A Five-lug upgrade made simple with all-inclusive swap gear from SSBC Be it through hearsay or firsthand experience, most Fox Mustang owners are all too familiar with the fact that there's a limited assortment of stylish aftermarket wheels available for four-lug '79-'93 'Stangs... It's important to keep in mind that the switch to five lugs wasn't necessarily done for appearance purposes. Improving a 'Stang's stopping ability is always good: It didn't take 'Stangbangers long to realize the best way to have looks and functionality with a five-lug swap on a Fox is to ditch the drum brakes in the rear and set up a true four-wheel, disc-brake system... They had the car back on all fours-well, all fives-in about four hours. Getting a 'Stang safely elevated high enough is key. Once that's accomplished, you'll find SSBC stocked its kit with all the goods necessary to make the transformation easy ... click here for the rest of the article

Our little LX coupe takes a giant leap forward in the braking and looks department. Ask anyone about Fox Mustang brakes and there will be some hesitation about their functionality. Some say they're merely adequate; others say they're downright dangerous. Obviously, apart from the SVOs or '93 Cobras, Fox Mustangs aren't known for their braking prowess. In past years, the aftermarket, in addition to other Ford products, has contributed to making sure Fox Mustang owners are able to bring the whoa after the go. Lincolns, SVO Mustangs, and even Ranger trucks have helped the Fox Mustang cause. But with our former four-cylinder coupe, we chose to forego the salvage yard and get our brake parts from Stainless Steel Brakes Corp. for a complete front and rear brake package. We also had to source several other companies to make everything come together, so watch for them as well for ideas to make your Fox Mustang brake with the best of them ... click here for the rest of the article

Stainless Steel Brakes has the answer for performance braking with OE serviceability. It seems as though people are beginning to get the message. We're seeing more and more high-horsepower street Mustangs with serious brakes on them. This proliferation of big brakes is coming from the '94-and-later Cobra parts bins. This stems, of course, from the fact that the Cobra is an OE system, and service parts for it are no farther away than your nearest parts house ... click here for the rest of the article

Stainless Steel Brakes And LaMotta Performance Remove The Drama From Our Fox Brakes In a battery of tests conducted by Motor Trend magazine back in the day (Sept. ’92 issue) between a 5.0 LX and its contemporaries, the Mustang placed dead last in braking distance. It took the Mustang 138 feet to come to a halt from 60 mph, while the average braking distance between all the cars was 122.9 feet ... click here for the rest of the article

Installing SSBC’s Tri-Power Front Brake Upgrade Now more than 15 years after its introduction, the ZR-1 is still an incredible car, but it no longer ranks with the world’s best sports cars. Sure, its 400hp LT5 engine still packs an awesome punch, but compared to the new Z06 and other similar cars, the ZR-1 doesn’t have nearly enough braking power to match its top-end performance potential. That’s a deficiency that could leave you in a situation with no good alternatives. Fortunately, if you think ahead, there are alternatives. The best one is to install a new brake package in your Vette, and one of the companies that can help you with just such a task is Stainless Steel Brakes Corporation (SSBC). SSBC’s kit for the ZR-1 (and other C4 models) will replace your twin-piston PBR calipers with SSBC’s three-piston, Tri-Power calipers and larger 13-inch slotted rotors. The kit also includes braided stainless brake hoses and all of the hardware necessary for installation ... click here for the rest of the article

Improve Your Third-Gen F-Body's Braking Performance With Stainless Steel Brakes Products Our resident Third-Gen project car Blue Thunder was in dire need of a brake overhaul, but we felt an upgrade was in order, as both the engine and suspension have moved further up in their respective performance realms. That being the case, we looked for an inexpensive way to accomplish this and found a solution with Stainless Steel Brakes Corp. (SSBC) of Clarence, New York. This solution included upgrading the stock front brakes from steel single-piston calipers to aluminum two-piston pieces with SSBC's Quick Change Caliper kit. The kit comes with a pair of SSBC's SportTwin two-piston aluminum calipers, hardware and a set of high-performance brake pads. Calipers can be ordered in several powder-coated colors, and clear anodized or polished finishes are also available. The SSBC kit is a simple remove and replace job, hence the Quick Change name ... click here for the rest of the article

Going on a stopping spree and an astonishing driving experience. Last month, we launched our buildup series about an S197 Mustang modified right in the middle of the San Diego Auto Show ("Independent Thinker"). The first installment was on the Control Freak front suspension conversion from struts to tubular A-arms. One important item was not covered in detail, however: the brakes. That's because they deserve special attention all on their own, since they have eight--count 'em, eight--pistons in each front caliper. Offered as an option on the Control Freak package, the Force 10 V8 eight-piston calipers and 14-inch rotors are made by Stainless Steel Brakes Corporation (SSBC). Why so many pistons? Obviously, increasing the clamping force is desirable, especially when you add a lot of horsepower... the stock binders have only a pair of 45mm pistons, while the SSBC calipers have eight 40mm pistons. Not only that, the grooved and plated rotors are 2 inches larger in diameter than the factory units, so this conversion provides a significant gain in clamping surface area... If you dive into a bend a bit too hot, just make sure you have your seatbelt on because those SSBC brakes haul down this Mustang like a body slam from Hulk Hogan. Repeated stabs at the brake pedal didn't faze these binders a bit ... click here for the rest of the article

