As mentioned in the tag I was able to fab up stock C5 Z51 brakes on my front end and Ford 9” rear using factory corvette parking brake assembly on my 69’ Camaro. This post is not to be considered a how to, but how I ended up doing it. There are lots of ways to get from point A to B but this worked out to be my way. I think it turned out pretty good and it was relatively easy to find the parts and make the conversion and I am satisfied with the results.
There are several options out there for installing larger brakes but I wanted to be able to go down to the local parts shop and install new rotors or pads on a whim if needed and also was somewhat conscious of a budget. My goal was to get the best possible brakes for the least amount of time and money. So here is how I ended up doing it step by step with costs. I put the breakdown and costs below. There are several posts already on how to do the front so I won’t spend a whole lot of time there...but if you have questions pm me. First thing is to locate a stock set of front drum hubs. My car was originally a front disk car so I ended up trading a guy for my setup plus he paid me some cash. Those hubs need to have the lip turned down in order to accept the C5 rotors. Once that is done really all that is left on the front is to bolt up a new bracket for the caliper mount and the rest is easy.
I took this one step further though and wanted to use the C5 master cylinder and brake booster as well. I was able to locate that setup on the dreaded ebay and fabbed them up. This was a little trickier but easy to do once you see some pics. I started by first cutting off the factory mounting tabs and by making a template off of my old brake booster, cut and drilled some flat stock, and rewelded it to the C5 booster. A little grinding and smoothing and you can hardly tell it wasn’t like that. The next problem is the push rod is threaded on the Camaro. For this I measured the old push rod, calculated how much threaded rod was needed and left myself a little fudging room. Cut off the rod of the C5 booster and welded the threaded rod onto the new booster rod, again leaving myself more thread than I thought I would need. After that all you have to do is clean up the welds and thread the old brake arm jam nuts and attachment back on. I also fabbed up a proportioning valve bracket and used a CPP adjustable proportioning valve to finish up that part.
Rear brakes ended up being quite the deal. Because I was using a Ford 9” I found it rather difficult to locate the things I thought I wanted. Again, several ways to skin a cat. I ended up getting a buddy to do some CAD work and designed my own brackets and bearing retainers. I knew I wanted to use factory stuff and that included the factory C5 parking brake. As you can see in the pics having access to CAD was invaluable. I was able to design it out exactly how I wanted and the tolerances were to 1/32”. I used a standard 2.50” axle offset and wanted the spacer and bearing retainer to be one solid piece.
Once that was calculated the rest was somewhat easy. After the initial CAD work I had them cut out using a CNC Laser. That allowed the tolerances to carry over and allowed for a perfect fit of all the parts. The bearing retainer was then lathed to allow for the dimensions of the axle bearing.
I took a factory C5 park brake backing plate and using the 3 existing factory mounting holes, plug welded it to my new brake plate and drilled for the 4 bolt pattern of the axle flange. Once that was done the rest reassembled as if it were factory. The only issue I had was the park brake actuators that I have, had some excess material from the factory casting. I had to remove that material for additional stud clearance. I should also add that I have ARP threaded studs and doing this conversion requires your studs to have small heads or rounded heads for actuator clearance. All in all I am happy with the results and here is the tally for cost and materials.
1. C5 Z51 Brake kit. $500.00
I found this used but practically new. I paid $500 for the drilled rotors, calipers, and new Hawk pads, delivered to my door.
Front rotors measure 13.4”
Back rotors measure 12.7”
2. C5 master cylinder and booster $40.00
3. CPP proportioning valve $69.00
4. Jegs powder coated brake line $40.00
5. KORE flex lines $155.50
6. Parking brake kit $65.00
I bought this used as well from the local pick a part. These fit a wide range of vehicles from S10 trucks, blazers, envoy, mini van and on and on. It came with the backing plates, actuators, and old pads.
7. Park brake pads $80.00
8. Retainers, caliper brackets $250.00
9. Misc. I found a local industrial hydraulic shop that is going to flare all my hard lines after I get them ran and cut. I talked the kid into doing it after hours so he isn’t going to charge me anything. He was just excited about the project. I also had to buy new hardware. I needed some grade 8 bolts and nuts and 8) 14mm 25, 10.9 bolts to mount the calipers to the caliper mounts. I think I have less than $10 into that.
TOTAL $1210.00
I am sure I missed some things but that should be a good start. Feel free to pm me with any questions. I’m sure someone will let me know if I missed something dumb or obvious. Because I am going to be doing some other cars I had the shop laser out several of these brackets. If you are thinking about doing this I do have some extra brackets and the bead on used parts…pm me if you are interested. Good luck guys
Brian Hobaugh SCCA National Tour June 2014
First Hemi 'Cuda Convertible Ever Built
Short clips: Goodguys Pleasanton autocross and pit videos
9" with C5 disc brake swap and park brake completed
Linear Mode
