I am definitely going to upgrade to vacuum booster and 12" brakes. I have been talking with Baer and am looking at their 12" "serious street" brakes and booster conversion kit, available with or without upper a-arms. The master power brakes kit (is on sale about half price) comes with a-arms; the 12" upgrade article on this page uses new a-arms. Why do you recommend new a-arms? Alignment problems? thanks in advance
anybody?
This was one answer you got on the list-
The Master Power setup has rubber bushings as far as I can tell, and they
are using Global Wests upper control arms.
It's not that you can't half-arse the swap with stock control arms, but
your camber curve will be very poor in comparison, and you will have to
use off-set upper a-arm shafts & shim the hell out of things to get a
"decent" alignement (that will be indecent when the car experiences any
bump or roll.
My preferred mode on this would be used spindles etc. & the Global West
CNR-88-C with brass on the passengers side for a turbo car. I am running
their CNR-88-C kit on a non turbo car and it is the best out there. Just
ran acrost my receipt from '99 from GW.
-Matthew_Daugherty-mailto:jmd@monte-list.nu-Albuquerque,NM-
www.spots.ab.ca/~jmd/gbody-chassis.html - http://www.monte-list.nu
this was another
The Master Power kit uses Global West control arms www.globalwest.net These
arms are some of the best you can buy. They use Del-A-Lum bushings which are
infinitely better than polyurethane. Check out their sight and make sure
you're getting a better deal than buying direct. Also see if the MP kit
includes the DALs for the lower arms. You'll need the kit with the brass
bushing near the turbo because the heat can melt a delrin bushing. I don't
know who makes the arms for the Baer kit, but I highly recommend against
polyurethane bushings. The spindles they use are just B-body spindles. Most
B-bodies came with 11" rotors so the 12"s are a little harder to find, but
they're out there. The B spindles are taller so using stock UCAs would
require about 1.5" of alignment shims to get 0* camber. You should
definitely use the aftermarket arms which are shorter. The other advantage
to this setup is having a negative camber curve instead of the factory
positive curve. The shorter the arm the quicker it will gain negative
camber. You can use 12" rotors from a '92 1LE Camaro. They have the correct
5X4.75" bolt pattern. All B-bodies with 12" brakes had a 5X5" pattern. Any
80s B-body caliper will do. I believe either GWs or Hotchkis' web site says
that you need '76 Camaro calipers because of the width of the rotor. This is
not true. The 70's and 80's D52 calipers are almost identical. The only
significant difference is that the older ones have SAE threads for the brake
hose and will not accept your factory hose. Another thing to keep in mind is
that the calipers have a much larger piston so if you're converting to
vacuum brakes you need a 1 1/8" MC (Raybestos part number JMC39328 is a new
aluminum MC). I believe Baer's kit uses the dual piston PBR calipers so they
must include some type of adapter to mount them to the spindle, not sure of
what MC to use with those if it's not included.
Dante
Thanks for the reply. The comment "the B spindles are taller so using stock upper a-arms would require 1.5" of alignment shims to get 0* camber" was the information I was looking for. I am running 16x8 wheels, and I want to keep the tires flat around corners. Adjustable Upper control arms it is, now I understand why.
With regard to aluminum bushings: won't aluminum & brass bushings give me a brutally harsh ride? On the bushing near the turbo downpipe check out the Hotchkis 1160 heat shield. The Del-A-Lum bushings maybe harder to talk me into.
How did those adjustable upper arms work out for you? What did the length from the center shaft to the ball joint end up being?which adjustable arms did you end up with?
Jon, just a note (months later)
I had test fit *rear* (positive offset, not zero) 91 Z28 wheels on the front of my car with the 12" brakes & GW upper arms, and I like their fit better than the zero offset *front* wheels.
Matthew