It’s easy to fall in love the with the looks, power and sound of a classic muscle car. But driving one on today’s busy roads can soon sap the enjoyment of a vintage ride, especially if you’re concerned about brake performance in stop-start traffic. We spoke with the experts at Baer Brakes to find out more about how brake upgrades can transform the driving experience in a classic muscle car – no matter how large or small your budget.
“Many of these vehicles originally came with factory drum brakes,” notes Rick Elam, sales manager at Baer. “That means bad heat soak, which leads to poor recovery and brake fade. Classic muscle cars are going up in value, so owners are increasingly worried about damaging the car they love, as well as liability issues. A brake upgrade means investing in a safety feature that will protect them, their family, and their expensive car.”
Shop Baer Classic Series brake kits here.
Retrofitting factory disc brakes has long been a common way to improve braking performance, such as when a ’67 Camaro receives factory spindles and discs from a ’69 model. But, cautions Elam, it’s a solution that comes with its own drawbacks.
“Early disc-brakes were a big improvement over drums in terms of stopping ability, but the cast-iron parts were heavy and – like drums – still get hot and have very poor recovery time. Roads have a lot more cars on them nowadays, and if you’re going to carry out multiple stops, a factory disc brake quickly starts to fade. It’s nothing like a modern disc brake.”
Disc brake kits from Baer Brakes incorporate modern materials and components to address the drawbacks of those vintage factory setups. Aluminum front calipers dissipate heat a lot better than cast iron ones. DOT dust and weather seals in the calipers, just like an OEM would fit, provide reliability and peace of mind.
The matching pads are in popular, widely available Corvette and Mustang sizes, ensuring a large choice of pad compounds with different levels of performance. The brake rotors are slotted – to remove any built-up gases or dust between disc and pad – and drilled to improve cooling and reduce weight.
Those core design principles and technologies are applied to Baer’s products across the board, says Elam, regardless of the owner’s budget and what they plan to do with the car. For an enthusiast owner who wants to make their classic muscle car easier, safer, more reliable and more enjoyable to drive, a Classic Series brake kit – just $795 for a front axle in the case of the ’67 Camaro – is a great option that fulfils the same objectives as, say, swapping carburetors for fuel injection or bias-ply tires for radials.
Shop 1967 Camaro 11-inch front brakes or 1967 Camaro 13-inch front brakes.
Meanwhile an amateur racer preparing a Pro Touring vehicle for track or autocross might spend thousands on a high-performance Pro Plus or Extreme Plus setup. These options are designed to offer even more stopping power from larger, two-piece rotors, while four- or six-piston calipers replace the Classic Series’ two-piston designs.
“Whatever the product, we take our 30 years of brake knowledge and apply it to a particular price point,” says Elam. “In the case of the Classic Series, we take a lot of the technology we use in our bigger, more expensive brake kits and bring it to the cost-effective smaller wheel.
“The available options will depend on the wheel the brakes are going to run on,” he adds. “A 15-inch wheel usually requires an 11-inch Classic disc, or perhaps one of our smaller four-piston systems. But if you’re going up to an 18 or 20-inch wheel, you’ll more likely want a 14-inch disc to fill the wheel up, make it look good, and enable the brake to work less hard.”
Upgrading one axle rather than both, is another way to get safe, modern braking performance without blowing your entire restoration budget, no matter how large or small. “Even if the car already has front discs and rear drums, we normally still recommend upgrading the front discs with one of our kits, because the majority of the braking is done up front,” Elam explains. “You could always add rear discs later.”
Customers can expect vastly improved braking performance from a modern brake upgrade, with consistently shorter stopping distances over repeated stops – even for a disc-to-disc conversion. Baer will introduce a Classic Series kit with a two-piston caliper and 13-inch rotor for Chevrolet OBS (’88-’98) pickup trucks later this year. In 90 mph-to-zero testing, it took 162 feet off the stopping distance.
“Very easily in drum-to-disc applications, we’ll net a 40-50ft reduction when stopping from 60mph to zero, right off the bat,” he adds. “When you start doing multiple stops a row, it’s drastically different. Towards the end of your 10 stops, you’ll see a difference of well over 100ft. That’s huge, considering that even a 10-15ft reduction is usually the difference between having an accident, and not.”
The Classic Series OBS kit is one of many new additions to the Baer line-up coming in 2025. The company already covers most of the popular classic muscle car and truck applications, including early Ford Mustangs from’65 through ’73; Fox Mustangs; GM AFX –Chevelles, Camaros, Novas and more, including most of the many different spindles that owners run; GM B-body cars; and early B- and E-body Mopars.
“We’re now filling the gaps at different price points,” Elam expands. “This year, we’re launching a Classic Series kit for the Fox Mustang, for both four-lug and five-lug spindles. We believe we’re the first to offer brake kits for the four-lug Fox. We’re also introducing the Chevy C-10 truck from ’63 to ’87 in a price-point-sensitive Classic kit. Besides that, we’re expanding some of our smaller four-piston caliper kits at the lower price points.”
Baer’s kits are designed as far as possible to be plug-and-play, saving the customer time and money during the installation and minimizing install errors, whether it’s a first-time hobby mechanic or an experienced professional builder taking on the job.
From the lowest priced to the most expensive, all kits come with the brackets, hardware and brake hoses you’ll need. Bearings are packed with grease ready to install. Two-piece rotors are assembled before they leave the factory and some of the bigger kits are even built on the spindles, which can be modified for the customer if needed. Brackets are trial fitted to calipers so that the installer understands the orientation of the bracket.
More generally, the components in each kit are adapted to the application, ensuring, for example, the correct relationship in the front-to-rear piston area. This takes the guesswork out of a disc-brake conversion and minimizes the risk of brake problems after installation.
“We also work with wheel and suspension companies to explain how the platform goes together,” Elam says. “We believe that many companies who are selling aftermarket brakes don’t understand how brakes affect other parts of the car. As a result, we’ve seen a lot of misinformation, leading to customers buying incorrect parts or parts they should not need. Anybody can machine some brackets and throw parts on a car, but if you have to pump the pedal three times to get enough fluid volume to the rear calipers, or the rear brakes lock up all the time, it’s just a conversion, not a true, vehicle-specific kit that works as an integrated system.
“If a customer runs into problems during the install, we’re here to help. Most people think that once the master cylinder has fluid in it, you just bleed the brakes and push the pedal, and the car will stop. But there are so many i’s to dot and t’s to cross to build a proper brake system – from the master cylinder and the pedal ratio, down to the calipers and the piston size. If it isn’t working, we’ll try to walk the customer through and figure out why.
“We try to build our kits in a way that, with proper instructions, someone who’s handy and has tools can do it in their driveway,” he concludes. “But we understand that issues arise, not least because these cars are old. If someone buys a ’65 Mustang, they have no idea what spindle is on it unless they have taken it apart. It’s often the case that customers buy the brake kit based on the car, but when they go to put it on, it doesn’t fit. They hadn’t realized that over the years, someone had changed the rim, or the spindle, or something else. We’re here to help them navigate those challenges.”
