Our front brake calipers...

[malibudave1978]

Double post.

 

[JAMCAR223]

I'm running Wagner Thermoquiet pads and shoes on my car, with no issues. I'm extremely happy with the lack of brake dust. I put 650-700 miles on them running Power Tour a couple months ago. Thermquiet gets my vote.

 

[nawlins-tim]

like I said I have been following your posts for a while. And I already did the Stainless brake line upgrade along with some Hawk pads.

If your running vacuum boosted brakes, it will be really hard to get around a fix for that if your engine doesn't make any vacuum. If you move your vacuum push rod up, you most likely will run into damaging the booster. The rod will most likely not be able to angle up that far.

Because your calipers have a smaller piston area, you can step down in bore size of your master cylinder from the 24mm to the 7/8" bore. This will help, but the new 7/8" bore master cylinders are about $70 and the rebuilt ones may be unreliable. All stock g-body 7/8" bore master cylinders are cast iron. The rebuilt ones are fairly cheap at around $25 bucks at Rockauto.com, so you may be able to roll the dice. DO NOT buy dealer closeout master cylinders from rockauto.com. You are asking for headaches.

Other things to do is change out your old rubber brake lines to new rubber lines or stainless steel flexible lines. Old lines will balloon with age reducing braking performance.

Look at different front brake pads that give a better cold bite. Semi metallic and ceramic pads require some heat to start working effectively. You want a pad that works well cold. 100% organics have these properties (Oreillys has them), but they will dust more and will not last as long. I am looking at running Wagner Thermoquiet pads to try soon. I just haven't had the time to test them, yet. The Wagner Thermoquiet shoes that I have on the back of my El Camino work very well.

After contacting them, these aftermarket brake pad manufacturers recommend these pads:
EBC recommends the Greenstuff pads
Porterfield recommends the R4-S pads
Hawk recommends the Street/Race pads

Lastly, if you are running the stock booster, you might try doing the larger dual diaphram B-body booster conversion. I am not familiar with this conversion, but it should help out even if your booster is getting some vacuum.

like I said I have been following your posts for a while. And I already did the Stainless brake line upgrade along with some Hawk pads. I thought about going with the 7/8" bore master tho. I was a little concerned about it being a direct swap. Won't the booster rod need to be lengthened?
My car came with the double 9" brake booster I do have the info needed to help me with the Dual 12" ,B-body, booster swap. I got that info from the montecarlo site. Remember I tried an auxillary vacuum source. And although It did supply a bunch more vacuum it made no benefit in the front brake clamping. Surprised you havent said I need MORE horsepower.lol . The motor I'm running is not lacking power so thats not the answer .Dave if you feel better about sending me a PM about a 7/8 master that will possibly work please do.
Another option is checking into a new brake bias adjuster. ( whatever its called)

 

[malibudave1978]

like I said I have been following your posts for a while. And I already did the Stainless brake line upgrade along with some Hawk pads. I thought about going with the 7/8" bore master tho. I was a little concerned about it being a direct swap. Won't the booster rod need to be lengthened?
My car came with the double 9" brake booster I do have the info needed to help me with the Dual 12" ,B-body, booster swap. I got that info from the montecarlo site. Remember I tried an auxillary vacuum source. And although It did supply a bunch more vacuum it made no benefit in the front brake clamping. Surprised you havent said I need MORE horsepower.lol . The motor I'm running is not lacking power so thats not the answer .Dave if you feel better about sending me a PM about a 7/8 master that will possibly work please do.
Another option is checking into a new brake bias adjuster. ( whatever its called)

I don't mind hashing this out here. It might help someone else down the road.

The 7/8" bore master cylinder is a direct bolt in. Other than the bore size, it is the same casting as the cast iron 24mm, power boosted master cylinder. The 7/8" bore master cylinder doesn't have a retention cup built into the master cylinder like some other master cylinders. The factory used a retention cup to hold the pushrod up against the master cylinder piston. If you buy from the auto parts store, measure the bore before you buy just to make sure it is no larger than 7/8". Sometimes they will sell a 24mm bore master cylinder advertised as a manual brake master cylinder with a 7/8" bore.

