cobra brakes

Yes you'll need to update the booster and master cylinder. Yes you'll need spindles. You'll also need axle shafts, hubs, calipers, and an adjustable proportioning valve. You'll need 17x8 wheels to clear the calipers in the front.

90blacknight said:

Yes you'll need to update the booster and master cylinder. Yes you'll need spindles. You'll also need axle shafts, hubs, calipers, adjustable proportioning valve, thereby converting to a five lug pattern. You'll need 17x8 wheels to clear the calipers in the front.

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WTF?!?!?!

teamtwistedream said:

does anyone know what i have to do to put 1993 cobra front rotors and calipers on my 1990 l.x 50 do i have to use different spindals or do i need to update my master or booster. . .

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First off, the question is why would you want to do it?

The '93 Cobra front calipers are the same as what you have and the only difference in the rotor is the depth of the hat.

teamtwistedream said:

. . . also what do i need to get ride of my drum setup

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Basically, you would need to upgrade the master cylinder, change axles, and add caliper brackets in addition to buying rear rotors and calipers.

Sorry, I assumed he meant 93 cobra "R"/94 cobra brakes.

See http://www.svo73mm.cjb.net/ for all the best answers to your brake questions.

If you want disk brakes in the rear, here's the answer from someone who has actually done it.


Do the 87-88 T-Bird Turbo Coupe rear end swap!

Auto trans 87-88 Tbird Turbo Coupes come with 3.73 gears and manual Turbo Coupes come with 3.55 gears. Cost is $125-$300 for the rear axle. Add another $100-$200 or so to complete the brake upgrade.

I choose 3.55 since I do more highway driving. Both ratios have 10” disk brakes with vented rotors as standard equipment.

It takes 2 guys the first day to get the old rear end out and the new one bolted in place. It takes 1 guy another whole day to do the brakes.

You will need a several sets of fittings, I recommend that you get them from Matt90GT's website, http://www.svo73mm.cjb.net/. Read Matt's instructions thoroughly, everything you need to know about the brakes is all there. You need to be patient and follow all the internal links, and there are many of them. You will need 2 fittings in the rear to adapt your old brake tubing to the TC disk brakes. The fittings go between the steel tube and the caliper brake hose. You will need another set of fittings to make a 2 port to 3 port adapter. To make life simpler, just buy the kits from Matt. You could piece them together, but it's not worth the time unless you work at an auto parts store with all the fittings ever made.

You will need to drill the quad shock mounting holes 2” below the holes drilled for the Turbo Coupe mounting points. The bolts are metric, so don’t loose them or the nuts. A 15/32” drill should be about the right size unless you have access to metric sized drill bits. Going without quad shocks is not an option unless you have aftermarket parts to soak up the wheel hop.

You will need a proportioning valve, Summit has one for $40 + shipping.
You will need a kit (FMS makes the part) to gut the stock proportioning valve, Summit also has that, about $10.


You will need a new master cylinder, see Matt's site and make you choice. I used a 94-95 Mustang master cylinder. Note that rebuilt 94-95 Mustang master cylinders do not come with a reservoir. That means a trip to the junkyard and some more money spent.

Your brake pedal may be very hard and almost impossible to lock up the brakes. I had to replace the front calipers with 73 mm calipers from a 91 Lincoln Mark 7 to get the braking performance up to par.

Bleeding the brakes will require 2 people and some coordinated effort. I don’t recommend using you wife or girlfriend to pump the pedal – they get offended when you yell at them. I used a homemade power brake bleeder constructed from a garden sprayer and some fittings from Home Depot. It cost about $25 and was worth every penny. See http://forums.stangnet.com/showthread.php?p=6143048 for details and pictures

See http://www.mustangcentral.net/tech/brake.html for help with the emergency brake. The red words link to some very useful photos on how to modify the handle. The stock setup tends to lock up and not release properly.
All in all I have been very pleased with the results.

teamtwistedream said:

thank you everyone for the info i jsut thought that the 93 and up cobras had a better performance brake package

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The 94 and up Cobras do have a better braking package, but the '93 Cobras only had rear discs as an upgrade.

A cheap way to do it is 94-98 GT/V6 brake stuff...

But then you need to buy new 5-lug wheels.

Italian-LX said:

The 94 and up Cobras do have a better braking package, but the '93 Cobras only had rear discs as an upgrade.

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Yes but they also used a different, not better, front rotor that pushes the front wheels out about another 1/2" over a stock 5.0. So if you switch to cobra front rotors then I would also look to some different wheels since yours will likely stick out. In the end, it isn't worth the time or money to do. If you are going to keep four lug then you can mainly change to rear disc and upgrade the front rotors and pads. That will help some but if you switch to 5 lug then you will really see the benefits of a 94+ cobra style brake setup w/ 13" rotors up front.

tunedin302 said:

Yes but they also used a different, not better, front rotor that pushes the front wheels out about another 1/2" over a stock 5.0.

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Yeah, I already posted that -- if you had read the whole thread before posting, then you would've seen that.

Italian-LX said:

The '93 Cobra front calipers are the same as what you have and the only difference in the rotor is the depth of the hat.

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Italian-LX said:

Yeah, I already posted that -- if you had read the whole thread before posting, then you would've seen that.

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wow, catfight!!!

Italian-LX said:

Yeah, I already posted that -- if you had read the whole thread before posting, then you would've seen that.

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Relax ...... I did see you posted that but sometimes it helps to hear it from more than one person.