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Join the PowerNation Email NewsletterParts Used In This Episode
Maximum Motorsports
MM K-Member, Mustang 1979-1995
Maximum Motorsports
Mustang Caster Camber Plates 1990-1993
Moser Engineering
Moser True Fox-Body M88 Built to Order Rear End Package
Episode Transcript
(Tommy)>> You're watching Powernation!
(Peyton)>> Today on Detroit Muscle this fox body gets the goods for building one corner carving stallion. [ Music ] [ engines revving ] [ Music ]
(Tommy)>> Hey guys, welcome to Detroit Muscle. We've got our fox body droptop up on the lift in efforts to make some dreams happen. We're more or less tripling the power output that this thing made when it rolled off the assembly line. So to accommodate everything we needed some serious parts.
(Peyton)>> And these Mustangs are basically a golden goose. Everybody and their brother makes parts for them, and they won't break the bank, and most of the time you can do it in a weekend. With the suspension and brakes we're gonna be throwing at our car it ought to handle like it's on rails and stop on a dime. We're taking it over the top with this droptop Mustang. She's getting a tricked out big power small block Ford backed by five speed manual. Then we'll be throwing out the old suspension and brakes and replacing them with a coil over system and four wheel disc brakes. Now it's time for some new shoes and a set of meaty tires on some wide wheels. Carrying over the sporty look to the interior we'll ditch the back passenger, add in a roll bar, and rock some race ready front seats. Paying homage to the '90's this fox body is getting a custom wide body kit with a retro wrap for the ages. They say with great power comes great responsibility, and when you're behind the steering wheel of your project you're responsible for your own safety, your passengers, and others on the roadway. The safety of this rear end is definitely a concern. It's dated and it sure has seen better days. We've got these old stamped control arms, some worn out bushings, and a set of puny drum brakes. I'm getting tired of all this talking. So it's time for me to get to work. [ drill humming ] [ Music ] [ drill humming ] [ Music ] [ drill humming ]
(Peyton)>> Well I brought out the axle stand so we can lower our pony car down and give her tired old legs a rest while I finish pulling out the rest of the hardware. For some of these fasteners it's the first time they've seen a wrench since the Ford assembly line. [ Music ] [ ratchet clicking ] [ mechanical humming ]
(Peyton)>> Skip the gym today. [ Music ] I talked earlier about this thing possibly having some bad bushings. I'd say I was right. These things have probably been in here since this thing rolled off the assembly line. Well for the Mustang rear end we wanted something that was more or less bolt-on and still offered all the upgrades we were looking for. That's why we went with Mosier Engineering's True Fox Body M-88 kit. It offers a heavy duty axle housing with all the goodies. We got adjustable upper control arm mounts, a 13-50 yoke that's made out of chro-moly, which we opted for, some heavy duty braces for not only the pinion as well as the axle tube itself. For axles we went with a 33 spline chro-moly shaft, which is a far better improvement over the 28 spline that came from the factory. This kit really does have it all. From a set of control arms that retain the factory mounting location to a sway bar that will cut down on body roll, coil overs that you can tune for performance on the street as well as on the track, and my favorite part is gonna be seeing under the car. I've got a couple of loose ends to tie up before I start the installation of the rear suspension, starting with one in the trunk. The reason I'm in the trunk is the upper shock mount is actually located behind this panel on top of the wheel well. [ Music ]
Our last order of business is to remove the back seat and pull up the carpet cause our anti-rollbar will actually bolt up through the floorboard here in the back. [ Music ]
[ drill humming ]
(Peyton)>> Well the rear axle housing is pretty much ready to go under the car, but I'm gonna save myself a little time and headache by going ahead and putting the upper control arms on as well as the lower shock mounts. [ Music ]
Well our lower control arms are ready to go in the car, but a good rule of thumb is to check a measurement on them. You want them to match as closely as you can to the originals that came out of the car. So we're looking for about 18 and three quarter eye to eye, which is the factory measurement. We're sitting at about 18. So we'll just lengthen these ends out some, even on both sides, and we'll get it ready to go in the car. The Mosier kit comes with all new grade eight hardware and locking nylon nuts. [ Music ] So this upper shock mount is offset, and that offset needs to go towards the rear of the car. [ Music ]
[ Music ] I just finished installing the rear suspension, and the Mustang got a few more things to do like centering it and adjusting our pinion angle, but we'll get to that later on down the road. For now let's move on to the front. They say beauty is more than skin deep. Sometimes it's hard to see. Coming up we go from ugly to dang, that's nice!
