Interchangeable brake parts

That's not a bad price.

Drilled & slotted rear rotors for my Taurus are $320 a pair.

Rob

Unless you are racing or doing lots of show stuff why would you want drilled or slotted rotors? They just wear out your brake pads quicker/

Slotted and/or drilled rotors will decrease braking performance. They are strictly for show, not for go (or stop). Brakes work mostly by converting motion energy to heat energy. The greater the contact area, the better they work. Cutting slots and drilling holes decreases contact area. Simple physics. In years past, holes and slots allowed for easy release of gasses from hot pads. New pad compunds don't outgass like that anymore. Read the FAQ pages at Wilwood and Baer Brakes.

A good/simple/cheap brake upgrade is to improve the pad material. Hawk HPS work very well, are low dusting and quiet. Porterfield also makes a good selection of pads.

For a new pad type, you must resurface the discs. As you use a pad, some of the material is deposited on the rotor surface. You have to remove that old material before apoplying new. I use a 120 grit sandpaper disc in a drill motor. And the new pads must be broken in correctly.

You can "deglaze" your rotors the a sanding disk however it wont remove any warpage. I'd recommend a quality replacement rotor. Don't buy the cheap made in China rotors. They're made out of cheap steel and are prone to warpage.

Mark

If you are looking to improve performance and not just look cool you can add an adjustable proportioning valve to your system and use it to get your rear drums to start pulling their share of the load. From there you can replace your stock 65mm front calipers with larger 73mm ones from a Lincoln LSC or Crown Victoria. (You might need to replace your Master Cylinder as well depending on the model year.) SSBC sells a rear disk conversion kit that uses Turbo Coupe rear disks & calipers that will give you true 4 wheel disk brakes on your Fox chassis. (The kit also includes the aforementioned master cylinder.) Depends on how much money you want to spend, the adjustable proportioning valve is fairly cheep and when adjusted correctly does wonders for improving the overall performance of the brake system.

I've just gotten a low-mileage 1989 5.0 LX hatchback for a song. I've been looking at the SSBC rear disc brake conversion kit at:

Does anyone know if this kit really makes that much of a difference? I have heard it shortens 60 to 0 by something like 30 feet, which is pretty damned good. Anyone got any experience with this kit?

Also, how do you go about finding a shop to do this work? I would assume most brake shops would want to steer clear since it isn't OEM stuff.

Thomas

In the name of full disclosure the first part of this post was my reply to another posters question: But yes, I do have the SSBC rear disk conversion on my 88GT and it does make a very noticeable difference in how the car feels when braking. It also requires a great deal more peddle effort to get the car stop if you keep the stock 65mm front calipers. As for where to get the work done, I had mine done at a custom speed shop in San Jose Ca. there are mechanics out there who will do the work but I doubt they will be working at your local Firestone. You can do the work yourself, but is a long tedious job that will require you to disassemble the rear axle.