Our open-track warrior gets real stopping power from Stainless Steel Brakes' Force 10 Extreme kit. When it comes time to upgrade the reins on your colt, the Clarence, New York-based Stainless Steel Brakes Corporation (SSBC) has just what you need. Thirty years of experience designing performance brake upgrades for musclecars have taught the company a thing or two about keeping up with the Jones'. The SSBC line for Mustangs has several choices that will meet or exceed your needs... you certainly can't complain about the performance of the SSBC brake system, as it boasts the lowest 100-0 mph stopping distance of any brake kit we have ever tested. After a full day of hot-lapping on the MM&FF handling course, Technical Editor Evan Smith said there was not even a hint of fade; the binders performed flawlessly all day long. Previous visits to this course with the stock brakes would allow only three or four laps before the brakes would noticeably fade, whereas the SSBC brakes hardly broke a sweat. The increase in pedal feel and reaction time alone, in addition to the incredible power in the front calipers that literally plant your nose on the windshield at will, has the potential to allow late braking at every single corner on the track and effectively reduce lap times ... click here for the rest of the article

FAST FIX FOR FAST FOXESFor many Fox-body owners, straight-line performance is the name of the game. Pumping one of these classic bodies to haul down the quarter is relatively easy with all the aftermarket support these cars enjoy. They even handle decent out of the box. The important question comes at the long end of the track. It’s a short track and there isn’t much room for slowing down. The stock brakes are just not quite enough to slow down an 11-second Pony. Don’t find out the hard way... For our race-oriented ’92 Mustang, we wanted a lightweight system that required a minimal amount of modifications and would work with stock wheels. The solution was easy - Stainless Steel Brakes Corporation... The Mustang was tested before and after, using a Vericom VC3000 data-logging performance meter. This extremely accurate computer measures speed, braking time, braking distance and g-forces. The results were impressive... In the 0-30-0 testing, the stock Mustang took 2.82 seconds to stop at 63.35 feet, at an average speed of 31.43 mph. With the new brakes, the car only required 1.98 seconds to stop within 46.36 feet, at an average speed of 31.53 mph. This is a difference of nearly 20 feet and one second, more than enough to make a difference. The 0-60-0 testing results were similar, with the stock car stopping in 6.37 seconds and 286.51 feet while the modified Mustang stopped in 5.85 seconds at 197.65 feet. That is almost 100 feet shorter than the stock Mustang, which is substantial in the world of fast braking ... click here for the rest of the article

POWER BINDERS ARE JUST THE TICKET FOR THIS TRACK CAR, AND WILL GET THE JOB DONE ON YOUR STREET PONY AS WELL When building a race car you never quite know what you need until you hit the track. Since this was the maiden year for the Evolution Motorsport entry into the OH/IN American Iron series (EvM AI 2005), the EvM team quickly found that out. Obviously they had done their homework and managed to build up what seems to be a competitive car. To be more specific, they built a 1995 Ford Mustang outfitted with a host of aftermarket product sponsorships and EvM’s own components. In its final form, the car seemed to take to the track quite well during testing. However, by the time the second race came around it was apparent that the EvM AI 2005 Race Car needed a brake upgrade ... click here for the rest of the article

Improve the looks and performance of your street-driven F-body with a Tri-Power Force 10 brake kit from Stainless Steel Brakes Corporation When the fourth-generation Camaro and Firebird were introduced in 1993, it was heralded as the best F-body yet. With 27 hp on tap, a 6-speed manual transmission, fighter-jet styling, razor-sharp rack and pinion steering, true double A-arm suspension up front and standard 16-inch alloy wheels wrapped with Goodyear's best Gatorbacks, you could really haul the mail... But there was trouble in paradise. V8-powered F-bodies had marginal 10.9-inch diameter rotors up front, and they were clamped by over-worked single-piston calipers made of cast iron... you could find yourself in trouble really quick if you had to slow down in a hurry from a buck twenty... Meanwhile, we had been watching the folks from Stainless Steel Brakes Corporation with interest. They had just released their new line of Tri-Power Force 10 calipers for the C5 Corvette, and we knew from experience that C5 brake parts adapted very well to fourth-gen F-bodies... the best part of the system is the new three-piston Tri-Power caliper. Three pistons do a much better job than one piston for one simple reason: clamping force is evenly distributed across the pad surface, and that makes a given pad area more effective. The caliper itself is made of aircraft-quality billet aluminum for weight reduction and strength, but each of the three 38mm pistons is made of corrosion-resistant stainless steel. This minimizes heat transfer from the pad to the fluid resulting in zero brake fade ... click here for the rest of the article

Tri-Power Stopping For Fourth-Gen Camaros While late-model Camaros may not posses the raw power of a big-block Chevelle or the high-revving twist of the 302-inch '69 Camaro they are well known for their awesome stopping power. Our Road Rage testing provided us with 60-0 mph numbers consistently at 132 feet, a very impressive number for a stock vehicle. After all, four-wheel discs, ABS and a set of 275mm tires make all the difference in the world. After looking at the import market and a few of our competitors' vehicles we determined that squeezing a few more feet out of our '02 Z28 was a must, but not at the cost of pedal comfort or extreme financial cost. Stainless Steel Brakes Corporation offers a "quick change" caliper and rotor upgrade for the C5 and Gen IV Camaro. The Tri-Power (we love the name) kit provides new calipers, rotors, flex lines, pads and all the hardware necessary to make the switch. The beauty of the kit is the use of the OE cradles, master cylinder and power booster. It was our observation that the kit really was a quick change over, taking all of 90 minutes wheel to wheel. 60-0 mph braking was 132ft with stock brakes; it was 118ft with the Tri-Power calipers, a 10% - or about 1 car length - improvement. ... click here for the rest of the article

