PST's New C Body Disc Brake Conversion Kits From Wilwood

PST

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The Pro-Series Front Hub Kits offer complete disc brake upgrade solutions for your muscle car. Dynalite 4 piston calipers, aluminum hubs, 11" cast iron rotors, and all hardware combine to create kits that are suitable for daily drivers, serious competition, or the most discriminating show enthusiast. Kits require 15" wheels and work with power or manual master cylinders. Braided stainless steel hose kit (included) is required for installation. This kit is for drum brake spindle only.

Call 1-800-247-2288 or go online today www.p-s-t.comF142748314.jpg
 
But if I search 65 Dodge Polara the only thing that comes up is rear disk conversions, nothing for fronts.
 
But if I search 65 Dodge Polara the only thing that comes up is rear disk conversions, nothing for fronts.
Under the brake tab, click Wilwood, not disc conversions, and you will find this

pst.jpg
 
Now we have to study how to navigate each and every website. Would be nice if it was a little more obvious. (My personal opinion after trying 3 times with no success.) Thanks for the lesson. Of course, the OP didn't mention that it was a Wilwood Kit either, that may have helped, or had the link go to the particular page rather than the Home Page. Maybe I'm getting too crotchety...........
 
Somebody should send these bozos a picture of C Body with curb weight specs because they obviously have it confused with a Nova.

.750" smaller diameter and .440" thinner than a stock rotor just to add to the stupidity.

Go up to stock 11.75 x 1.25" dimensions with a 13 or 14" option and you might have something.

Kevin
 
I didn't put a link as our search engine on our site requires vehicle info. If I put a link it would have auto filled in the vehicle that I used. So I do apologize for not putting a link in. As for Wilwood being in its own section under brakes. That is something that I am looking into with my developers to change. We are looking to put it under the Disc Brake Conversion heading. I do agree that can be a bit confusing. But to are defense the title of the post states from Wilwood. Thank you for the input.

We do have other Kits from Wilwood as well for customer that would like a larger rotors then what is in the kit. Such as 12 and 14 inch rotors but this would require the use of larger wheels and tires.

This is a kit that is a great alternative for the C body owner that has drum brakes and wants disc brakes. It use the stock drum brake spindle. As the factory Disc brake set are hard to source parts. Second even though the rotor is a .25" smaller Wilwood has made that up with the clamping force of a four piston caliper compared to a single piston caliper. The four piston set up has more piston contact surface area.

Thanks
James From
PST Marketing
1-800-247-2288
Ext 316
 
What's not to like about that, thank you PST!
On a different subject I ordered a front suspension kit from you guys several years ago for the restoration of my B-body. Well it's still not painted unfortunately so the parts are just sitting and waiting. I was going through them last week because I was going to steal the strut Rod bushings out of the kit for use on my Imperial, that's when I noticed that you guys had sent me the strut Rod bushings for an A-body. How would I go about trading those in for the B-body ones that I ordered? Embarrassingly enough this kit was ordered probably over 4 years ago...
 
Yes we can do an exchange for you. You would need call our customer service and they can help you. Please call 1-800-247-2288 direct extension is 307

Thanks
James
 
not tryin to get into anyones bi-ness -

but ease up on PST. they are one of the good ones.

its poomlim brakes - good stuff maynard - PST is making an attempt to help us out.

disclaimer* i am a PST customer. could not be happier.

try not to die -

- saylor
 
I didn't put a link as our search engine on our site requires vehicle info. If I put a link it would have auto filled in the vehicle that I used. So I do apologize for not putting a link in. As for Wilwood being in its own section under brakes. That is something that I am looking into with my developers to change. We are looking to put it under the Disc Brake Conversion heading. I do agree that can be a bit confusing. But to are defense the title of the post states from Wilwood. Thank you for the input.

We do have other Kits from Wilwood as well for customer that would like a larger rotors then what is in the kit. Such as 12 and 14 inch rotors but this would require the use of larger wheels and tires.

This is a kit that is a great alternative for the C body owner that has drum brakes and wants disc brakes. It use the stock drum brake spindle. As the factory Disc brake set are hard to source parts. Second even though the rotor is a .25" smaller Wilwood has made that up with the clamping force of a four piston caliper compared to a single piston caliper. The four piston set up has more piston contact surface area.

Thanks
James From
PST Marketing
1-800-247-2288
Ext 316

For the record, Jim, after I'd gone to the site and entered my vehicle info, (65 Dodge Polara), the site showed only rear disk conversions, it did not show me the Wilwood option. That's the real reason I came back here and fussed about it. Once I went back it remembered my vehicle from my previous visit and when I selected the Wilwood tab it showed me the correct stuff - it's just that going under the brake conversion tab then entering vehicle info there was no indication any front disk conversion was available.
Mike
 
My rath is directed more at Wilwood than PST but they aren't doing themselves or their customers any favors selling brake kits more suited to a 3000 lb race car than a C-Body that can be upwards of or over 5000 lbs.

A caliper and bracket kit that used stock 11.75x1.25 rotors would have been a much better fit for that particular niche market IMHO.

Kevin
 
Last edited:
Our developers will be re indexing our website over the night on Friday and the Wilwood will be put under the disc brake conversion category. Thank you all for the input on the changes to the website. Best to make it customer friendly.