(Tommy)>> Hey guys, welcome back. Now with the back side of our Mustang taken care of it's time to move north. Now we're wanting to make some dramatic improvements on the front suspension of this thing, and we've done that with this new kit from Maximum Motorsports. Now one of the largest pieces that we're gonna be installing is this K-member. This new piece has a lot of advantages. One, it saves us some weight. It also gives us the ability to adjust our camber and castor, which can be a problem to do if you're running a stock unit in a lowered car. There's several other components that's really gonna drive up the performance and handling of our old Ford like the control arms. We got big sway bars, camber and caster plates, but as you guys know before all this cool stuff can go on gotta get dirty. [ Music ]
[ Music ] [ drill humming ] [ Music ]
(Peyton)>> Removing old junk parts is kinda like cleaning out your garage. It's a pain in the butt but man is it worth it. [ Music ]
[ metal clanging ] [ Music ]
(Peyton)>> We'll start off by installing our K-member, which is essentially the foundation for our front suspension. The nice thing is it uses all the factory mounting locations. So it's a breeze to install. [ Music ] As we get the K-member under the car I loosely install some bolts while Tommy preps the A-arm bushings. [ Music ] [ hammer banging ] [ Music ]
[ Music ]
(Peyton)>> As I mentioned before, the K-member is the foundation, and like any good foundation it's got to be square. We'll lay some dots out on the floor back there and we've got our plumb bobs hanging up front. We'll measure front to back and cross to cross, check it. If everything lines up we'll go ahead and get it bolted all the way in. [ Music ]
[ rubber mallet banging ]
(Tommy)>> While Peyton's centering up the K-member under the car I'm gonna build the bushings in our lower control arms. They have a urethane style bushing with a steel sleeve. It comes with this fancy grease that when you don't use it what you'll notice is the front suspension makes this awkward squeaking noise. They send two tubes of this stuff and I like to use all they send with it. Using one of these little acid brushes helps distribute that stuff around. Plus keep this sticky stuff off your fingers. Now to install this inside bushing you may be tempted to take the hammer and strike it, but actually just flip your control arm over, set it on the table, and drive it down. [ mallet banging ]
(Tommy)>> That easy! [ Music ]
[ drill humming ]
(Peyton)>> I'm working on installing our castor and camber plates, and then we can bolt in our coil overs. [ Music ]
[ metal clanging ] [ Music ]
(Peyton)>> This Maximum kit is a breeze to install, and for the most part it's similar to installing factory components. Just looks and performs a whole lot better. [ Music ] [ ratchet clicking ] [ Music ]
(Peyton)>> With all the handling upgrades we added it really wasn't that bad of a job but definitely have more to come. Up next, if you like big blocks, big power, and four speed stick around. You're gonna wanna see this!
(Peyton)>> Well you've heard us talk a lot this season about the '60s muscle car era, from the emergence of the Mustang to its competitors like the Challenger and Camaro. People were digging small cars with big power. You can thank John-Z Delorean for that. His 1964 Pontiac Tempest GTO is what's typically regarded as the spark for muscle car movement. The GTO made Americans, especially young Americans, hungry for more speed, but one car was kicking around for GM well before the GTO, the Corvette.
(Tommy)>> Ever wonder where the name Corvette comes from? Well a Corvette is a class of lightly armored warships known for their speed and agility. That's an accurate description for this '67 Stingray with an original 427 big block under the hood. One look at that mean stinger and you know that this bad boy is ready for battle.