Putting the brakes on it Powerful, reliable brakes are critical not only when performing spirited driving maneuvers, but also in everyday traffic, where a few extra feet of stopping distance can mean the difference between a moment's drama and a hefty repair bill. After a lengthy search of the performance-brake aftermarket, we settled on Stainless Steel Brake Corporation's Front and Rear Short Stop Slotted Rotor and Upgrade Brake Pad Kit (Part No. A2350008). Priced at a reasonable $695, the system features plated, stock-sized front and rear rotors with curved vanes and directional slotting. A set of high-performance organic brake pads is also included ... click here for the rest of the article

The original four-lug drum brakes on our Mustang had to go. So what did we do? Give Stainless Steel Brakes a call, that's what. In the continuing saga of Car Craft's project Mustang, with all the new Global West Suspension components on the car, the next step in the resurrection of our grandma-abused '67 fell to new binders. The original four-lug drum brakes had to go, so we contacted Stainless Steel Brakes for a simple conversion kit that would allow us to use our existing six-cylinder spindle but install something a little more aggressive. What arrived in the mail a few days later was everything we needed to do the conversion... The hardest part of the entire swap was deciding where to place the adjustable proportioning valve and bending a line or two to make it all fit. The conversion took perhaps three hours to complete, and we didn’t even have to break out the flaring tool. It doesn't get much easier than this... This particular Stainless Steel Brakes (SSB) kit is similar to the factory disc system on ’67-’69 Mustangs. The critical components in the kit include the factory-style, four-piston caliper that mounts rigidly to the caliper bracket; an upgraded pair of slotted, zinc-washed rotors; and a cast-iron master cylinder. The kit also includes adapters for the rubber flex hoses so they bolt up to the existing hard lines. All the bolt-on hardware is included, as well a set of performance SSB pads ... click here for the rest of the article

If we'd had SSBC's Super Duty disc-brake system installed on our Falcon two years ago, this would never have happened. For years, car magazines, including this one, have waxed on about the importance of updating older manual-drum-brake cars to the stopping power of modern disc brakes. We often publish dramatic before-and-after 60-0-mph stopping tests comparing the performance of the trick new brakes to the weak stockers, and we urge you to consider stopping power to be as critical to your car's performance as acceleration power. This time we don't need any braking data to illustrate the dramatic effects of disc brakes. One look at the picture of our '65 Ford Falcon Sprint sitting atop a rollback with a crunched front end should tell you the problem with manual drums. This unfortunate incident occurred about two years ago in stop-and-go traffic in Carson City, Nevada, during Car Craft's annual West Coast Road Trip, and to make matters worse, we plowed into the back of a reader's mint '65 Plymouth Satellite ... click here for the rest of the article

Civilizing a Ferrell Ford If you drive an older car still equipped with original drum brakes, you have undoubtedly experienced the fear factor of wondering if you will be able to slow that classic before it squashes the car in front of you like an aluminum can under your foot. We had those same fears recently when we began daily commutes in our recently acquired '63 Galaxie Country Sedan wagon (a true heavyweight). The vehicle had supposedly been "gone through" by a "classic car expert," but after a few white-knuckled panic stops and a constant annoying tendency to brake hard to the right, we knew the original drum brakes were definitely in need of some help ... click here for the rest of the article

Installing a Stainless Steel Brakes Six-Cylinder Mustang Disc Brake Kit Is a Great Way to Begin an Affordable Early-Mustang Project The early-model Mustangs (’64-1/2 -’67) are well built and extremely dependable... One of its glaring shortcomings, however, is its brakes. Now, this is not peculiar to the I-6, as the majority of the Mustangs came with four-wheel drum brakes. The difference with the I-6 models is that they came with four-lug wheels. While many companies make disc brake kits for the five-lug Mustangs, few make a kit for the four-lug models... Luckily, one company that offers a bolt-on disc brake conversion for the four-lug classic Mustang is Stainless Steel Brakes Corporation (SSBC). SSBC has a long history of producing quality braking components for classic vehicles... This SSBC kit consists of rotors, calipers, mounting brackets and, in this case, a power-actuated, dual-chambered master cylinder. And yes, this is a bolt-on affair ... click here for the rest of the article

Old Glory gets some big time stopping power with a set of front disc brakes. Stopping power is one of those “taken for granted” deals. It’s just assumed that when you mash that brake pedal, your 3300 lb (or greater) car is going to hunker down and come to an effortless halt. You know your car (hopefully). You know how fast it is, and the kinds of distances you need to slow that bad boy down. Let’s face it, it doesn’t take a genius to know that a four-and-a quarter horse R-code Fairlane with 4-wheel drums can’t haul it down as fast as say, a new SVT Cobra. Brakes are one of those things that hey, if they work, they work. We’re here to show you that with a little time and effort, they can work a whole heck of a lot better. Let’s get one thing straight right away. Stainless Steel Brakes’ kit is for cars with 5-lug wheels (read: V8 power). It’s a great, high-end kit, and everything during this phase of our project went very smoothly. Brake assembly is straightforward, as we expected it would be. Trust us, this won’t tax your mechanical IQ ... click here for the rest of the article

