If you’re going to build a handling car that can hold its own on the streets as well as the autocross track and occasional road course, it has to be able to “Whoah!” as well as “Go!”
And that’s the task for this installment of Car Craft’s Fake Snake Mustang buildup. The stock Mustang GT’s brakes aren’t exactly bad, but after we had a brake dust fire after our first shakedown trip to Carolina Motorsports Park’s road course, a brake system upgrade was written at the top of the to-do list. In ink.
For a solution to track-ready brakes that won’t fade under abuse or catch fire in the pits, we turned to Baer Brakes. Because our Mustang will see plenty of street miles along with a little driving in anger on the weekends, they pointed us toward their Pro+ system for the front and SS4 in the rear. We’ll be using a beefy 13-inch rotor on all four corners mated with six-piston calipers on the front and four-pistons on the back. It is possible to fit an even larger 14-inch rotor inside the 18-inch Rovos wheels we’ll be using, but with the lighter weight of the Mustang we felt that the 13s would work just fine.
Too often, big-inch brakes have been bolted up simply as eye candy for cars that are more show than go. But big rotors and calipers are useful for more than good looks. Moving the friction point (where the caliper presses the brake pad against the rotor) away from the center of the wheel’s rotation provides better leverage. It may seem unnecessary when the smaller OEM brakes are certainly capable of locking up the wheels (That’s all the braking power you need, right?) but the improved leverage provided by the larger brakes provides better pedal feel, improved modulation for maximizing braking force before locking up the tires, resistance to warping, and improved heat dissipation.
Of course, bigger brakes do require a larger wheel to make everything fit. We wanted to stuff absolutely as much rubber under the wheel wells as possible, but bumped up against fitment issues again and again until we contacted American Muscle—who specialize in Mustangs. They set us up with a set of 18-inch Rovos Durban wheels that measure 9 inches in width at the front and steamroller-like 10.5 inches in the rear. That’s tracking into the level of obscene, considering the stock wheels are 17×8 inches. [BEGIN WEB-ONLY] By the way, American Muscle is actually giving away $5,000 worth of Rovos wheels and gear, and we’d definitely recommend you get in on that. You can check it out at www.AmericanMuscle.com/rovos-mustang-wheels.html.
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