(Peyton)>> This Vette was restored by Milton Robinson, an avid car collector, and was fully restored in the mid '80s with all n-o-s parts, receiving near perfect marks at Bloomington. In '67 it cost $5,604.10. Now it's worth over $200,000 dollars. The 427 boasts 435 horsepower and 460-foot pounds of torque, burning up the road from zero to 60 in 4.7 seconds.
(Tommy)>> What does Milton love about his '67 Stingray?
(Milton)>> Just looks and horsepower. The mold on wheels, the side pipes, things that draw your eyes to the car. They just really improved it over the '63, '64, '65.
(Tommy)>> Joe Steinmetz maintains and restores Milton's cars, and he gladly took this Vette out for a spin.
(Joe)>> Be rolling around 30, 40 miles an hour just cruising and decide to mat it, it's on! That's the thing about the little tires and the big motor. You can do a lot of damage and have a lot of fun.
(Tommy)>> To many the '67 was the pinnacle of achievement for the Corvette brand. The Corvette was born in '53, the brainchild of GM's chief designer Harley Earle. It's body panels were a composite, which was a first for an American made car, and every Corvette since has followed that formula. People quickly fell in love with the style but weren't so hot about that puny 150 horsepower six cylinder truck engine under the hood.
(Peyton)>> By 1954 the Corvette was losing ground to Ford's two seater TBird, and only 700 were sold in 1955. The man who saved it was GM engineer Zora Arkus Duntov who dropped in a V-8 engine coupled with a three speed transmission, boosting the horsepower to 195. By 1957, thanks to fuel injection and a four speed manual transmission, the Vette was making 283 horsepower.
(Tommy)>> '63 saw a complete revamp by GM designer Bill Mitchell and the introduction of the Stingray moniker. This second generation of Corvettes would last until '67. In this time span many refinements were made including independent rear suspension, four wheel disc brakes, side exhaust pipes, and the killer 427 V-8 with the raised hood scoop.
(Peyton)>> Part of those 435 horses were derived from Holley's Triple Two-Barrel carburetor known as The Tri-Power. Introduced in '67, this system is capable of sucking in 1,000 cubic feet of air per minute. The 427 also came with a transistor ignition, solid lifters, high lift cam, and forged pistons squeezing out 11-to-1 compression. The Rally Red exterior and the color matched interior is a unique look.
(Milton)>> I am a red lover. Red with red, and that's just a better eye catcher to me.
(Peyton)>> The interior is designed to feel like a cockpit, which makes sense when you're throttling through the curves at high speed. The Stingray performs extremely well thanks to its four wheel independent suspension.
(Joe)>> The earlier Corvettes had a rougher ride. These last year Stingrays were just a good, comfortable car.
(Tommy)>> '67 was the end of an era for Corvettes. It was the last of the C-2s. Some enthusiasts even feel it was the last of the true Corvette. Corvettes have gone through many transitions since but one thing remains the same.
(Milton)>> People love them everywhere you go.
(Peyton)>> Coming up, we give this Mustang a brake upgrade to stop on a dime.