Our project becomes a roller with brakes, wheels, and tires Getting our Factory Five Racing Roadster to the roller phase hasn't been without its share of waiting-waiting on parts, waiting on the powdercoater, waiting for the weekend to come so we had time to work on it, and so forth... The brake package we're using is from Stainless Steel Brakes Corp. and features the company's Force 10 Tri-Power powdercoated aluminum caliper up front with three 38mm pistons clamping down on a 13-inch rotor. Out back we used SSBC's Force 10 R1 powdercoated aluminum caliper with a single 54mm piston mounted over an 11.25-inch rotor ... click here for the rest of the article

Currie and Stainless Steel Brakes team up to give a Mustang some go and whoa. Ford's 9-inch is arguably the stoutest passenger car differential on the planet. Built of sturdy stuff from the factory, it was the driving force for everything meaty at Ford--from the Galaxies with the 427s to the present NASCAR Taurus. Those two alone are enough to get our vote of confidence for the Ford nine. Of course, the best can always be made better, and our experience with 9-inch diffs has almost always lead us to Currie Enterprises of Anaheim, California. Currie offers the Ford nine in almost any configuration imaginable. We chose a standard case packed with 3.50 rear gears, torque-sensing, limited-slip differential, and the standard 3-inch-diameter tube with street-rod, smooth center-section cover. We deleted the included drum brakes, so we could use the four-wheel disc brake kit from Stainless Steel brakes ... click here for the rest of the article

Upgrade That Six-Cylinder Mustang to V-8 Status. One of our buddies here at the shop recently got his hands on a '64.5 Mustang convertible. Rangoon Red with a red interior--it's the sort of car many of us dream about each night. The red, combined with a white soft top, makes this one a real head-turner and, with a very early production number, the super-straight Mustang is a valuable car for sure. The original engine is a 200ci straight six, mated to a three-speed automatic transmission. We don't have anything against six-cylinder cars, but our friend is interested in V-8 power with a modern Overdrive transmission. He's been reading Mustang & Fords lately, so he's already interested in performance enhancement. If ever there were a car worth the effort needed to do a V-8 conversion, a red Mustang convertible certainly qualifies ... click here for the rest of the article

Boost performance and safety on your vintage Ford with these basic bolt-on components. There are a lot of great products out there designed to enhance performance, appearance, and safety of your vintage Ford automobile. From state-of-the-art radial tires to complete interior kits, the variety is almost overwhelming, especially if your car happens to be a vintage Mustang. When this "bolt-on" assignment came up, there were several different angles to consider. For example, what do we consider to be the best of the bolt-on components for your car? Which represent the greatest value? How involved is the installation process? When all was said and done, we wanted to consider all of these factors ... click here for the rest of the article

Stop Straight And Safe With Front Disc Brakes From Dearborn Classics If you’re thinking of a “hot swap,” one of the changeovers near the top of our list would have to be swapping out OEM front drum brakes in favor of a set of front disc brakes. Disc brakes have numerous advantages over drums, and adding them to your vintage Mustang or Ford is one of the most worthwhile swaps you can make. With the addition of disc brakes, you’ll reduce fade considerably. Disc brakes shed heat much more efficiently than drums, so heat doesn’t build up nearly as fast. Heat buildup and retention causes fade, and brakes that stay cooler will stop your car better ... click here for the rest of the article

Stainless Steel Brakes Introduces Better Binders For Six-Cylinder Fords and Mercs. When you hop up a little Ford six, thoughts are eventually bound to turn to how to stop the darned thing when the fun's over. Jump on the binders in a Ford six-cylinder compact and you're going to learn something about control or the absence of it. With those tiny manual drum brakes, your Falcon, Comet, or Mustang is going to pull like crazy until the vehicle comes to a complete stop. No matter what you do with those pancake binders, they're still going to pull to one side, making for a dangerous driving experience. Stainless Steel Brakes understands what it means to be driving an unsafe classic automobile and the frustration of being able to do little about it. This is why they're introducing power front disc brakes for six-cylinder Ford and Mercury compacts. We like this easy-to-install conversion kit from Stainless Steel Brakes. It comes equipped with ... click here for the rest of the article

Thanks To Stainless Steel Brakes From Auto Krafters, ’67 Mustang Front Disc Brakes Bolt Directly Onto ’67 Fairlanes Whenever we begin a new vintage project, one of our first concerns is decent brakes, especially on a vintage Mustang or Ford that originally came with all-wheel drums. In the day-to-day hustle of modern traffic, the last thing we want is to be found lacking in the stopping department. While drum brakes work well on the rear and offer superior holding power for the emergency brake, they can be a real handful when the drums are located all around ... click here for the rest of the article

Auto Krafters Helps Bring Your Binders Out Of The Stone Age Auto Krafters furnished a front disc brake kit made by Stainless Steel Brakes to fit the Fairlane and provide sure, safe stops every time. All the guesswork is eliminated, and the installation is straightforward ... click here for the rest of the article

