my rear disc brakes

[DriverOne]

Stupid question: Why not just mount discs to the Festiva rear drum then?

[gauge_half_inch]

do you think you could somehow incorporate e-brake cable brackets into that? Of coarse that also would require figuring out how to run a double cable setup rather than the festiva single cable.

I have thought of doing almost this exact thing only welding the tab to the axle beam instead of bolting a plate under the stub. IIRC the escort uses the same style e-brake handle as our cars where there is a single cable ran under the exhaust tunnel and a spliter of sorts that the single cable pulled a plate and the double rear cables are pulled by that plate. This is a very common practice on a lot of vehicles, if the escort doesn't use this style, than sourcing one should be as easy as a trip to the j/y.

[Bert]

Here is some opposite view on the issue:

"Drum brakes benefit from something called self-energizing action where the leading shoe uses the rotating drum to help push the larger trailing shoe into the drum with additional force, requiring less hydraulic pressure to apply the brakes."

Put simply, drum brakes require less pressure to apply the same stopping power as discs. Normally, brake bias is always towards the front, so the rears arn't so eager to lock up during turns. However, after converting your rear drums to discs, the brake bias is going to be too strong on the front brakes. "

Well all I can say is: good thing I'm not doing all the experimenting! My dad used to say "Well, don't forget to write when you get work" whenever he thought I was up to no good or wasting time on something (that he figured) was frivolous.

[Advancedynamix]

95% of the Porsche cars produced with rear disc brakes were also setup with a drum e-brake inside the disc. In case you were thinking about putting Porsche brakes on your Festiva :p

[Christ]

Russian- Fired did this on a lot of larger vehicles as well, with two separate brake systems on the rear. I hate it.

[russian]

So far I see 85-94 Mitsubishi Galant uses the same A1/A4 bearing pair in it's rear hub! With 4x114.3 wheel bolt pattern it could be our potential hub/rotor donor...

So I have checked a 94 Galant in the junk yard It had disk brakes, but the hub was the other way around - the axle stub is spinning with wheel, so it would not mount to our axle stub. Another funny thing - that brake rotor is both a rotor (there is a caliper - used for street braking) and a drum (the drum is used as e-brake), which means it has more offset because of the drum section. Seems like a bit of over-engineering.

There is still a little hope - OReilly shows different part number and different picture for previous generation Galant hub (like 89 and 92) - this one seems to be for axle stub on the suspension.

[Advancedynamix]

Festivas don't build much rear brake heat, but you are right about it being bad practice to set the parking brake right off the track. It does help to have a parking brake in the pits. you just have to teach yourself not to set it right after a race or session (I forget all the time but it doesn't seem to hurt the drums). If you frequently left foot brake then you'll l probably get the rears hot, but if your driving like that you'll know better than to set the brake.

[russian]

If I understand right discs grab better than drums. Now that you've figured out a cheap and ingenious way of putting them in the back have you had to play with the brake proportioning valves at all?
Neat idea you have there.

Here is some opposite view on the issue:

"Drum brakes benefit from something called self-energizing action where the leading shoe uses the rotating drum to help push the larger trailing shoe into the drum with additional force, requiring less hydraulic pressure to apply the brakes."

Put simply, drum brakes require less pressure to apply the same stopping power as discs. Normally, brake bias is always towards the front, so the rears arn't so eager to lock up during turns. However, after converting your rear drums to discs, the brake bias is going to be too strong on the front brakes. "

[MrFishah]

On escort/mx3/capri, cable pulls a bracket which is bolted to the caliper itself. While the guy who did this conversion was able to make e-brake work http://fordfestivaaspire.yuku.com/to...el-disc-brakes I am not yet sure how exactly he did this.

I have not yet looked into this, but seems like on festiva cable pulls towards the middle of the rear beam, I think escort/mx3/capri pulls towards the front of the car.

I guess next step would be finding these little angle brackets in my junk box, bolting them to the calipers & taking a picture

Maybe I'm crazy, but adding an E-Brake to a car that only sees track use could just be a recipe for warping rotors. Pull that handle after a bunch of hot lapping will very quickly mean that it's time for new rotors....

[Christ]

On escort/mx3/capri, cable pulls a bracket which is bolted to the caliper itself. While the guy who did this conversion was able to make e-brake work http://fordfestivaaspire.yuku.com/to...el-disc-brakes I am not yet sure how exactly he did this.

I have not yet looked into this, but seems like on festiva cable pulls towards the middle of the rear beam, I think escort/mx3/capri pulls towards the front of the car.

I guess next step would be finding these little angle brackets in my junk box, bolting them to the calipers & taking a picture

You may be able to index those arms. If not, it probably wont be much trouble to adapt the Escort setup.

[htchbck]

Score! Those are a lot easier to find than Capris too.

Don't forget, the majority of the Galants came with drums though. I think I've seen more Capris than I have disk brake Galants.

[Advancedynamix]

Very interesting. Well, I'm keeping an eye on this. Good work man!

[russian]

On escort/mx3/capri, cable pulls a bracket which is bolted to the caliper itself. While the guy who did this conversion was able to make e-brake work http://fordfestivaaspire.yuku.com/to...el-disc-brakes I am not yet sure how exactly he did this.

I have not yet looked into this, but seems like on festiva cable pulls towards the middle of the rear beam, I think escort/mx3/capri pulls towards the front of the car.

I guess next step would be finding these little angle brackets in my junk box, bolting them to the calipers & taking a picture

[Advancedynamix]

many vehicles don't have parking brakes in their rear calipers. ( Porsche 911,924,944, Subaru XT ...) but either way, I wasn't sure but I thought the parking brake cables on EGT, Capri ect. was captured by a separate bracket that wasn't on the caliper. Then the cable pulls a lever on the caliper. It's been a while since I've looked at the rear cable setup on those cars though. It would be nice to have an E brake, but the festiva setup would be difficult to convert to disk. My best solution was hydro. Has anyone used a cable setup on the back disc conversion?

[Christ]

Anything with rear discs well have a cable actuated caliper in the rear, except large vehicles that retain the drum parking brake.

Making the plate for the caliper you want is the only problem.