(Peyton)>> Welcome back to the shop. We're ready to put the whoa behind the go, and we are gonna do that with some serious brake upgrades with parts we got from Powerstop. We went with the Cobra-R SN-95 spindle. It uses the factory locations for the lower and upper mounting position as well as the factory style tie rod end. Ours we went with a bolt through style. So we had to modify the end of it a little bit, which was no big deal. This spindle allows us to run the larger brake system that came on the Cobra-Rs. Let's start with calipers. Now this Mustang would have come factory with a single piston style caliper like this, which is not necessarily a bad thing but it doesn't have quite the braking force. With us tripling the power we need triple the braking. So with Powerstop they sent us a powder coated dual piston setup, which allows us to add a lot more braking power to our rotor. The SN-95 they switched to a two piece configuration, meaning the wheel bearing and studs are all one combined unit and the rotor is separate. Well a big difference between our rotors is actually size. The fox body came factory with an 11-inch rotor as the Cobra-R came factory with a 13. That two inch difference means a lot when it comes to rotors. It's gonna add a substantial amount of leverage, which is gonna multiply the braking power. This whole install is gonna start with the hub bearing. [ Music ] So your brake rotors are gonna be labeled either front passenger or front driver, and the reason behind that is your cooling veins. The cooling veins in these are actually arched, which determines which side they go on for best performance. Now if they were straight they could be used on either side. So the fox body caliper actually uses a wedge and pin style system to locate it on the spindle, while the Cobra-R has a two bolt mounting system. [ Music ] [ ratchet clicking ]
(Peyton)>> A big reason to switch away from drum brakes is actually heat. As they pad presses against the drum it causes thermal expansion which leads to brake fade. Now our kit from Powerstop comes with a drilled and slotted rotor, which gives us our best bang for the buck. [ Music ]
[ Music ]
(Tommy)>> Now we've got some pretty serious power that we're gonna be stuffing up under the hood of this fox body Mustang and we want to make sure that our brakes are tip-top. So we're not just stopping at the wheels. We're gonna be making some adjustments here at the master cylinder. This car's master cylinder has two lines coming off the front that actually feed your front two brakes, and then one line that comes out of the back on the bottom that feeds the rear. We've now converted over disc-disc, and this car was originally disc on the front, drum in the back. So this setup isn't gonna work for us. So we're gonna have to swap out a few parts. Our swap is super simple. It's off of a '93 Cobra and it gives us the right kind of setup. If you'll notice this thing only has two ports on it. So that means we'll have one for the front and one for the rear. Now we're also gonna be installing this thing. It's an adjustable proportioning valve that we got from Summit Racing. It has one port out and one port out for your rear, and you have one port in and two ports out for your front. It also has the knob on it. This gives you the ability to adjust your bias by simply turning it in one direction or the other. If you get in the car, drive it down the road, and hit the brakes real hard and notice that the back ones are dragging. Crank that thing around and dial it in until you hit perfection.
(Peyton)>> In order to make all these brake parts work together we'll have to bend up a few lines, but that's just part for the course when you're building an old hot rod.
(Tommy)>> You know guys we've made pretty good progress for today. We've got suspension under this fox body, we've got the majority of the brakes taken care of. With that said buddy I think I'm ready to take a break.
(Peyton)>> You and me both.
(Tommy)>> I'm gonna let him run off. I'm gonna stay here and clean up. Who we kidding, I'm taking a break.
Show Full Transcript
(Peyton)>> Today on Detroit Muscle this fox body gets the goods for building one corner carving stallion. [ Music ] [ engines revving ] [ Music ]
(Tommy)>> Hey guys, welcome to Detroit Muscle. We've got our fox body droptop up on the lift in efforts to make some dreams happen. We're more or less tripling the power output that this thing made when it rolled off the assembly line. So to accommodate everything we needed some serious parts.
(Peyton)>> And these Mustangs are basically a golden goose. Everybody and their brother makes parts for them, and they won't break the bank, and most of the time you can do it in a weekend. With the suspension and brakes we're gonna be throwing at our car it ought to handle like it's on rails and stop on a dime. We're taking it over the top with this droptop Mustang. She's getting a tricked out big power small block Ford backed by five speed manual. Then we'll be throwing out the old suspension and brakes and replacing them with a coil over system and four wheel disc brakes. Now it's time for some new shoes and a set of meaty tires on some wide wheels. Carrying over the sporty look to the interior we'll ditch the back passenger, add in a roll bar, and rock some race ready front seats. Paying homage to the '90's this fox body is getting a custom wide body kit with a retro wrap for the ages. They say with great power comes great responsibility, and when you're behind the steering wheel of your project you're responsible for your own safety, your passengers, and others on the roadway. The safety of this rear end is definitely a concern. It's dated and it sure has seen better days. We've got these old stamped control arms, some worn out bushings, and a set of puny drum brakes. I'm getting tired of all this talking. So it's time for me to get to work. [ drill humming ] [ Music ] [ drill humming ] [ Music ] [ drill humming ]