Stainless Steel Brakes Corporation makes it easy to keep the Force 10 with you The Stainless Steel Disc Brakes Force 10 system yields the performance you expect from one of the best names in the aftermarket disc-brake business. Force 10s can be installed on any of the classic Mustang spindles and axle flanges... we opted for four-piston fronts and single-piston rears... We went for slotted rotors, optional from Stainless Steel Brakes, to vent off gasses and heat during hard braking. Not only do they look sharp, they also provide fade-free braking ... click here for the rest of the article

Improve Your Vintage Braking with Stainless Steel Brakes' Rear Disc Brake Conversion Kit. We have to give the tried and proven drum brake a lot of credit, as it has gotten the job done since its creation more than a century ago. The downside to drum brakes, however, is simple to understand: They fade in hard braking, and they're completely useless when wet, so they will not stop your Mustang. You know the answer when it comes to your safety and the safety of others--pony up to better rear braking from Stainless Steel Brakes. Here, we show you how to install rear disc brakes on your 8- or 9-inch Mustang rear axle. Hopefully, your Mustang is already equipped with front disc brakes, either from the factory or with one of Stainless Steel Brake's front disc brake conversion kits ... click here for the rest of the article

Now The Thousands Of Six-Cylinder Mustangs Out There Can Have The Safety Of Disc Brakes Previously, if you wanted disc brakes on your 170ci or 200ci six-cylinder, you had to install V-8 spindles, then convert to a V-8 disc brake setup--which would give you a five-lug wheel on the front and a four-lug wheel on the back (unless you spent more money to convert that as well). But what if you wanted a simple disc brake conversion that retained the six-cylinder’s four-lug pattern and fit behind the stock wheels? Finally, Stainless Steel Brakes has your answer ... click here for the rest of the article

Ditch those drums and bolt on a set of front disc brakes for under $1,000-it could save your butt big-time. Newton's third law states: "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction." This applies to our hot rods just like all the other laws of physics. The faster you go, the longer it takes to stop. Right after we mounted our new Nitto NT555 tires, we took the Fairlane out to the test track to get some baseline numbers. Our best stopping distance from 60 mph was 194 feet, which isn't short by any stretch of the imagination...We wanted strong brakes... After a few calls, we ended up talking with Stainless Steel Brakes Corporation (SSBC). In addition to their line of high-end big-brake systems, they also put out drum brake conversion packages that are better than your average "stock replacement" deal ... click here for the rest of the article

Bolt-In For First-And Second-Generation Cars Despite the volumes written about the legendary prowess of ’60s musclecars, the words always seem to gloss over some serious engineering shortcomings of the era. Brake packages were often, in a word, terrifying. One good shot was the most you got, if you were lucky. After that, it was white-knuckle time when it came to stopping in a hurry—and that was with a powerplant kicking out factory horsepower. Brake fade was the name of the game. Add a cam, some carb, headers, and exhaust, and stopping becomes even more elusive. While drum brakes are great for stopping lumbering buses and dump trucks, they’re no good for gas-huffing musclecars. The good news is that it’s never been easier to upgrade your ’60s- or ’70s-era GM musclecar to a disc brake package. Stepping up to serious stopping power with disc brakes on all four corners is as easy as picking up the phone, calling Stainless Steel Brakes ... click here for the rest of the article

For the past five years, our sister magazine Chevy High Performance has conducted an invitation only 0-100-0 contest to test the acceleration and brake performance of a selected handful of readers' cars. The contestants gather at the dragstrip, and with help from Baer Inc., put their respective cars through the paces by making a regular quarter-mile blast and then standing on the brakes at the top end... This year, as CHP was making its preparation for the annual test, we thought it would be fun to enter our SuperNova project car. Frankly, we didn't expect much... Although the SuperNova's factory-style disc brakes are equipped with stock 11-inch rotors and SSBC SuperTwin aluminum replacement calipers with EBC Green Stuff high-performance pads, we expected the rest of the combination would prove to be a worst-case scenario. After all, conventional wisdom says a big-block-powered car with no front sway bar, 90/10 shocks, stock rear drums, and shod with skinny 165R15 Volkswagen tires on the front and full slicks on the rear should be a nightmare to stop. In fact, the first time we hit the brakes hard at 100-plus mph, we half expected the car to swap ends. But we, and the folks from CHP and Baer, couldn't have been more surprised when the car just hauled itself down with no drama. There was no trace of rear-wheel lockup, no flat-spotted tires, and our best 100-0 stopping distance of 418 feet combined with our 0-100 mph acceleration was good enough to finish Third overall in the competition, a mere 9 total feet behind a brand new Z06 Corvette! For the complete results of CHP's 0-100-0 Shootout, check out Chevy High's July '03 issue. ... click here for the rest of the article

Simply Unbolt Your Existing Cast-Iron Anchors And Bolt The New Calipers In Their Place Want the look of trick aluminum brake calipers without the cost and hassle of a complete brake conversion? Stainless Steel Brakes Corporation (SSBC) has something you'll probably be interested in. (Note: This article incorrectly states you can add a set of slotted & plated 11-inch rotors to the Quick Change kit for a total of $550. Contact SSBC for the correct price for adding rotors. The Quick Change kit price of $395 is correct.) ... click here for the rest of the article

