1965 Barracuda Disk Brake Kit? Or Keep the Drums?
I don't agree that drum brakes are unsafe. They will stop your car once from 70 mph fine w/ no fading. Best one can brake is just before the tires skid and who claims drum brakes can't skid the front tires? Poorly maintained drum brakes can be worse for unbalanced braking than disks. Disks brakes are much better for continual braking (downhill, if that stupid) or repeated braking from high speed (road racing or risking your life driving hard on mountain highways).
There are a few major points here that are flawed with this argument for drum brakes.
First off, just about any braking system can cause a pizza-cutter-thin, bias-ply, hockey-puck hard tire to skid. The OE 9" drums were capable of that, and I think most of us can agree that those brakes are borderline dangerous. If you upgrade your tires significantly you will find that your stock drums will no longer lock up your brakes. There's no way the stock drums are going to skid a 275mm wide tire with a 300 treadwear compound. Not happening. And while that is the extreme case of the biggest tire you can fit up front, the reality is it probably won't take that much tire to overrun the stock drums.
And of course, the point isn't to lock up the brakes
anyway. A single rapid application of the brakes that locks the front wheels is not the goal, and takes much less braking capability. To continuously brake at the verge of lockup will stop the car faster, retain control of your direction of travel, and create a
tremendous amount more heat then just locking the front wheels. And the more you upgrade your tires, the more you will increase your braking needs/capabilities.
Plus, the drums have to be much more closely maintained than disks. If they're not adjusted perfectly, your braking performance will be even worse in comparison to disks. And given that many of the parts for the front drums on these cars are no longer being made, its just going to keep getting harder to have them properly maintained and functioning to their best.
And of course the reality check- when these cars hit the road everyone ran around with drum brakes, and the braking capabilities of the cars around you were similar. Ie, even if the car in front of you went into a full panic stop, your car had a stopping distance that was somewhat similar, meaning your reaction time was all you had to worry about. Now, with one of our classics out on the road, you can be assured that many of the cars out there can stop in a MUCH shorter distance with their large rotors, ABS, traction control, etc. Especially if you're rocking the original drums. Which means that not only do you have to account for your reaction time in your following distance, you have to account for the additional distance it will take you to stop. And if you drive in any kind of traffic, there's no way that your fellow motorists will allow you to leave that kind of space without cutting in.
Mopar Muscle did an article in their August '12 issue on converting a Dart Sport to rear disk brakes from drums, it already had front disks. The conversion shaved 11 feet off their stopping distance, with no other modifications. Since the rear brakes only do about 20-30% of the total braking, changing the fronts over should be an even bigger gain than that. Even 11 feet is a BIG difference, although it may not sound like much. That's almost a whole car length you won't be buried in someone's rear bumper.
http://www.moparmusclemagazine.com/techarticles/suspension/mopp_1208_rear_disc_brakes_all_bound_up/