Which Hawk pads are you running? I haven't tried the Hawk pads out yet and I really don't know how much heat they need to work best. It might be good to try the cheap organics from O'Reillys if you have one near you. Like JAM said above, the Wagner Thermoquiets might be worth a try also. They are fairly cheap too. A pad change would be the easiest mod to try first, so you don't have to bleed the lines out after you install the master cylinder.

You also might want to look at the Hawk pads to see if they aren't glazed over from an incomplete bedding process.

Keep us up on what you find out.

 

[nawlins-tim]

I don't mind hashing this out here. It might help someone else down the road.

The 7/8" bore master cylinder is a direct bolt in. Other than the bore size, it is the same casting as the cast iron 24mm, power boosted master cylinder. The 7/8" bore master cylinder doesn't have a retention cup built into the master cylinder like some other master cylinders. The factory used a retention cup to hold the pushrod up against the master cylinder piston. If you buy from the auto parts store, measure the bore before you buy just to make sure it is no larger than 7/8". Sometimes they will sell a 24mm bore master cylinder advertised as a manual brake master cylinder with a 7/8" bore.

Which Hawk pads are you running? I haven't tried the Hawk pads out yet and I really don't know how much heat they need to work best. It might be good to try the cheap organics from O'Reillys if you have one near you. Like JAM said above, the Wagner Thermoquiets might be worth a try also. They are fairly cheap too. A pad change would be the easiest mod to try first, so you don't have to bleed the lines out after you install the master cylinder.

You also might want to look at the Hawk pads to see if they aren't glazed over from an incomplete bedding process.

Keep us up on what you find out.

the Hawk pads I used were the Hawk HPS in a blue box. I think carbon/ferro material? But I did bead them as per hawk instructions. I've never went through a beading process before these, but since I paid like 50bucks for these pads i wanted them to be right. I have no complaints with my braking system expect I cant do a proper burn out. The tires spin like heck but the car moves. I really need to get some footage so I can really see what is going on.
As far as the 7/8 master do you have a suggested retailer? or do you have one on your site?

 

[malibudave1978]

the Hawk pads I used were the Hawk HPS in a blue box. I think carbon/ferro material? But I did bead them as per hawk instructions. I've never went through a beading process before these, but since I paid like 50bucks for these pads i wanted them to be right. I have no complaints with my braking system expect I cant do a proper burn out. The tires spin like heck but the car moves. I really need to get some footage so I can really see what is going on.
As far as the 7/8 master do you have a suggested retailer? or do you have one on your site?

Those Hawk pads may require some heat to start working effectly, but I cannot tell you for sure. I have purchased through rockauto.com. The last stock GM, G-body 7/8" bore master cylinder I purchased was around $70. I cant remember the brand, but it worked well. Right now there is only the Raybestos MC39166 for $57 and ACDelco 18M111 for $90. Look up master cylinders under a 1978 Malibu.

The ones on my site used for the manual brake adapter plate I designed. It's actually a Dodge master cylinder. The bolt pattern is different than a GM bolt pattern to bolt it up the the vacuum booster.

 

[PRSRIZD_V6]

Yes the hawk pads may need some heat... I'm not sure how a "street" pad works, but I suspect it doesnt require a little heat to start grabbing to its highest CoF.

 

[malibudave1978]

Yes the hawk pads may need some heat... I'm not sure how a "street" pad works, but I suspect it doesnt require a little heat to start grabbing to its highest CoF.

I wouldn't know what an OEM pad would be now for a g-body, but this chart shows that it would have roughly 3 times the friction, stone cold, than a Hawk HPS pad. The HP+ pad is only marginally better stone cold than an OEM pad, but it is most likely double the costs.

From this information, I would at least look at an OEM type pad first before spending money and time on a master cylinder or brake booster conversion. It would be the cheapest route without having to rebleed the brake system. After that, I would consider the B-body twin diaphram big booster upgrade first over a master cylinder swap, but if your engine is not making enough vacuum, then this may be a moot point.

Then it comes down to why would you want to keep a vacuum boosted system if it doesn't work?

Does your engine make any vacuum at idle for the booster to partially work?

 

[Turbo6Smackdown]

Try ebc red stuff. I run them on my subaru and wow. Great pads and no dust. No squeals either.