Holding Those Horses

As many people know, vehicular safety wasn't Detroit's number one concern in 1971. Big motors were shoehorned into small cars to provide the giddy-up, but with 10-inch standard drum brakes fore and aft, it took a country-mile to come to a stop. Now, being that my original intention was an engine swap in the form of a V8 of some sort, and with traffic the way it is nowadays, I decided that some stopping power was necessary. Thus, I gave Magnumforce Race Car Fabrications a call, and they hooked me up with their A-Body disc brake upgrade kit.


Because 1967-72 A-Bodies (Darts, Valiants, Dusters, Demons) had smaller ball joints than later model cars, it was necessary to purchase upper control arms with larger ball joints in them, in order to use the Mustang II disc brake spindles that also came with the kit.

Magnumforce also makes a kit for 1967-72 stock drum brake spindles, but it means retaining the stock 5x4" wheel bolt pattern on the front wheels; it's useful for those who want to retain stock appearances, but the more common 5x4.5" 'big bolt pattern' is more useful for those looking to change wheels, increase wheel size, or gain brake caliper clearance for their brakes.

The tear-down and install procedures were fairly easy to follow, and each procedure only took a couple hours for both sides. After it was done, I had nice shiny disc brakes to show for it.


With these 11.75"-inch vented rotors, four-piston calipers, and carbon brake pads, I was ready to hold back the horsepower that is still to come.