Thread: Engine Swap... and more

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thanks for the help tech. Ok so yesterday i spent the day in a bone yard getting the front suspension off of a 78 ford pinto. My question now is what car can i get calipers and rotors off of for those spindels??

Most guys use the 11" Granada rotors and '78-'88 Chevelle or Cutlass calipers. You can buy the whole mess ready to bolt on with either Ford or Chevy bolt pattern for around $300 or you can buy the caliper mounting bracket only for around $90 and scrounge the rest. Or if you're handy, you can design your own caliper mounting bracket.

You will want to think about this, whether you want to start with all new parts or scrounge up parts and rebuild 'em. You'd want to turn the rotors to make sure they're true and that removes metal that should be there to resist warping from heat. Less mass equals easier warping. At the least, I'd buy new rotors.

Sachse Rod Shop has the complete kit ready to bolt on for $299...
http://www.sachserodshop.com./pdf/57.pdf
Other kits are available from many sources including Heidts.

You'll want to use a disc brake master cylinder and proper valving. Proportioning valve in the line to the rear to prevent rear wheel lockup, metering valve in the front line to prevent nose dive and residual valve in the rear line to assure a full pedal. All 3 of these are available in a device called a combination valve.

If I were doing this, I think I'd go to the boneyard and pirate all the brake parts from a '78-'88 Chevelle or Cutlass and adapt 'em to the old Chevy, including the master cylinder, booster, valving, brake pedal assembly (firewall mount). I might even be tempted to use the rear brakes off the Chevelle if they are bigger than the Ford brakes on the housing you're using and adapt them to fit. That way, you'd have a complete, factory engineered system that would stop your old Chevy on a dime.

I'm all about cobbling stuff up to work, been doin' it for nearly 50 years, but I'm also careful when it comes to brakes. I want to emulate the factory system as closely as I can because people smarter than I am engineered the system to work under all conditions. I suspect that the Chevelle was pretty near the weight of the old Chevy and using all the Chevelle parts should give you a well-balanced braking system.

I don't have any idea what is involved in adapting the Chevelle rear brakes to the Ford rear, but I know that I could do it and I suspect that with a little help, you can too.

If you did it this way, you'd want to use a front rotor drilled for the Chevy pattern wheel so you'd have a Chevy pattern all the way around.

There's also the possibility of using 4-wheel discs and there's probably a kit somewhere for adapting late T-Bird parts to the rear. Do a search. You'd want to use a 4-wheel disc master cylinder though so you'd have enough volume.

If I'm all wet on this, I hope some of you other fellows will chime in and offer a better idea.

thanks for the suggestions tech. I think i'm going to pull the gm 10 bolt (might be a 12) out of my jimmy for the rear axel. I went back to heidt's to see what they had for rotors. they're the same size as pinto front rotors but they have the chevy 5 lug pattern. I'm about to have to close down the project for a while as i head off to college for another semester. I hope to find a place up there where i cen work on it. Do you know if storage complex would let me work on a car in one of the storage areas??

I must agree with the big 11 inch brakes. I have a 40 Plymouth and I had the 9 inch rotors on the front with a Chevelle rear. And after a couple of panic stop where I had to change my shorts. I ponied up for the big brakes. You will be glad you did.