One benefit of the explorer brakes vs the Crown Vic brakes is the medium bearing. With medium bearing housing ends it is possible to use a tapered bearing which holds up much better to cornering forces than the small bearing because of the taper. I have never seen a small bearing fail though, so this benefit is probably negligible for 98% of our cars. On my car I am using the '92 Crown Vic brakes which are flip-flopped on the driver and passenger sides.
Rear disk options Exp v. Vic v. Mark
- Thread starter Decurion
- Start date
can you elaborate on the flip-flopped thing? i.m wondering why you would need to do that as they will still end up with one caliper in front of the axle and one behind it. i guess i'm just not understanding this one very well, maybe a pic would better help me understand
hmmm, well i don't know then. all of the c3 vettes had internal drum parking brakes as well but those may have been designed before the advent of the integral parking barking brake calipers. i'm not sure if the porsche design is because of that either or something else. were these new porsches you've been looking at or older ones?
Ah, I see what you mean. I knew that the CV had separate parking drums, which is a good idea, because drum brakes are more suitable for a parking brake than discs.
In one of my Mustang books, there is an interesting interview with one of the engineers of the SVO mustang, who explained that they had problems getting the parking brake to work properly. When a disc brake is hot (after stopping the car) and you pull the hand brake, the clamping force will reduce when the rotor cools (becomes thinner). A drum brake doesn't have this problem, because when it cools, the drum diameter becomes smaller and increases the clamping force. The SVO engineer mentioned that one of the mandatory tests was to make a few panic stops, park the car on a hill with a certain slope angle and pull the parking brake so that it would just hold the car. The brakes were then allowed to cool down for 30 minutes and the car was not supposed to move.
On the other hand, there are many cars out there that successfully use the disc brake as a parking brake. How well the SN95 brakes work, I don't know. Ultrastang seems to have no problems with the parking brake function of his.
I understand what clocking means, and that from the factory one caliper is in front, one behind the axle, it just sounded like some people were rotating one so that both were in front or both behind the axle. Also sounds like I can scratch the Mark VII brakes, since the mounting brackets alone will cost about triple that of the entire brake assembly! 
That does it for me! Crown Vic brakes it is! Hopefully Ive answered some questions for others that may be considering the 4 wheel disk swap too. The only other thing I can think of is pretty minor, but: how important is the dust shield?
No, I missed that! Ill have to check it out! I tried a quick look at the website, but didnt see it. Ill just go pick up the magazine.
That does it for me! Crown Vic brakes it is! Hopefully Ive answered some questions for others that may be considering the 4 wheel disk swap too. The only other thing I can think of is pretty minor, but: how important is the dust shield?
BTW, Decurion did you see the newest issue of car craft with the comet wagon? cool
No, I missed that! Ill have to check it out! I tried a quick look at the website, but didnt see it. Ill just go pick up the magazine.
ultrastang
Founding Member
I understand what clocking means, and that from the factory one caliper is in front, one behind the axle, it just sounded like some people were rotating one so that both were in front or both behind the axle. Also sounds like I can scratch the Mark VII brakes, since the mounting brackets alone will cost about triple that of the entire brake assembly!
That does it for me! Crown Vic brakes it is! Hopefully Ive answered some questions for others that may be considering the 4 wheel disk swap too. The only other thing I can think of is pretty minor, but: how important is the dust shield?
No, I missed that! Ill have to check it out! I tried a quick look at the website, but didnt see it. Ill just go pick up the magazine.
In that case, you'll need some axle spacers and some rotor centering rings. Here's a link to some photos I posted a while back (here) on the Crown Vic rear discs:
http://forums.stangnet.com/showthread.php?t=717933&highlight=crown+vic+ultrastang
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