Stainless Steel Brakes Disc-Brake Conversion Kit Avoidance is key. Like your first ski trip, urban driving is a dicey, unpredictable situation until you learn to safely stop yourself. Likewise, we figure Honda CRX and Ford Focus drivers must feel like bowling pins when our ’65 Biscayne comes creeping up from behind, so we decided it was time to call up Year One and order a Stainless Steel Brakes disc-brake conversion kit for the bulbous B-body ... click here for the rest of the article

60-0 stopping distance with drum brakes: 241 ft. 60-0 stopping distance with FX2 disc brakes: 155 ft. ... We took our '64 out to Fontana's California Speedway for a bit of Road Rage performance testing only to find out that our Malibu stopped from 60-0 in a disappointing 241 feet. Just for a bit of comparison, a stock '02 Z28 Camaro takes 129 feet to come to a stop from 60... The SSBC conversion isn't a one-day deal, but it doesn't require a degree in brake technology either. Take your time, be thorough and if your results are anything like ours you'll have your 60-0s down to 155 feet in no time ... click here for the rest of the article

Roadster Shop and CARS Inc. build a '57 for our Armed Forces... Over the past few months, the men and women of the U.S. Armed Forces have had an opportunity to visit the website, www.projectamericanheroes.org, and vote for one of the seven renderings posted. All seven renderings were very cool, but as of this writing, the voting is over, and the Blue car has emerged victorious. Progress will be continually updated on the website. The site also gives visitors the opportunity to contribute online to the Armed Forces Foundation. Please consider supporting our troops by donating. Now let's talk hardware. Put simply, this 1957 Chevy features the finest parts on the market... SSBC disc brakes front and rear are now found at all four corners ... click here for the rest of the article

Dan DeKruger Answered With a Very Trick '72 Chevelle They say that opportunity only knocks once, which is just fine with Dan DeKruger, given that he's not the type to wait around for a second rap at the door. This readiness to act has paid off: Once, 11 years ago, when DeKruger made the right moves at the right time to get his hands on a nice '72 Chevelle, and just recently, as he jumped at the chance to transform his faithful A-body into a unique, modernized machine in the Pro Touring mold. . . The knock came when DeKruger got the chance to obtain a complete 5.3L powerplant from an '02 GMC Yukon that had seen better days. He also had access to the harness and computers, along with just about anything else he wanted--and the price was right. "After messing with my '97 Firebird," he told us, "the chance to go high-tech appealed to me." Not that he jumped blindly; DeKruger did his research ... click here for the rest of the article

Our Project Z28 Has No Go but Plenty of Whoa. It's always been my opinion that a car capable of going real fast should also be able to stop real fast. In fact, I even tend to give stopping power priority over all-out horsepower. It's quite simple, really. On the one hand, it's a safety factor. On the other hand, a stout braking system is a major part of a balanced musclecar--ideally, each system in a well-built car should be up to the performance level of every other system. So, in my book, all engine and no brakes is a bad thing... To that end, we gave Stainless Steel Brakes (SSBC) a call, and were able to get just what we needed. Up front, we went with SSBC's Quick Change aluminum caliper upgrade kits. The Quick Change kit for our Z28 comes with a pair of Force 10 Super Twin two-piston calipers, which we ordered powdercoated in CHP red. The aluminum calipers are fitted with corrosion-free stainless steel pistons, and are also lighter than the factory pieces, thus reducing unsprung weight a tad. Most importantly, the Super Twin calipers provide a claimed 30 percent more clamping power than the OEM binders ... click here for the rest of the article

Installing SSBC Four-Disc Brakes and TQ Wheels on the Boss’s ’55 So after deciding on a modernized restoration, he chose a Stainless Steel Brakes Corporation (SSBC) Force 10 complete four-wheel disc conversion. The SSBC Force 10 kit for the ’55 Chevy uses the original spindle, but SSBC also offers a set of dropped spindles to lower the car... The complete SSBC kit included the front and rear disc brake conversion, chrome booster and billet master cylinder that looks a little out of place in the grungy stock engine compartment, but that’s only temporary. The SSBC setup would not only improve braking, but it looks great ... click here for the rest of the article

Adding Stopping Power to a Chevy Rearend With SSBC’s Kit If you’re building a Chevy that’s really going to rumble, you might want to consider upgrading to rear disc brakes. The added stopping ability might be just what you need when you’re really wringing out your car. With this Stainless Steel Brakes Corporation (SSBC) kit for Chevy rearends, you don’t even have to consider the typical Ford 9-inch rearend swap. We documented the installation of the SSBC disc brake swap while at Hot Rods & Custom Stuff. It’s really not a tough job at all. HR&CS’s Mike Saffiote did the job in about an hour. Even if you fumble your way through the swap, it shouldn’t take you more than three hours, tops ... click here for the rest of the article

With One Simple Installation, This Tri-Year Chevy Sits Lower and Stops Better If you plan to fix up a tri-year Chevy, it’s advisable to upgrade the car’s brakes so it will stop as well as the best performance cars on the road. Several manufacturers make bolt-on kits for tri-year Chevys, and one of the finest and most complete kits comes from Stainless Steel Brakes. It offers a complete bolt-on kit that includes GM rotors, GM calipers, hoses, master cylinder with vacuum booster and your choice of stock or dropped spindles. Since the ’55 Chevy hardtop we are working on is going to be a mild street machine, we decided to install the dropped spindles along with a set of new, 2-inch dropped springs from Eaton Detroit Springs. Together with the dropped spindles, the Chevy should sit approximately 4 inches lower than stock ... click here for the rest of the article

