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I’ve been thinking about doing this for about a year now, so I finally decided to go forward with it. The car will be upgraded to 13” or 14” rotors and I’ll be getting it down to 3000lbs, so not worried about pedal effort. I was tired of a squishy pedal and didn’t want hydro boost because it will be tracked in the future. So far the hardest part has been finding an adapter to mount the Wilwood master cylinder. I still need to bleed the MC and brakes as well as get a clevis to attach the pedal to the master cylinder pushrod but in terms of pushrod length it’s almost an exact length from the factory vacuum booster.
Good move. I replaced the power brake system on my 77 with a pure factory manual brake system, and I love it. The brake feel is now excellent, and the car stops just as well as it did before. Frankly....I was shocked how little difference there is in terms of force required.
Good job on the pics! I had to buy a clevis that had the wrong internal threads....I re-drilled and re-threaded the clevis rather than searching for a clevis that had the correct threads....(to save time).
I messed with my 68 manual brakes to get them correct. One of the things that made a huge difference was the match between the brake pedal and the MC. First make sure the rod is connected to the brake pedal in the correct hole for manual brakes,,,,,, upper hole,,,,, = more leverage. Then make sure the rod doesn't have any play as it contacts the MC. Even 1/32 of an inch makes a huge difference. There is a number, but I just made sure the gap was 0.
If you are going to move up to 13-14" rotors big brake kit- you need to look at dropping the Master cylinder bore to 7/8s (rather than 1" stock) for manual brakes
For reference for the pedal leverage -here's the pedal set of for manual(left) and power(right)
Well, got it on and it’s definitely easier to take one off than to put one on. The brake feel is very firm. No more squishy!! My corvette is currently missing its engine so won’t be able to take it for a test drive at this point.
If I were building an Auto-X car, I would 100% go with a Borgeson. For cruising in the hills of Virginia, my manual-steering converted 80 does just fine. Just don't try to parallel park.
It will be tracked. I have manual steering now with the stock slow(er) steering box and it’s a pain at slow speeds. I can’t imagine how hard it would be @ a 12 or 10:1 ratio. Actually, electric assist would help. From my experience finding a fast ratio manual steering box for a C3 would have to be custom and very expensive. I’ve seen a few @ $2,200 for just the steering box.
Manual brake conversion started