(Peyton)>> Well I brought out the axle stand so we can lower our pony car down and give her tired old legs a rest while I finish pulling out the rest of the hardware. For some of these fasteners it's the first time they've seen a wrench since the Ford assembly line. [ Music ] [ ratchet clicking ] [ mechanical humming ]
(Peyton)>> Skip the gym today. [ Music ] I talked earlier about this thing possibly having some bad bushings. I'd say I was right. These things have probably been in here since this thing rolled off the assembly line. Well for the Mustang rear end we wanted something that was more or less bolt-on and still offered all the upgrades we were looking for. That's why we went with Mosier Engineering's True Fox Body M-88 kit. It offers a heavy duty axle housing with all the goodies. We got adjustable upper control arm mounts, a 13-50 yoke that's made out of chro-moly, which we opted for, some heavy duty braces for not only the pinion as well as the axle tube itself. For axles we went with a 33 spline chro-moly shaft, which is a far better improvement over the 28 spline that came from the factory. This kit really does have it all. From a set of control arms that retain the factory mounting location to a sway bar that will cut down on body roll, coil overs that you can tune for performance on the street as well as on the track, and my favorite part is gonna be seeing under the car. I've got a couple of loose ends to tie up before I start the installation of the rear suspension, starting with one in the trunk. The reason I'm in the trunk is the upper shock mount is actually located behind this panel on top of the wheel well. [ Music ]
Our last order of business is to remove the back seat and pull up the carpet cause our anti-rollbar will actually bolt up through the floorboard here in the back. [ Music ]
[ drill humming ]
(Peyton)>> Well the rear axle housing is pretty much ready to go under the car, but I'm gonna save myself a little time and headache by going ahead and putting the upper control arms on as well as the lower shock mounts. [ Music ]
Well our lower control arms are ready to go in the car, but a good rule of thumb is to check a measurement on them. You want them to match as closely as you can to the originals that came out of the car. So we're looking for about 18 and three quarter eye to eye, which is the factory measurement. We're sitting at about 18. So we'll just lengthen these ends out some, even on both sides, and we'll get it ready to go in the car. The Mosier kit comes with all new grade eight hardware and locking nylon nuts. [ Music ] So this upper shock mount is offset, and that offset needs to go towards the rear of the car. [ Music ]
[ Music ] I just finished installing the rear suspension, and the Mustang got a few more things to do like centering it and adjusting our pinion angle, but we'll get to that later on down the road. For now let's move on to the front. They say beauty is more than skin deep. Sometimes it's hard to see. Coming up we go from ugly to dang, that's nice!
(Tommy)>> Hey guys, welcome back. Now with the back side of our Mustang taken care of it's time to move north. Now we're wanting to make some dramatic improvements on the front suspension of this thing, and we've done that with this new kit from Maximum Motorsports. Now one of the largest pieces that we're gonna be installing is this K-member. This new piece has a lot of advantages. One, it saves us some weight. It also gives us the ability to adjust our camber and castor, which can be a problem to do if you're running a stock unit in a lowered car. There's several other components that's really gonna drive up the performance and handling of our old Ford like the control arms. We got big sway bars, camber and caster plates, but as you guys know before all this cool stuff can go on gotta get dirty. [ Music ]
[ Music ] [ drill humming ] [ Music ]
(Peyton)>> Removing old junk parts is kinda like cleaning out your garage. It's a pain in the butt but man is it worth it. [ Music ]
[ metal clanging ] [ Music ]
(Peyton)>> We'll start off by installing our K-member, which is essentially the foundation for our front suspension. The nice thing is it uses all the factory mounting locations. So it's a breeze to install. [ Music ] As we get the K-member under the car I loosely install some bolts while Tommy preps the A-arm bushings. [ Music ] [ hammer banging ] [ Music ]
[ Music ]
(Peyton)>> As I mentioned before, the K-member is the foundation, and like any good foundation it's got to be square. We'll lay some dots out on the floor back there and we've got our plumb bobs hanging up front. We'll measure front to back and cross to cross, check it. If everything lines up we'll go ahead and get it bolted all the way in. [ Music ]
[ rubber mallet banging ]
(Tommy)>> While Peyton's centering up the K-member under the car I'm gonna build the bushings in our lower control arms. They have a urethane style bushing with a steel sleeve. It comes with this fancy grease that when you don't use it what you'll notice is the front suspension makes this awkward squeaking noise. They send two tubes of this stuff and I like to use all they send with it. Using one of these little acid brushes helps distribute that stuff around. Plus keep this sticky stuff off your fingers. Now to install this inside bushing you may be tempted to take the hammer and strike it, but actually just flip your control arm over, set it on the table, and drive it down. [ mallet banging ]
(Tommy)>> That easy! [ Music ]
[ drill humming ]
(Peyton)>> I'm working on installing our castor and camber plates, and then we can bolt in our coil overs. [ Music ]
[ metal clanging ] [ Music ]
(Peyton)>> This Maximum kit is a breeze to install, and for the most part it's similar to installing factory components. Just looks and performs a whole lot better. [ Music ] [ ratchet clicking ] [ Music ]
(Peyton)>> With all the handling upgrades we added it really wasn't that bad of a job but definitely have more to come. Up next, if you like big blocks, big power, and four speed stick around. You're gonna wanna see this!
