Front drums to discs

Can anyone give me their real world experience on this conversion to a mopar 66-70 B body...

Night and day difference or just a little better.

TY

When I did it to my '71 Plymouth it was a bit better, but not a lot. But then the car was only about 3 years old. I also changed it from manual to power brakes. And from the little rear end with the little brakes, to an 8 3/4 from a station wagon and 3" shoes. Also it doesn't make any difference what year it is, it's still better.

go read my thread, I just did this on a 69 road runner last weekend. had original front drum brakes (manual)
I did research ALL companies. Cass from Dr. Diff hooked me up with his stage 1 kit, It is great!
The only mods I had to do is I wanted to front mount the calipers and I do not have a front sway bar, but i still had the sway bar mounts on the lower control arms. Air chisel knocked then off nice & clean.

great service and a great product! Stops better than expected.

Cass explained that the routing of the brake hoses are much cleaner and less stressed if you front mount them, (as long as you don't have the sway bar)
His website is super easy to navigate. BTW- I did not buy the stainless hoses or the slotted rotors, stopping power is night and day!
Test drove up to a little over 115 mph and the car stopped in less than half the normal time that it used to on the same stretch of road.

I did a conversion on my 71 Road Runner with all factory parts, and everything just bolted on like it was, well, factory. I can tell a big difference in fade resistance. RRs had 11 inch heavy duty drums which are powerful, but one good hard stop, and that's it.

doing one now, Dr Diff stage 2 drilled rotors, rear mount 1968 Charger, great kit.

Did it on my 65.Big difference and I dont like change.One of the best things i did.Stops straight and true even at 120.Rocky

That was my biggest issue, brake fade! I learned to push, letoff, push, let off with drums on my Cuda.

I spent a little more money and did the aluminum hub and aluminum caliper Wilwood Pro Street kit on my '63 Dodge. Vented (but not drilled) rotors. The car stops from 121mph runs in the 1/4 mile easily and consistently. It was a very easy kit to install on my existing drum brake spindles and took a LOT of weight off the car!

For a one time panic stop, not much difference between my 10" all drum Dart and my 10" rear, front 73 up disc Dart. With the front disc car you can modulate a little better and its not as temperamental in stop and go traffic. Once drums get heated up they can not stop well and get grabby.

Discs are definitely the way to go if you're going to drive the car or if your drums are in bad shape, better to go ahead and put a disc setup on than put money into the drums.

Thanks for all of the responses..

My 67 has been pulling and a recent post on here was commenting on how adjustment is probably not the cure..

Car has the 11" stock front drums w/ 10" rears ( yes the rear end was changed out at some point in its 50 years of life)

My problem is the car just doesn't want to stop very well..
New EVERYTHING when I did the car, but that has been 11-12 years ago and I wonder if my wheel cylinders might be corroded or the rubber lines have gone bad?? Had the front drums off recently and all looked good ( no weepage or "damage" to the brake linings)..

Had to rebuild the master ( pedal would sink while stopped) so I would think it is OK...
I think I am going to take all of the drums off and remove and disassemble the cylinders and look it over at this point.

Wish I would have put discs on it when I spent all of the money for new front drums and parts... Of course I do not think all of the wonderful disc kits were available back then....

A previous thread on here pointed to rubber lines bulging, might want to make sure those are solid.

Any ideas on life expectancy of the hoses?? Mine are appx 11 years old w/ 6K miles on them...

Just about the 1st thing I did whenever I got a new to me Mopar was a disc brake swap. Been doing them since the mid 1970s! When I step on the brakes, I want the car to be able to stop, every time.

At 11 years old, your brake hoses may need replacing. The new hoses you will buy won't last that long, 5-6 years, tops. Gene

I'd stick with the drums if it's a maintenance issue. My '66 Coronet 440 has the stock drums and as long as I drive sensibly down long grades (not like FL has much of that) it's not an issue.

If you are looking for increased brake performance my preference is the 73-76 A-body spindles and the 11.75" rotors from rotorpros.com and you choice of calipers. Personally I'm a fan of the AR000 Wilwood Dynalite adapter kit. Dr. Diff informed me that we might see these kits re-released towards the end of the year. You can use either a small or big bore master cylinder based on your pedal modulation preference.

I used all Mopar parts on my '64 Polara. Spindles and caliper mounts from a 76 Dart. Master cylinder and calipers from a '75 Dart and rotors from a 77 Monaco. Everything just bolts together. Lines were from a '75 dart and just needed a little adjusting to clear and work perfectly.

Spindles were swapped side to side so the calipers could be moved to the rear so they would clear the factory sway bar. Without a sway bar they arr mounted on the front side. No tweaks needed for the brake lines if they're mounted in the stock location. The Monaco rotors are one piece 11.75" and are much stronger than the "A" body rotors.

If you use A body calipers, ask for ones for a '76 A body as they have a 2.75" bore as opposed to the 2.60" for '73-'75 A calipers for more front bias. external dimentions/fitment is identical. & you might measure the bore at your parts house to confirm you are being given the right ones.

I swapped 11.75" discs on my 64 300, replacing the 11x3" drums. The drums would pull in different directions when they got really wet, other than fixing that nothing was a lot different. Didn't do enough stop and go traffic to get the brakes hot enough to fade and I drove that car with drums for over 5 years in San Diego, took it to Memphis and back that way as well. So I really got to wonder about the real cause of brake fade.

I wouldn't even call it fade, just doesn't have very good brakes.. I want to think they were better when I first got the car back on the road, so maybe some maintenance needed on the brakes....

I wouldn't hesitate one second to change to discs, if better braking was desired (fronts), and if for no other reason that has yet to be mentioned, much better driving/braking in the wet. I believe drums can be, when in a perfect setup pretty close to discs, in limtred stopping situations, but they seldom are in perfect balance/tune/heat/etc, and in every other hard barking situation, they become limited, just by design.

Sounds like it. My 64 300 did not have self adjusters in the front, so you needed to manually adjust them, I did every oil change. Quality shoes help too. New hardware and a flush.

New shoes also require miles and adjustments before working well. The shoes have to wear in until they match the radius of the drums. When new the shoes have high spots and don't make full contact with the drum

That is why you are supposed to radius the shoes when installing them.

This is true, also if one uses a 82' ish diplomat caliper you get the large bore and a plus is that the brake hose mounts in the bottom of the caliper and bleed out the top which can make bleeding easier. I think the dart ones mount hose at the top and bleed at the top. If you use diplomat calipers rear ,punted you need to use the hoses from a diplomat too. Or any hose that is 15"long. 69 camaro hoses also work

And that is why, way back then, we matched the radius of the new shoes to the drums after the drums were turned.

On the brake hoses, just because they look good on the outside doesn't mean there good on the inside. Most pulling problems are caused from the inside of the hose deteriorating causing a blockage. If it pulls to the right, it's the left hose causing the problem/