Brake Shoes

Hey guys, seemed like the best place to request this info as I'm sure this section has the highest quantity of brake abusers on all of Moparts.

I'm redoing the rear brakes on my Barracuda (yes, the drums. I have not yet seen a compelling reason to go to disks for my current purposes) and would like a run-down of semi metallic v. organic friction material pros/cons for a factory disk/drum setup. The current rear brakes are completely shot. Drums are too far out of spec to be turned and the shoe material has a lot of cracks, but no chunks missing.

My goal is to optimize what I have. Car is primarily a street car, but I have a couple of drag strip and autox challenges to meet this next season.

Typical small block e-body, 10x2.5 rears drums and the 10.9" disks up front.

Anyone have some tech for me? I would like to hear about any other friction material that is available as well. I recall a few years ago seeing listing for a ceramic material shoe, but haven't seen it recently.

I run EBC red pads on the front and they have noticeably improved fade resistance and pedal feel over parts house semi-metallics. That said, I don't know that I've ever experienced fading on the rear brakes.

Appreciate the info.

Here's my take. None of the intended uses will get the brakes really hot but will see frequent application cold. By that I mean relative to road racing/ road courses hot. Therefore the trick will be to match the initial bite of the fronts with the EBC reds. Initial application is when the drums will do the most critical work, then the weight starts shifting forward.

That said, as a class, I still lean toward the semi-metallics as they've always felt better in my personal experience, and in general will tolerate higher temps better than organics.

Reality is you will have to do some experimentation.
If you're looking at off the shelf (parts store) shoes, there's a thread discussing Brake Lining Edge Codes. If you can find he edge codes from an original set used on the e-bodies, that would be a benchmark baseline.

Porterfield has several choices for shoes. I'm using their RS4 (street compound) on both the front pads and rear shoes. They also will arc the linings if you give them the drum diameter.

Another place is Rochester Brake and Clutch. Tom Quad uses them for his track cars but they seem to have pretty wide selection but you pretty much have to call them.

IIRC, Firmfeel has 'carbon metallic' brand linings for shoes that are also appropriate for street type brake temperatures.

Great info! THanks Mattax

I have tech for you but lets do it on PM's or phone
PM me and we can talk