(Peyton)>> Well you've heard us talk a lot this season about the '60s muscle car era, from the emergence of the Mustang to its competitors like the Challenger and Camaro. People were digging small cars with big power. You can thank John-Z Delorean for that. His 1964 Pontiac Tempest GTO is what's typically regarded as the spark for muscle car movement. The GTO made Americans, especially young Americans, hungry for more speed, but one car was kicking around for GM well before the GTO, the Corvette.
(Tommy)>> Ever wonder where the name Corvette comes from? Well a Corvette is a class of lightly armored warships known for their speed and agility. That's an accurate description for this '67 Stingray with an original 427 big block under the hood. One look at that mean stinger and you know that this bad boy is ready for battle.
(Peyton)>> This Vette was restored by Milton Robinson, an avid car collector, and was fully restored in the mid '80s with all n-o-s parts, receiving near perfect marks at Bloomington. In '67 it cost $5,604.10. Now it's worth over $200,000 dollars. The 427 boasts 435 horsepower and 460-foot pounds of torque, burning up the road from zero to 60 in 4.7 seconds.
(Tommy)>> What does Milton love about his '67 Stingray?
(Milton)>> Just looks and horsepower. The mold on wheels, the side pipes, things that draw your eyes to the car. They just really improved it over the '63, '64, '65.
(Tommy)>> Joe Steinmetz maintains and restores Milton's cars, and he gladly took this Vette out for a spin.
(Joe)>> Be rolling around 30, 40 miles an hour just cruising and decide to mat it, it's on! That's the thing about the little tires and the big motor. You can do a lot of damage and have a lot of fun.
(Tommy)>> To many the '67 was the pinnacle of achievement for the Corvette brand. The Corvette was born in '53, the brainchild of GM's chief designer Harley Earle. It's body panels were a composite, which was a first for an American made car, and every Corvette since has followed that formula. People quickly fell in love with the style but weren't so hot about that puny 150 horsepower six cylinder truck engine under the hood.
(Peyton)>> By 1954 the Corvette was losing ground to Ford's two seater TBird, and only 700 were sold in 1955. The man who saved it was GM engineer Zora Arkus Duntov who dropped in a V-8 engine coupled with a three speed transmission, boosting the horsepower to 195. By 1957, thanks to fuel injection and a four speed manual transmission, the Vette was making 283 horsepower.
(Tommy)>> '63 saw a complete revamp by GM designer Bill Mitchell and the introduction of the Stingray moniker. This second generation of Corvettes would last until '67. In this time span many refinements were made including independent rear suspension, four wheel disc brakes, side exhaust pipes, and the killer 427 V-8 with the raised hood scoop.
(Peyton)>> Part of those 435 horses were derived from Holley's Triple Two-Barrel carburetor known as The Tri-Power. Introduced in '67, this system is capable of sucking in 1,000 cubic feet of air per minute. The 427 also came with a transistor ignition, solid lifters, high lift cam, and forged pistons squeezing out 11-to-1 compression. The Rally Red exterior and the color matched interior is a unique look.
(Milton)>> I am a red lover. Red with red, and that's just a better eye catcher to me.
