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High Performance brake shoes

Kilrbee

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I have a 1969 Charger R/T and I am replacing the brake shoes. What is the best high performance brake shoes that people are using??
 
www.musclecarbrakes Brakes in a box. Used to be Praysedyno. Sorry about the bad link. Hunt around and you will find it. They are a ceramic, kevlar blend with great performance.
 
What are you using the car for? Back in the day on my drag car I used the cheapest shoes. Soft but had enough grip. I was not concerned about durability. They were easy on the drums. Quality shoes would wear the drums. But that was for a drag car. Modern HP shoes for a hard driven street car make sense, but again they will be hard on the drums, my opinion.
 
Quality shoes would wear the drums.
Worked on Mack trucks. drivers would complain about not stopping fast enough.
Switched to soft compound shoes...Drivers complained about almost going thru windshield when they hit the brakes !!
But you are right semi metallic shoes were hard on drums.
 
Front or rear? If 11x3 front you have to be concerned on how fast the drums will wear out as the drums are hard to get. The higher performance brake shoes the faster the drums wear.
 
What is your definition of 'high performance' ?

- quickest stopping distance
- longest life
- least fade resistance
 
high performance means the car stops! without fade. When organic linings get hot- the chemical binders rise to the surface of the shoe and glaze it, loosing the friction coefficient of the lining & the life of the shoe is over with.
Metallic linings will not do this. Carbon metallic linings do NOT wear out rotors or drums. Carbon metallic are great for all around use. No need to get exotic and spend a lot of money on the other products. Unless new drums are used the shoes will need to be "arched" to match the radius of the drums to get full - proper- contact when braking. This requires specialized equipment and of course the brake company must be in possession of the the drums to facilitate this.

The results of using the proper lining is amazing - put them on all 4. There are less expensive options for the same shoes by going direct to a local brake re manufacturing company.
 
Unless new drums are used the shoes will need to be "arched" to match the radius of the drums to get full - proper- contact when braking
Biggest problem with drum brakes ( besides fade). They do suck till they get seated, which most trailer queens never get to. With QA. nowadays you will be lucky to get 50% of friction surface to hit the drum for the first 1000 miles.
 
In the old days we would grind/match shoes to the drum. There even was a machine to do it.
Man I'm old..
 
In the 70's & 80's one of my local parts shops did brake work. I had them arch my various brake shoes for both my daily driver '70 Barracuda and my drag car. I was able to watch the process. It was very informative. No "break in" period required.
 
Yep, every brake shop, major repair shop had equipment to arch shoes Back in the day. The asbestos dust must have been thick in those places.
 
Yep, every brake shop, major repair shop had equipment to arch shoes Back in the day. The asbestos dust must have been thick in those places.
Yeah, I worked in one of those shops. We didn't know much about the asbestos issues then....
 
We didn't know much about the asbestos issues then....
Sure didn't. 4 wheel drum brake job. After removing drums what's next? Break out the air gun and blow 'um out.
I don't know how I've lived this long..
 
i've used both kevlar and carbon metallic. think i got them both from Praisedyno. the kevlar fell apart and carbon metallic wants heat to work; neither on the recommended list. what i've found with drums is if you want them to stop good cold they won't stop good hot; stop good hot won't stop good cold. the new organics aren't anything to brag about but will stop fairly good hot. never found anything that's good cold and hot
 
No, stop, i don't believe you with the failures, BS. I have too many years of doing this, well connected since 1982 with a few clutch and brake remanufacturing companies. kma
 
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