Hit the Picks!
BIG power is pretty easy to attain today and putting together a hot rod (racecar, street rod, street machine, sports car, sport truck) with warp-speed potential sure isn’t as tough as it once was — no secret. But stopping is equally important. Also no secret! And speaking of important, brakes are at the top of the heap on any car. Period. You can’t even ponder the consequences without them. That’s the reason why brake performance and brake tech is of considerable consequence.
There’s a ton of info out there on brakes but some of it is very right, and some of it is, well, not so right. The good news is one of the best-known and well-respected companies in the aftermarket brake biz has a treasure trove of real-world know-how, and they’re willing to share it with us. That company is Baer Brakes. Here’s their take on tossing out the anchor:
Tip 1: Fitness Test...
Baer Brakes has a unique method to ensure big brakes can be stuffed inside your wheels. What it amounts to is the use of a template to check the brake fit inside your existing (or potentially larger) wheels. To obtain the template, you first have to go to the Baer Brakes website. Once you land on a set of brakes for your application scroll part way down the page to “System Links”. There you’ll find system instructions followed by Template Instruction. As an example, we’re using a set of Baer’s Deep Stage front brakes for a 1967-69 Camaro/1968-74 Nova as an example. The template for these brakes can be found at: www.baer.com/templates/S125A.pdf
Once you have the template downloaded, set up your printer so it is scaled at 100%. You can then print the template, but check to ensure the inch scale at the bottom right corner of the page matches to a ruler or tape measure (this is critical!).
After you have verified the template has been printed to the proper size, glue the entire page to a piece of heavy card stock and cut around the BOLD dotted line. Leave the hub section of the template whole until you have accurately measured the inside of the wheel hub.
At this point, measure the inside diameter of the wheel where the hub passes through