(Peyton)>> The interior is designed to feel like a cockpit, which makes sense when you're throttling through the curves at high speed. The Stingray performs extremely well thanks to its four wheel independent suspension.
(Joe)>> The earlier Corvettes had a rougher ride. These last year Stingrays were just a good, comfortable car.
(Tommy)>> '67 was the end of an era for Corvettes. It was the last of the C-2s. Some enthusiasts even feel it was the last of the true Corvette. Corvettes have gone through many transitions since but one thing remains the same.
(Milton)>> People love them everywhere you go.
(Peyton)>> Coming up, we give this Mustang a brake upgrade to stop on a dime.
(Peyton)>> Welcome back to the shop. We're ready to put the whoa behind the go, and we are gonna do that with some serious brake upgrades with parts we got from Powerstop. We went with the Cobra-R SN-95 spindle. It uses the factory locations for the lower and upper mounting position as well as the factory style tie rod end. Ours we went with a bolt through style. So we had to modify the end of it a little bit, which was no big deal. This spindle allows us to run the larger brake system that came on the Cobra-Rs. Let's start with calipers. Now this Mustang would have come factory with a single piston style caliper like this, which is not necessarily a bad thing but it doesn't have quite the braking force. With us tripling the power we need triple the braking. So with Powerstop they sent us a powder coated dual piston setup, which allows us to add a lot more braking power to our rotor. The SN-95 they switched to a two piece configuration, meaning the wheel bearing and studs are all one combined unit and the rotor is separate. Well a big difference between our rotors is actually size. The fox body came factory with an 11-inch rotor as the Cobra-R came factory with a 13. That two inch difference means a lot when it comes to rotors. It's gonna add a substantial amount of leverage, which is gonna multiply the braking power. This whole install is gonna start with the hub bearing. [ Music ] So your brake rotors are gonna be labeled either front passenger or front driver, and the reason behind that is your cooling veins. The cooling veins in these are actually arched, which determines which side they go on for best performance. Now if they were straight they could be used on either side. So the fox body caliper actually uses a wedge and pin style system to locate it on the spindle, while the Cobra-R has a two bolt mounting system. [ Music ] [ ratchet clicking ]
(Peyton)>> A big reason to switch away from drum brakes is actually heat. As they pad presses against the drum it causes thermal expansion which leads to brake fade. Now our kit from Powerstop comes with a drilled and slotted rotor, which gives us our best bang for the buck. [ Music ]
[ Music ]
(Tommy)>> Now we've got some pretty serious power that we're gonna be stuffing up under the hood of this fox body Mustang and we want to make sure that our brakes are tip-top. So we're not just stopping at the wheels. We're gonna be making some adjustments here at the master cylinder. This car's master cylinder has two lines coming off the front that actually feed your front two brakes, and then one line that comes out of the back on the bottom that feeds the rear. We've now converted over disc-disc, and this car was originally disc on the front, drum in the back. So this setup isn't gonna work for us. So we're gonna have to swap out a few parts. Our swap is super simple. It's off of a '93 Cobra and it gives us the right kind of setup. If you'll notice this thing only has two ports on it. So that means we'll have one for the front and one for the rear. Now we're also gonna be installing this thing. It's an adjustable proportioning valve that we got from Summit Racing. It has one port out and one port out for your rear, and you have one port in and two ports out for your front. It also has the knob on it. This gives you the ability to adjust your bias by simply turning it in one direction or the other. If you get in the car, drive it down the road, and hit the brakes real hard and notice that the back ones are dragging. Crank that thing around and dial it in until you hit perfection.
(Peyton)>> In order to make all these brake parts work together we'll have to bend up a few lines, but that's just part for the course when you're building an old hot rod.
(Tommy)>> You know guys we've made pretty good progress for today. We've got suspension under this fox body, we've got the majority of the brakes taken care of. With that said buddy I think I'm ready to take a break.
(Peyton)>> You and me both.
(Tommy)>> I'm gonna let him run off. I'm gonna stay here and clean up. Who we kidding, I'm taking a break.
