Ok guys,
The Chevelle is almost done getting painted, now I am having second thoughts about the brake system. I completely rebuilt the front end but put it all back to stock, including the non-power drums. Now the car used to stop pretty good, but now that both myself and the Wife are used to power discs on everything, I am thinking about changing the Chevelle over too. Only thing is, I HATE the looks of having a power booster on the firewall. So here are my questions:

1. Anybody switched to front discs WITHOUT using a power booster ? If so, how is the pedal pressure ?

2. Anyone use the small S-10 style booster ? If so, how does it work ? Any pictures ?

3. There is another thread going on this forum that discusses modifying the drum brake spindles to use them with factory discs. Are the two spindles really the same other than cutting down the mounting boss ?

Any other thoughts appreciated. I dont need any mechanical advice... I can handle all the work, just thoughts on different conversions and how they work.

I have had one car with manual drums (Chevelle -69), one car with manual discs (Camaro -71). Both were factory standard. I can't really say that there was a big difference, so if you want to use discs without booster, I'd say it will feel the same as drums without booster. Can't see why you don't want a booster though, maybe you can get one of them hot rod boosters and hide it somewhere if it's just a matter of looks.

Might add that I converted both cars to power brakes :)

Olle,
Strictly a matter of looks. I have had the car since new with a pretty clean firewall, just personal preference, but I will probably end up putting some type of booster on it.

Bill,
In a real world situation esp a panic stop, a power brake setup would be a well appreciated option.

Bill, I had to remove my booster on my 69 Frontdisk/rear drum because it was in the way of the drivers side turbo. I purchased a 1 inch manual master from MP Brakes after reading numerous posts and brake tech articles from different forums and brake manufacturers websites saying that the 1 inch was the way to go. After changing out the masters my brakes felt weak, pedal was firm, but it just didn't any stopping power, there wasn't enough brake to even lock them up on wet pavement. I then tried a 7/8 master and a 15/16, didn't help. All of the research I did on manual brakes said to never use a master bigger than 1 inch, but after many months of weak brakes I decided to run another search on "manual brakes" on Team Chevelle" and found I post where someone was having the same issues with his brakes has mine. I can't find that post now, but its here somewhere. His fix was to use a 1 1/8 master from a 69 chevelle with power brakes which happens to have the deep pushrod hole. I went out to the garage and unbolted my old Master from the booster and sure enough it had the deep pushrod hole, I never bothered to unbolt them because I assumed that it was a shallow hole master. After bolting my old 1 1/8 master and going for a test drive I was shocked when I locked up the brakes at the first stop sign I came to. Brakes are very strong, pedal is high and firm like I like it,leg pressure isn't much more than the power brakes was. Apparently our chevelles have a pedal ratio choser to 6 to 1, than 5 to 1 like I thought and need the extra volume of a bigger master.

BIll,
As you can tell, there are as many different options to brakes as there are opinions about them... here's a few things I have learned from experience after going thru about a dozen different configurations on my own Chevelle!!

First of all, the drum and disk spindles are exactly the same save for the little machining on the upper boss. The other post has some good ideas on how to cut your existing ones down to size. That is if you are going to use the stock caliper brackets and such. If you are in the mood to get a little creative and do a little more work, you can easily upgrade to 12" rotors and have some nice stopping power. For more info, check out this web site:
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/David_Pozzi/12_corvette_brakes_on_fgen.htm
or this web site: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/David_Pozzi/cheap_big_brakes.htm#CBB%20Discussion%20board

Now to give some ideas on your specific questions...

1- yes, you can easily convert to manual disks if you want. I ended up with 12" corvette front rotors and 11" TA rear rotors in a manual brake mode as my final setup on my 71 Chevelle... worked great and felt great! It is very important to consider all the parts when planning the brake swap so the parts can work together to make your life much better. Things like correct size MC, proper proportioning valve, proper calipers, good pads, etc. I can give you more details and suggestions once you have a better idea of what direction you want to go.

2- The smaller boosters do work fine and look ok, but one very key item is that they take a few more inches of vacuum to make them work correctly!! Most of them want at least 14" of vacuum, some more so if your car has a large cam, watch out! You do not want to run out of vacuum with one of these on your car... they are MUCH stiffer than single diaphram boosters when there is no assist.

3- Cutting down the boss should be no big deal for you... just getting the right measurement can be tricky as every spindle is a little different. One other thing to consider that several people over on Team Camaro have done successfully is to make your own caliper-mounting bracket. Basically, the steps are pretty simple and you really just end up with a flat bracket made out of steel and you machine the top boss so it is in the same plane as the bottom boss. One of the links above has a picture of the brackets using later model calipers, but you could make them for the stock-type calipers just as easily.

Anyway, give us a better idea of the direction you want to go and we'll narrow it down for you.

Good Luck,
Bill C.

Bill,
I would definitely want to go with the OEM type calipers, so modifying the spindles and rounding up some parts sounds like the plan. I have a set of NOS rotors already from many years ago. All I need to find is backing plates and brackets. Calipers are readily available. I try not to drive real crazy on the street, so tremendous stopping power is not an issue. I never had a problem with the drums, including many 12.50 passes down the drag strip. Just trying to modernize a bit. My wife enjoys driving the car and the power assist would be nice for her. I will keep you posted on the brake situation as it progresses.

Bill,
I have a set of NOS rotors already from many years ago.

If they are 2-piece rotors, selling them to a resto-guy would probably pay for your whole upgrade.

What about a hydro boost sysem found on later model 1 ton chevy trucks.
They don`t need any vacume and are fairley small compared to a brake booster.

I've bought two sets of caliper brackets from GroundUp. They also have dust sheilds. With your TC discount, I think they are like $85 or so. I've had good luck with them.

Cam

hey Bill if you want another set of drum spindles to machine let me know. Also if you need some parts from GU let me know we might be able to save you some on shipping...