Drum Brakes

[Ron Gusack]

Originally Posted by Todd Hoven

X2
That stuff is junk, and the hardware is repackaged autoparts store stuff. I had issues with the shoes cracking. I called up and they told me they were for easy street driving, not racing!! On top of all of that, the stoping power was not as good. I was not happy with my experience using that stuff at all
A very good racer told me that if you buy brand new GM shoes ( for GM cars) and have good uncut drums. ( minimum diameter ) you will have the best holding and stoping power possible out of drums.
My father in law, who was a junior stk racer and super stock racer told me about using brakes made from sintered iron. I have never seen those for sale

I really appreciate you sharing your experiences. I called Muscle Car Brakes and I was considering them. The guy on the phone was pretty convincing. I asked if they would reline my cores and he told me that all of their stuff was on brand new metal. He also told me they have 30lb return springs instead of the 13's that he thinks I have. You think GM has brakes for a 70 Nova?

[Grant Eldridge]

I've had no problems with drum brakes all around, both on my '70 Nova and now my '67 Camaro in E/SA w/396. I believe the size is only 9 1/2" x 2 1/2", the original 6 cylinder brake setup, and all the parts were new- drums, springs, wheel and master cylinders, lines, hoses, the works. The stuff was straight from the auto parts store, nothing fancy. Car holds fine on the line at 3500 on the converter, can stop with no problems on the top end. The Nova was 3570 lbs with driver, Camaro is 3420 lbs., running upper 10's at 121.
My 2 cents is the expensive shoes are intended to stop better on heavy, prolonged and repeated braking, when they get hot. Quite possible that the cheap shoes work just fine for what we do, stopping once with lots of room to do it. Might be different on a very short track where you need to really stand on the brakes all the way down to the turnoff...
Grant Eldridge
E/SA 6650

[ron b]

i run a 1968 mustang 428cj , 4 speed, 10.60 @ 129 . 3450 with driver. with the stock 4 wheel drum brakes. i dont really like how it stops sometimes and have been thinking about going with strange discs on the front and the factory drums on the back. what do you guys think of the strange front brakes? ron b

[chris ok]

I know this is an old thread. But it is holding relevance to me currently. I am looking at replacing rear brake shoes and buying 2 sets as to use the secondary shoes of each set only. This is my 70 Chevelle for 10.0 index and bracket racing. It's the last repair I'm making and I'm ready to go. I see Mark Yacavone mentioned you can do it and it's what I had planned to experiment with but brakes are most important to our cars. 3800 pound stock suspension. It is built sticker like with the dream cause stockers are way cool. Chris

[1320racer]

Originally Posted by Ron Gusack

This is a foot brake car and sometimes it pushes the car forward when I'm staged and the rpm's are too high. I sometimes run an index class with a .400 pro tree and I need the R's pretty high. I'm thinking the extra primary shoes would help to hold it better.

waste of time, been there, done that, marginally better. The fix is either converting to 11" drums or disc brakes.

I tired it all with my Chevelle...new drums, aluminum drums, 4 secondary shoes, aftermarket disc brakes replacing the factory disc brakes up front and finally 11" rear brakes which fixed staging issues as well better braking down track.

[chris ok]

Thanks Ed
I will look into both options
I have strange c clip eliminators with their 35 spline axles. I think the center hub is different diameter than stock as I had to open up drum to fit it over.
Lot to think about.

[Eman]

When I built my car I set it up to footbrake. I have a Ford 9" in the back and used 2 sets of shoes so i could have all long lining covered shoes. Then I took the wheel cyls and with the help of a local parts store found the largest diameter wheel cyls that fit my backing plates. When footbraking the rear drums have great holding power as they are self energized, the shoes try to rotate against the drum which in turn forces them out harder as the lead shoe grabs. Also basic hydraulic principles, the larger the wheel cyl bore the more the hydraulic line pressure is pushing the shoes.

[Buick6]

Originally Posted by Eman

When I built my car I set it up to footbrake. I have a Ford 9" in the back and used 2 sets of shoes so i could have all long lining covered shoes. Then I took the wheel cyls and with the help of a local parts store found the largest diameter wheel cyls that fit my backing plates. When footbraking the rear drums have great holding power as they are self energized, the shoes try to rotate against the drum which in turn forces them out harder as the lead shoe grabs. Also basic hydraulic principles, the larger the wheel cyl bore the more the hydraulic line pressure is pushing the shoes.

This is similar to what I have doing for years on various GM G body cars. On the rear, I use the longer shoes with cheap soft non metallic linings and larger wheel cylinders from a mid 80's manual brake Chevy S-10.

[Coleydog]

Watch out putting long shoe on front, it might energize to much and lock up. That short shoe is done for a reason.

[Larry Hill]

Don't forget to check the backing plates for mounting hole distortion. We had to change ours out after two or three years of using a two-step,