Why are the 11.75 Brake Better?

MopaR&D said

I searched Hawk's website and can't find anything for classic Mopars. I know EBC sells pads for them though. Dr. Diff includes pads in their kit I might send an email and ask what brand/type they are.

Another note, the piston area of the 2-piston Cobra calipers is almost half of the 2.75" single-piston Mopar calipers. Doesn't that mean the clamping force is also much lower? I guess the bigger 13" rotors make up that difference? Oh yeah... and a ton lighter too lol I forgot about that part.

Looking on AmericanMuscle.com there are bolt-on brake upgrade kits for SN95 Mustangs from Baer, Brembo, Wilwood etc. so if you have the caliper brackets and rotor adapter hubs for our classic Mopars there's room to grow if you want to have a real race-ready track machine.

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Bergman AutoCraft and FirmFeel also sell high performance brake pads for the Mopar calipers.

As far as the clamp force goes, if you just work off piston area you are correct. And actually even when you account for the rotor diameter a calculator will tell you that a 11.75” rotor with the 2.75” calipers will have more brake force than the 13” Cobra kit with the PBR calipers.

The problem is you’re comparing a single piston caliper to a dual piston caliper, and a slider to a pin style (but both floating). There’s flex and efficiency losses there that don’t get accounted for when you do that calculation. It gets weirder if you start comparing floating calipers and fixed calipers, there’s losses there that the calculators just don’t address.

That said, the 11.75’s with the Mopar 2.75” piston calipers is a good set up. I think the 13” cobra kit in practice is a little better, but like I said before it’s not a night and day kind of difference.