Stop! In the name of TRAAAIINNN!!!!

The Mustang performed well crossing the country. One minor case of elevated engine temp coming from AZ into CA but that was it. I may have said it before, but I was beginning to think that I was making a mistake modifying this car. Tighten up the steering a bit, change out the windshield and overhaul the transmission, or replace it, and this would be a nice little driver.

When I bought the car, I was so far from having a complete engine, I couldn’t put an end date on it. I did not want to shut the car down.
I wanted to be able to make changes over time and keep the car drivable.

I mentally broke the car into phases. I imagined the car would be built in three phases.

Phase one would be the most obtrusive and that was the swapping of the shock towers. It seemed simple enough. Pull the drivetrain, change out the shock towers and then while the transmission was out of the car, rebuild it or get a good used one and then restore the drive train to the car and get it back on the road. Keeping with phase one would be simple body work or panel replacement. The car had drum brakes all the way around, why not upgrade to 4 wheel disc? Swap out the wheels and tires. Typical car enthusiast stuff.

Phase two was going to happen when the Cammer was finally built. Phase two would have been, not only the engine but a new transmission and rear end. The transmission was going to be the Tremec T56 and the rear would be a 9" with a posi type differential. Upgrade the springs to the Boss 302 rates and make the changes to give me staggered rear shocks. New exhaust was a must. With the bigger engine and the potential for way more horse power, an upgrade to bigger brakes would be in order.

Phase three was insanity. Phase three would have seen the car on a full tube chassis, beefier rear end and a beefed up T56. The engine would be a twin turbo all aluminum Cammer. I was hoping for 12 to 1500 hp. this would mean losing my beloved shock towers and probably the Boss 302 suspension, I imagine the new chassis would probably come with coil overs

Well my friends, as you have probably surmised if you’ve been reading along, the whole phase scheme has been all scrambled up.

When I pulled the engine and started in on the shock tower swap, during the break down of the front suspension, I could not get the drums off of the wheel hub. Right then and there I decided to replace the brakes.

I’ve used Baer Brakes a couple of my cars. I bought a Sport System for one of them a few years back and wanted the same for the Mustang. It consisted of a 12” drilled and slotted rotor. It could be used with the factory drum brake spindle. The caliper was the venerable PBR 2 pot design. When I called Baer, I was told that the kit I wanted had been phased out a year before. Even though it wasn’t in their catalogue, the sales guy, Rick Elan, said he’d see if they still had the parts in inventory and get back to me. It took a day to hear back but it was worth it. They could put a kit together for me. I had planned to buy the front disc brake kit now and then wait a while and get a kit for the rear. I was expecting to spend around $1400 to $1500 bucks for the front brakes.

Since the Sport System was phased out, the mark down was incredible, it was going for around $750.00. Far less than I was expecting to pay. I was told that a rear brake system called the Iron Sport was available.
It uses a single piston caliper with a 11.625 rotor. That kit was the same price as the Sport.

I was a little in shock. I’m not saying that the money was nothing but considering what I had saved up and was prepared to spend, this was an incredible stroke of luck. For the money I was prepared to pay for just the front system, I could now get a full system for the same money? Sign me up! With the 302 and the light weight of the Mustang, I think this brake system is more than adequate.

I ordered both systems.

The kits were delivered and I went about breaking them down.

The shock towers were already in and I had reassembled the front suspension. I have a suspension rebuild kit but I hadn’t done anything with it at this point. I had been planning to rebuild everything at a later date.

I only had one small issue and that was I was sent a caliper mounting adapter that was too short so the caliper literally sat on the rotor and wouldn’t allow the rotor to spin.

A couple of emails back and forth and I was sent the correct adapter for my set up, no charge.

The rear brakes were simple in comparison. It took more effort to pull the axles out of the housing in order to remove the backing plates from the drum brakes than any installation for the Iron Sport took.

There was a little juggling of washers on the caliper mounting bracket to get the rotor centered properly.

The only things left undone for both systems was to hook up the braided brake lines. All of the hardlines had been removed and not replaced yet so the flex lines were a moot point.

On the rears, besides the flex lines, the emergency brake cables still had to be installed. A generic cable system from Lokar was recommended, I hadn’t installed it.