Thanks
James
 
not tryin to get into anyones bi-ness -

but ease up on PST. they are one of the good ones.

its poomlim brakes - good stuff maynard - PST is making an attempt to help us out.

disclaimer* i am a PST customer. could not be happier.

try not to die -

- saylor

Concur Saylor
 
not tryin to get into anyones bi-ness -

but ease up on PST. they are one of the good ones.

its poomlim brakes - good stuff maynard - PST is making an attempt to help us out.

disclaimer* i am a PST customer. could not be happier.

try not to die -

- saylor

x3

over on B-bodies, James is the just about the only vendor to actually respond to complaints and fix problems. he's always there and he is open and honest.

once I am ready to do the suspension on the GTX, im going with all PST product.
 
it IS good that we can come here and discuss. their websites gonna be better, we gonna get good products for our c bodies, etc, etc. kumbaya. unicorns fartin rainbows. all that kinda thing.

- saylor
 
My rath is directed more at Wilwood than PST but they aren't doing themselves or their customers any favors selling brake kits more suited to a 3000 lb race car than a C-Body that can be upwards of or over 5000 lbs.

A caliper and bracket kit that used stock 11.75x1.25 rotors would have been a much better fit for that particular niche market IMHO.

Kevin
I have to kind of agree on this it does seem like a lightweight kit with more complexity than need be. Is there any way to get a swept area of the friction material and a total area of the pistons in the caliper, so it can be compared to other kits?
 
My rath is directed more at Wilwood than PST but they aren't doing themselves or their customers any favors selling brake kits more suited to a 3000 lb race car than a C-Body that can be upwards of or over 5000 lbs.

A caliper and bracket kit that used stock 11.75x1.25 rotors would have been a much better fit for that particular niche market IMHO.

Kevin
Here's my .02 (will probably be $1.50 before I'm finished):

I agree it would be obviously better if the rotor was thicker, but it was probably based on other 11" kits, and the ~.75" thickness is a common 'lightweight' rotor size. From a mfg perspective it makes sense, change the brackets and hubs/bearings and you have a whole new car application. Regardless of any claims of increased braking capacity in a brake system, the rotor must be able to dissipate the heat without warpage, and unless special rotor vent/vane designs are used to 'pump' air more efficiently, the thinner/lower mass rotor would be more likely to warp under the same heat load. HOWEVER - this rotor is a bolt-on, and looks like it could allow some expansion capability at the mounting bolts, possibly reducing the likelihood of warping. Is it sufficient??? Who knows. How robust is this rotor in C-body applications??? Who knows.

Is this kit effective enough for a C-body? Perhaps. This is a comparable rotor size to OEM Hemi B/E body, which can tip scales at over 4000, and some lighter Slab C's are right there. So we cannot simply say a brake is suitable or not simply by chassis designation -- more consideration should be done. Probably good enough for a SB Slab without a lot of options, probably not enough for a Fusey sedan with lotsa power options. Driving habits will be a major factor too.

Second even though the rotor is a .25" smaller Wilwood has made that up with the clamping force of a four piston caliper compared to a single piston caliper. The four piston set up has more piston contact surface area.

The rotor is .75" smaller in dia, and that .75" is a bigger difference going from 11.75 to 11 than it would be going from, say 13.75 to 13". And I'm sorry, the comment that the caliper is larger and therefore compensates for the smaller rotor dia vs OEM is a marketing statement. We follow the rules of physics on this site, and force = pressure x area. If you double the piston's area, the force on that piston cuts in half. Make your pad twice as big as stock -- same thing happens (although your pads might last longer as the heat per area is cut in half). The picture above does not show any MC or booster (which is the pump for the whole system) so we must presume its output is unchanged. Multi-piston calipers *can* provide advantages (more even pad application, larger pad size, less heat and gasification of the friction material - although our smaller OEM pad could be less likely to deflect). However I believe those design features do not necessarily translate into better braking performance, they are more for durability.

The ways to increase braking performance are to add more leverage on the pedal (more input), increase a booster's output (more input to the MC), increase rotor diameter (more braking torque), or increase friction coefficient of the pad/shoe material (more friction for same pad pressure).

Now I don't want to knock this kit, I agree it has a major convenience to it - no sourcing spindles, nor dealing with old balljoints that might spin in their sockets when you try to remove/install the nuts. If your susp is serviceable, this makes a disc swap much faster with less likelihood of a snowball effect. But for some folks wanting to keep 14" wheels/hubcaps, there's the ECI kit which fits behind disc-compatible 14" wheels - with the same rotor diameter (and with the same marketing about bigger-piston calipers). So you can keep your stock 14" hubcaps with ECI. Both of these 11" kits seem like they should provide better braking than the original drums - but whether they perform as well as the factory 11.75" discs requires back-to-back testing/data, not marketing hype. Ideally we'd have 3 tests - drums (repaired/'certified' to be at 100% operation), factory OEM discs (same repair requirements) and the aftermarket kits. Haven't seen that type of info published very much, if ever.

I've simplified my comments here a bit (I've ignored the complication of brake fade, for instance) but if I've said anything incorrect or confusing I am willing to clarify and learn from any solid rebuttals.
 
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