I just bought a new Wilwood disc brake conversion kit for my '70 Chevelle. It didn't come with a power booster, can I use my old one?

Yep, be careful out there on the streets with those "race use" brakes though.

What do you mean be careful, is there something wrong with them on a street car? :confused:

PM sent

do yourself a favor and do a search on some other GM oriented websites and you will find lots and lots of people using wilwood brakes in all kind of applications, street,drag,oval track,etc. with great success. Unfortunately in this forum anything less than a mega dollars Baer brake system mounted on a equally expensive custom built suspension is considered junk and wont work.

Thanks for the info.

Originally posted by turbodave:
do yourself a favor and do a search on some other GM oriented websites and you will find lots and lots of people using wilwood brakes in all kind of applications, street,drag,oval track,etc. with great success. Unfortunately in this forum anything less than a mega dollars Baer brake system mounted on a equally expensive custom built suspension is considered junk and wont work. Actually I do not run Baer brakes nor do I endorse them, way to expensive. Also, you will not find 1 single vehicle on a road course with Wilwood 11"X.810 rotors (the ones that come in the 140-2285 B H/D kit). They wouldn't even last a warm up lap. Oval track....where is the LMFAO smiley, you have got to be kidding. Get your facts straight before you offer advise that could potentially cause injury; I have seen the affects of poorly designed chassis up close and personal. It never turns out nice.

You want to do more research, come on over to Pro-touring.com or corner-carvers.com , bring your crying towel cause they are going to rip you for even considering running those brakes on a street car.

Sometimes it takes an abrupt post to wake folks up from a potentially bad situation.

my point being Denny is that every time someone has a question about anything, brakes, suspension or intake manifold bolts your automatic response is to tell them its junk. Its always your way,or no way. May be you should try answering the original question once in a while and quit acting like a dick. Save that arrogant,know it all attitude for your beloved pro-touring website

Why would I want to tell someone that an inferior product being used to stop a 2ton hunk of metal will work fine when the manufacterer never intended it to be used that way??? Doesn't make any sense.

It doesn't have to my way....just the right way. Leave the OE brakes in place, they will do a much better job of handling street duties than the Wilwood stuff.

A lot of people come to these boards for advise because they are new to the hobby and don't know any better, some even worse have the local "expert" with his hobbled together POS giving them advise. I will not be politicaly correct or tell someone the product they just spent hard earned money will work fine when it will not. I would much rather hurt somebodys little feelers than see them hurt themselves or others.

My mom would be so proud, I managed to reply with no hostility or vulgarity, better save this post it is your 1-time pass.

Pssstt, I did answer the original question with the very 1st word typed in the 2nd post made to this topic.....eyes, you open them and they making reading much easier.

Look I appreciate your honesty but theres no need to be rude abouyt it! I've called Barnette (the place I bought the brakes) and Wilwood. They both said these brakes would do fine on a street car. The part # on these brakes is 140-2285-B.

There are 2 different length rods from the stock boosters... I'm not sure, but I think the shorter rod is for drums (?) I have a drum booster in my car (with 4 wheel discs) but I had to use the rod out of a disc car. (luckily I had a bad booster from a disc car laying around)

Gee, the place that sold you a product states it will be fine. Not that they are in any way biased huh? BTW, do they specialize in chassis engineering/brakes and did you speak to someone with tech background or a salesman?

I would suggest calling Wilwood and tell them you are interested in some brakes for your car; tell them what type of driving you will be doing and ask for their suggestion. The rotors supplied in the 2285 kit are smaller than the metric G body chassis and are very much substandard for a 3500+ street car. The Dynalite calipers are OK, not great. They tend to have quite a bit flex in the castings during real hard braking causing inconsistent braking force. On a street car they would fine with an adequete rotor, but by the time you buy some hubs and rotors to work you could have bought a big brake kit.

Your not the first guy to sucked into price shopping or shopping big names. Wilwood offers a product to compete with the other guys for the drag crowd but does not intend you to put those on a car that sees regular street duty. It's the price of learning. I would ebay the kit to a straight line guy and look for a street kit from True Connections or 1 of the many companies selling C4/C5 conversions. The C4 rotors will fit inside 16" wheels and the True Connections 12" rotor will clear most 15" wheels.

I'm not being rude, I'm telling it like it is... this is brakes. If we were talking about intake bolts or what kind of pretty valve covers should you should run then my response would be less abrupt. Brakes are damn important, think of how one would feel if the budget brakes they put on failed and resulted in an accident. Think of the poor father that would be sitting jail after choking the life out of you for hurting his family because you wanted to save a few bucks.

I've called Wilwood and they said for daily driving my brakes would be fine. I can still get my money back for the brakes and upgrade to a better style or brand. What do you recomend for a daily driven Chevelle, in a reasonable price range?

I like the 12" brakes True Connections offers. they run about 650.00 or so.

If you have to stay with Wilwood then get the 140-7675, I think they will fit inside 15" wheels. Not sure what they run but it should be under a grand.

You could make everybody (even me) way jealous with a 140-7019 kit....they will stop a cement truck. Of course you will need at least 17" wheels to fit them.

Thanks.

Zach, I asked the same question a while back.

Wilwood Brakes, what's not to like? (http://www.chevelles.com/forum/ultimatebb.php/topic/7/9000.html#000000)

/herb

If you put this back in perspetive, that the guy is replacing stock 9 1/2 drum brakes, anything must be an inprouvement. I cant think anything would be worse then stock. i need a spelling checker.