Brakes The Ultimate 4-lug/5-lug Brake Conversion/upgrade Thread

Mustang5L5 · Sep 21, 2025

AeroCoupe said:
For the money you are about to spend just move up to the stock SN95 brakes. It’s the brakes these cars should have come with from the factory and five lug which opens the door for wheel selection.

Agree.

Pick a flavor of SN95 brake and just go with that setup. For future service, Parts are available all over at local parts stores/amazon/rockauto/ebay.

For the vast majority of street driven Fox cars, they are more than enough brake. Most cars tend to be tire-limited.

braxus · Sep 21, 2025

I think the front brake setup I chose should be fine. For rear brakes and axles using SN95 stuff, what parts or kits do you suggest? I'd rather not have to deal with wider axle issues. I already know I'd have to deal with the e brake issues going this route.

gkomo · Sep 21, 2025

What issues with the sn95 width area you worried about?

The only negative I’ve found was the brake… still haven’t gotten mine to work properly. But, everything else is fine. I had to roll my fenders but I’m also running a 275 rear tire which I’m sure doesn’t help.

Noobz347 · Sep 21, 2025

These will allow you to run SN95 V6/GT rear brakes:

Mustang Rear Disk Brake Caliper Adapter Brackets For 94-04 GT/V6 Calipers (79-93)

Check out these rear brake adapter brackets for your 79-93 Mustang Foxbody! Install 94-04 Gt/V6 Calipers

lmr.com

These are 5-lug, Fox length axles:

https://lmr.com/item/LRS-4234K-SN/Mustang-28-Spline-5-Lug-Axles-SN-Flange-Fox-Length-79-93

This ties up the plumbing aspect:

https://lmr.com/item/SVE-1078C-K/Rear-Disc-Brake-Conversion-Plumbing-Kit-Mustang-86-93

And then there are kits with just about everything except for axles:

https://lmr.com/item/LRS-20206GTBK/mustang-5-lug-rear-disc-brake-conversion-kit-86-92

This is kinda nice. Even has the E-brake cables.

AeroCoupe · Sep 22, 2025

@Mustang5L5 - please correct me here as I’m in Germany waiting on a train.

You are severely limiting yourself with the old school five lug setup you are thinking about up front. The hubs limit you to only a few five lug wheels due to how far they stick out. I know as I ran this setup for a couple years. They barely cleared the center caps on my 95 Cobra style wheels. If you run the SN95 setup you can use any five lug wheel.

With regards to running the SN95 rear axles. I run those on my Coupe and wheel selection was not an issue but neither is using Fox length. I wanted and have ABS so I had to use them. I have Fox length on the T-Bird with the North Racecar brackets and they work great.

North Racecars – Page Not Found

Your Fox Mustang and Factory Five Performance Parts Connection

www.northracecars.com

As far as the e-brake goes you either weld the spring on the 87-92 models with an adjustable e-brake handle cable or run a 93-98 e-brake handle and move on. With any of these setups you can run the 93 Cobra e-brake cables or the 94-98 cables.

Good luck and I am telling you the SN95 brakes are the best money I have spent on either of my cars to date.

Mustang5L5 · Sep 22, 2025

AeroCoupe said:
@Mustang5L5 - please correct me here as I’m in Germany waiting on a train.

You are severely limiting yourself with the old school five lug setup you are thinking about up front. The hubs limit you to only a few five lug wheels due to how far they stick out. I know as I ran this setup for a couple years. They barely cleared the center caps on my 95 Cobra style wheels. If you run the SN95 setup you can use any five lug wheel.

You are correct. The old style combined hub/rotor setup dates back to the 70's and earlier and is flawed in a few ways. As you point out, it severely limits your wheel selection up front due to how far the spindle end protrudes. Secondly, the combined hub and rotor doesn't do you any favors with regards to cooling. Rotors cool by drawing air from the rear area of the hat through vanes in the rotor pulled through as the rotor spins. However, the mass of the hub area doesn't really have an effective means of cooling, so that particular design is poor in terms of shedding heat.

The upgrade in 1994 was an upgrade in more than one way.

Out back, you really just need to pay attention to wheel offsets and such, however you DO have the choice of fox or SN95 axle length these days. I ran my 18x9 wheels with +35 offset fine n the SN95 axles, however lots of fox specific 5-lug wheels are made with fox axles in mind. The parts are out there. You really need to identify the wheels you want first, and then pick your axles.

Or be like me and go back and forth a few times. I went from SN95 axles, to fox axles, and then back to SN95 axles. The entire swap can be done in a couple hours

I even made a video

View: https://youtu.be/7Fw84NA2Wd0?si=3GY7l77xJIr0wtYH

Rdub6 · Sep 22, 2025

braxus said:
I think the front brake setup I chose should be fine. For rear brakes and axles using SN95 stuff, what parts or kits do you suggest? I'd rather not have to deal with wider axle issues. I already know I'd have to deal with the e brake issues going this route.

I did an SN95 brake/5lug swap with a mix of new and eBay parts on an ‘86. Braking was very much improved. If you care to weed through my progress thread, it’s all in there. Most should relate to what you’re trying to do.

Progress Thread Thread 'Progress Thread kinda stalled- looking to get it back going again!'

Dec 29, 2017

ok guys, I prob have a similar story to many of you. Had an 86 GT back in the early 90’s. Fast forward 20 something years, and I now have an 86 LX 5.0. It was fitted with the 87 and up front clip and I’ve just realized that it has 90-93 rear inner hatch panels that have round shock access covers.
The tabs are broken, and I can not find replacements anywhere. All I see are the rectangle covers. Please help!
Thanks in advance and look forward to becoming part of the community!!

limp · Oct 5, 2025

Finding the 94/95 spindles is the hard part... Everything else is a click away.....

Brakes The Ultimate 4-lug/5-lug Brake Conversion/upgrade Thread

Mustang5L5

That is…until I whipped out my Bissell

braxus

New Member

gkomo

now i can hopefully expect to receive the shaft

Noobz347

Stangnet Facilities Maint Tech... Er... Janitor

Mustang Rear Disk Brake Caliper Adapter Brackets For 94-04 GT/V6 Calipers (79-93)

AeroCoupe

lube between the nut and the face. I know my lubes

North Racecars – Page Not Found

Mustang5L5

That is…until I whipped out my Bissell

Rdub6

So while I wait to figure out my rear end issues

Progress Thread Thread 'Progress Thread kinda stalled- looking to get it back going again!'

limp

wrap a little cheese around it and its a done

Similar threads

Brakes The Ultimate 4-lug/5-lug Brake Conversion/upgrade Thread

That is…until I whipped out my Bissell

New Member

now i can hopefully expect to receive the shaft

Stangnet Facilities Maint Tech... Er... Janitor

lube between the nut and the face. I know my lubes

That is…until I whipped out my Bissell

So while I wait to figure out my rear end issues

Progress Thread Thread 'Progress Thread kinda stalled- looking to get it back going again!'

wrap a little cheese around it and its a done

Similar threads

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