This Stainless Steel Brakes Kit Makes it Easy to Boost Your Braking Power. It's surprising how easy it can be to swap out your old set of drum brakes and replace them with brand-new discs. With a kit from Stainless Steel Brakes Corporation the job can be done in approximately four hours with nothing to weld, no holes to drill, and no brackets to fabricate. If you want to stop with less effort or if you're running open design wheels and you don't want everyone looking at your crummy old drum brakes, read this story and see how easy it is to do the job ... click here for the rest of the article

A car with a high-performance engine requires high-performance brakes. Depending on the condition of your restoration project car, your brakes may need anything from a simple re-line to a complete overhaul. Regardless of your situation, there are options to consider with respect to brake systems, brands and accessories. In this episode, host Ron Ananian restores and upgrades the brakes on the 1968 Camaro ... click here for the rest of the article

Upgrading the disc brakes on a 68-82 C3 Corvette We waited until the last minute to decide which brake calipers to install on Project Shark Attack (PSA) and are now glad of it. Once we had an idea what funds could be allocated to the project, it made sense to install the new Stainless Steel Brake Corporation (SSBC) Force 10 Extreme four-piston aluminum calipers. The new (and we emphasize new) forged aluminum, lightweight calipers are the first major advancement in '65-'82 Corvette calipers since these cars were built. The calipers are a fixed-position-type, but the sealing rings ride on the stainless steel caliper pistons instead of the caliper housing bore. This means if there is a caliper piston seal problem down the road, they can be replaced without messing with the housing, unlike the originals... After putting 8,000-plus miles on Project Shark Attack, we would definitely recommend the SSBC calipers and rotors package. They deliver sure, even braking under all road conditions. Over this same time period, there has been no squealing from the disc pads ... click here for the rest of the article

Brake upgrades for '68-'82 Corvettes. How do you improve on perfection? Like most things, there is always room for improvement, and Corvettes are no exception. For Corvette fans, there are some things C4s and C5s can do much better than sharks ('68-'82). Luckily, the folks at Stainless Steel Brakes Corporation have a solution for the braking blues... After giving our system a thorough shakedown (checking all connections for leaks, and doing some slow driving and stopping to ensure everything was safe and functioning properly), we decided to let it all hang out. In 60-0-mph braking tests, we shaved 22 feet off our original stopping distance of 149 feet with the stock system--a 14.7 percent improvement. We are extremely happy with the SSBC Force 10 kit. SSBC utilizes CNC equipment for pinpoint accuracy, and the quality is much better than the 20-year-old stock pieces ... click here for the rest of the article

Trading bushings for bearings in '53-'62 Corvettes. Compared to the steering assemblies the Corvette has been using over the past few generations, the straight-axle front suspension is extremely simplistic. The initial design was for a passenger car, and that is exactly how it worked under the Corvette. There are options available to the early Corvette owner who wishes to update his or her Corvette's suspension to an independent front system, but if you wish to keep your Corvette basically stock but make it more enjoyable to drive, Stainless Steel Brakes has you covered as well. The company provides an upgraded kingpin package that uses roller bearings instead of the original bushings. The bearings will last longer and make steering easier due to the reduced friction of the bearings ... click here for the rest of the article

A '63-'64 Brake Upgrade that Benefits Generations to Come Stainless Steel Brakes Corporation has looked back--back to the cars that should have utilized disc brakes. When engineering a kit to replace the drum brakes on the '63-'64 Corvettes, Stainless Steel Brakes included technology that not only exceeded the drums of the earlier cars but also contained benefits over using the factory disc setups that were such an improvement back in 1965. Its new Force 10 aluminum calipers are lighter, removing 16 pounds of unsprung weight from your Corvette's front suspension. Also, the Turbo slotted rotors have CNC-machined groove patterns for improved wet braking, reduced brake fade, and improved pad cleaning. These attributes are beneficial for any brake setup from '63 to '82, and light-years ahead of drum brakes. Follow along as we bring this '64 Corvette's front drum brakes into the next century ... click here for the rest of the article

BRAKING POWER FROM SSBC For the past several issues we’ve brought "Buck" into the 21st Century, fitting it with some of the best driveline and suspension items available on the market. All of what we’ve covered so far will help the ’66 Buick go faster, but what about slowing it down? For that chore we lassoed the gang at SSBC (Stainless Steel Brakes Corporation), getting their input on what we needed to enhance the stopping power, while also having curb appeal. Since this car will be seeing street and strip duty, as well as an occasional trip around a road course, it made sense to go big. And we did utilizing SSBC’s latest Big Bite 13-inch cross-drilled rotors and Force 10 Tri-Power calipers on the front ... click here for the rest of the article

