Power brake conversion questions ('70 Dart Swinger)

So, first thing. Adding a power booster isn’t actually upgrading the brakes. A power booster just makes the pedal easier to push, it doesn’t necessarily make you stop any faster. Yes, there can be a pedal or master cylinder ratio change involved there too, but you can change the master cylinder bore without going to power brakes and that does the same thing.

Next thing. I’ve converted my daily driver mopars from power brakes to manual. With the right master cylinder you get better pedal feel and brake modulation than with the factory style power brakes. I love manual disks with a 15/16” master cylinder. Works great.

So, if I was going to upgrade the brakes for a daily driver, I would spend my money on converting it to front disks, not converting it to power drums. The disks are more reliable, more consistent, and will perform better under daily driver conditions than the drums will.

That rebuild kit isn’t what I’d buy if you do decide to rebuild the drums. It seems to me like it includes stuff you probably won’t use like the wheel and master cylinder rebuild kits and is missing stuff you will likely need. You can buy a hardware kit for $5 a corner for the 10” drums from RockAuto. Heck new wheel cylinders are between 10-15 bucks depending on the size you want. If you don’t have a wheel cylinder hone the rebuild kits aren’t that useful. And if you need to replace any of the drums themselves, it could end up being cheaper to buy a disk conversion. Just my .02.

And DoctorDiff is the man you want to see if you are considering a disk conversion.