedal feel when hitting the brakes hard, I will be perfectly happy. If I find that front or rear locks up too much earlier than the other, I can consider getting an adjustable proportioning valve. I'll cross that bridge later if necessary.
Malibudave has mentioned that he thought a master with a 1 1/8" bore would be better with the 2.75" Wilwood calipers. I was thinking 1" since these Wilwood calipers are still smaller than the 2.94" piston calipers used in the older A body, F body and others that used 1 1/8" masters for power brakes so I decided to call Wilwood and see what they said.
I did that this morning and the guy said without hesitation that a 1" master is the better match for their 2.75" metric calipers. He asked about my rear brakes and I told him I was getting the larger S10 7/8" bore cylinders for the drum brakes back there upgrading from the stock 3/4" ones and he thought that would be a good idea and should be a good match with a 1" master too. He also said a 1" master would be great if I upgraded to rear disc down the road.
My thanks to malibudave and others for previously posting a lot of info regarding brake upgrades. Gave me the ideas to explore before deciding what I wanted to do.
I'll follow up with my results once I get all this stuff in and test driven.
I'm in the final stages of a major refresh of the El Camino SS that I've owned for 25 years but don't drive much.
I just upgraded to 16X8 GTA wheels with 225/55R-16 front and 255/50R-16 rear.
This wheel and tire upgrade really pointed out to me how factory brakes in these Gbody cars really are. I cannot lock up the wheels no matter how hard I push on the pedal. New ceramic pads too.
So researching told me that these G body cars have "low drag" calipers and use a step bore master and this is the cause of the mushy, long pedal travel that these cars have and you hear so many complaints about. Couple this with the small size (2.38" ) of the metric caliper pistons and the small 15/16" bore size in the master and these barely have enough clamping force for stock sized tires but fall way short with wider stickier tires. I can't lockup the rear wheels either.
So this is what I'm going to do. On order are:
1: A pair of 2.75" bore metric calipers from Wilwood.
2: A 1" bore master cylinder used on the Riverra, El Dorado, Toronado and a few others. This is Centric part# 13062036 and I got this idea from member malibudave.
3: Rear brake cylinders for an S10.
I felt like this front upgrade more sense for me vs. going the Blazer spindle and hub route for options with larger rotors because of the way I drive this car. I want it stop positively in a panic type stop but won't need any benefits that larger rotors would give me. I'll never heat them up with what I use this car for. (I do have Power Stop slotted and drilled rotors btw so that will give me a little better heat dissipation anyway.) If the Wilwood calipers give me the stopping power to lock the wheels up and give a positive pedal feel when hitting the brakes hard, I will be perfectly happy. If I find that front or rear locks up too much earlier than the other, I can consider getting an adjustable proportioning valve. I'll cross that bridge later if necessary.
Malibudave has mentioned that he thought a master with a 1 1/8" bore would be better with the 2.75" Wilwood calipers. I was thinking 1" since these Wilwood calipers are still smaller than the 2.94" piston calipers used in the older A body, F body and others that used 1 1/8" masters for power brakes so I decided to call Wilwood and see what they said.
I did that this morning and the guy said without hesitation that a 1" master is the better match for their 2.75" metric calipers. He asked about my rear brakes and I told him I was getting the larger S10 7/8" bore cylinders for the drum brakes back there upgrading from the stock 3/4" ones and he thought that would be a good idea and should be a good match with a 1" master too. He also said a 1" master would be great if I upgraded to rear disc down the road.
My thanks to malibudave and others for previously posting a lot of info regarding brake upgrades. Gave me the ideas to explore before deciding what I wanted to do.
I'll follow up with my results once I get all this stuff in and test driven.
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