Stainless Steel Brakes delivers with an awesome mid-year Nova brake kit. For those looking for the ultimate heart-pounding enjoyment, strap yourself into an early or mid-year Nova and try stopping the car at 60 miles-per-hour. Your knuckles will be sore from holding the steering wheel tight, and your right foot will be mashed into the floorboard. These factory drum/drum brake set-ups were barely adequate even by 1967 standards and have no place in today’s four-wheel disc ABS environment. So out with the old and in with the new! After giving up my panic stopping, thrill-seeking adventures cold turkey and focusing on the golden rule of "safety first," I traded in this archaic form of "stopping" for a more reasonable approach. There are many aftermarket providers of front and rear disc setup for early and mid-year Novas, but we wanted a true bolt-on application that would not require special machining, could be installed by a weekend enthusiast, and would look awesome. Stainless Steel Brakes set us up with the latest in stopping power for early- and mid-year Novas... We performed four 60-to-0 tests and could not believe the results! Not only did the brakes stop on a dime, but you could feel how much more control you have over the car in a panic stop situation. We did not experience premature rear or front wheel-lock up at all. Our average stopping distance was 107 feet, with the rest of the distances were in the 100 to 121 foot range (compared to the 147-170 foot range with the stock drums). No doubt we had improved stopping power in a big way! ... click here for the rest of the article

Part III: Moving forward on our rear disc brake swap and front disc brake rebuild. Rebuilding and upgrading the braking system in our '77 T/A has been a rewarding yet arduous endeavor. One advantage we had was the fact that the Pontiac is partially disassembled. Nevertheless we have been working on it for months. Those who read Part I and II know that Stainless Steel Brakes Corp, Year One and Classic Tube provided many of the components to upgrade to rear disc brakes... In our final installment, we will mount the adjustable proportioning valve for the rear disc brakes and move forward to rebuild the front braking system ... click here for the rest of the article

Part II: What about lines and emergency brakes for our rear discs? Now that you've gotten a taste of what is involved in a rear disc brake swap, we will continue on our quest for better braking by modifying and installing the rear brake lines and the emergency brake system ... click here for the rest of the article

Part I: Rear disc installation It's 2001 and every performance car worth its salt has monster-sized rear disc brakes. What's an owner of a vintage Firebird to do? One option is to look for a factory rear disc brake setup, pay top dollar and then replace all of the worn parts for more cash. Another choice is to give Stainless Steel Brakes Corporation a call. The company has a rear disc brake kit, which employs single-piston calipers with 10.5-inch rotors that bolt right onto the corporate 10-bolt found in most Second Gen. Firebirds ... click here for the rest of the article

Installing oversize discs on our '66 Chevy Biscayne. ...As the compliment to our high-powered engine and thoroughly tough drivetrain, we chose Stainless Steel Brake's Force 10 disc brake assemblies as the energy mediators. They measure 13.0x1.1 inches and are complemented by large, four-piston (48mm) aluminum calipers, CNC-slotted vented rotors, Timken bearings, stainless steel flex hoses, and a 42mm wheel offset requirement. The conversion also includes a 7-inch booster/master cylinder ... click here for the rest of the article

A modern brake upgrade for vintage GTOs Nothing is more important on a car than the brakes. Bad brakes will ruin your day every single time, while good brakes can save your life and your prized Pontiac. The stock brake systems on our beloved musclecars leaves a little to be desired; even in top form the diminutive factory front discs are just barely adequate to stop the car at moderate speeds and are prone to glazing. If the car came equipped with four-wheel drums, forget about stopping at all. The solution is simple enough: Upgrade the brakes. Of course, such projects are often easier said than done. Fortunately, that wasn’t the case for a brake swap we recently performed on a GTO, with help from Stainless Steel Brakes Corporation (SSBC)... The new brakes outperform the stock 11-inch discs and rear drums so much that it feels like an entirely different car. Safe stopping is now a reality, no more wincing every time you hit the brakes, hoping it will stop ... click here for the rest of the article

Project American Heroes gets some big-time stopping power Having the privilege of participating in the Project American Heroes buildup of the Cars Inc./Roadster Shop 1957 Chevy convertible, our military personnel are more and more in our thoughts and prayers... Stainless Steel Brakes Corporation is up to providing the equipment needed to not have to "think" about braking during road trips in the '57 Chevy ragtop. In business for over 30 years, SSBC has worked hard to provide the ultimate braking systems for all late-model performance cars, musclecars, street rods, trucks, SUVs, and sport compacts... The SSBC four-wheel disc-brake kit called into duty for Project American Heroes matches 13-inch front-vented rotors with 12-inch rears ... click here for the rest of the article

Upgrading '65-82 Brakes with SSBC's new Force 10 System. ...Compared to C4s--and in ensuing years C5s, newer F-Bodies, and others--the '65-82 factory brakes don't offer a particularly reassuring or confidence-inspiring feel (spongy is a common description for the pedal feel of these cars) when you need 'em the most... What has really surprised Team VETTE is that, until recently, no one (we're talking about manufacturers, not individuals) has come up with a new brake system for these Corvettes... Stainless Steel Brakes Corporation took the gamble, and we've got a feeling that the "Force 10 Extreme Duty" brake system is going to be extremely popular. Force 10 is a brake system upgrade that addresses the various deficiencies of the original brakes, and is engineered as a straight bolt-on... Before we even considered beginning the swap, we "baselined" the original-style brakes with a series of 60-0 stops, measured with a G-Tech Pro accelerometer. The best stop we recorded was 170 feet; our best-of-three average was 171.5 feet... [After installing the SSBC Force 10 kit] Our three-run average was 143 feet, which lopped a good 27.5 feet off the old system's numbers. Incredibly, the new brakes actually got better as they heated up and Loy got the feel of them. Our last run, the last of five, and despite some minor locking-up, netted an outstanding 128 feet--42 feet better than the OEM system's best (which is, by the way, a 24.7 percent improvement ... click here for the rest of the article