Manual brakes or vacuum canister

[Jkr]

Hello All,

I have a 78 coupe, 302 with approx 350hp. It is very cam'd out and i do not have enough vacuum to run the brake booster. I can run a vacuum canister or i could switch to manual brakes. Does anyone have an opinion? Are the manual brakes that came with the mustang II powerful enough to overcome an engine with this power?

Gavin.

 

[LILCBRA]

I went with a canister. Since mine isn't up and running yet, I can't tell you how well it works for me, but I figure if you are going to go fast, you want all the help you can get to stop if you need it instead of standing on the pedal.

 

[snakebite_83]

Are you running 4lug or 5lug wheels? If 4lug I would go with a power canister,but if you have 5 you should be ok with the manual brakes. In my opinion the smaller brakes would not stop you efectively, if you went to 5 lug you went with larger brakes therefore the manual setup would be ok. You could go power either way but I would definately with the smaller brakes.

 

[jeffnoel]

5-lug rotors can be had for the stock 9" rotor setup.

 

[Jkr]

I have a 8.8 Diff in the car.

 

[snakebite_83]

I am aware of that but there are also kits out there to put 11in granada front brakes on the front of your II. You said in your latter posts that you also have an 8.8 rear. Did you get that from a ranger pickup by chance? If so what did you do about the shock mounts on the axle?

 

[Jkr]

Thanks for your ideas. I think im going to try the cannister, then try the brake upgrade kit, then if that doesnt work i will switch to manual brakes. I would like to just go with the manual and 11inch upgrade kit but i dont have the money right now so im going to try the cannister first(back in school). It also pisses me off because i just bought those rotors, calipers and brake master and it would kill me to swap it all out at this point. Im such a retard, i should have realized when i saw how small those calipers where.

As for the diff, it was from a fox mustang. It worked out perfect as it bumps the wheels out a couple of inchs so i can put bigger tires on. We zipped off the coil spring mounts and welded on new mounts for the leaf springs, setting the angle with some tool my brother had. Then for shocks we used fox drag shocks and used some strengthened spots around where the original shock mounts were to bolt up to. A custom driveshaft was needed also. I am trying to convert the drivetrain to a fox mustang as much as possible as the parts are just so easy to get.

Gavin.

 

[Blue Thunder]

With a 350hp 302, the camshaft should still be making enough vac for power brakes. My small block has only 7" of vac at 1300rpm, and it has enough reserve in the stock brake booster for one good power-assisted stop.
An extra vac reserve tank would be nice, of course, but there's no need to go with manual brakes on a street car.