Ex-Ford guy

I thought I saw a post on here awhile ago about getting more stopping power to the rear, with drum brakes, not discs. I tried every search and cant come up with a thing. Lots of rear disc stuff, but I'm not too good with the money issue to go to discs. Is it possible to tweak the prop. valve to get more to the rear or am I just on cloud 9 with this one? I did a brake test last night and it almost seems like I have no rear, only the fronts locked up, and man did I jam em to the floor. Whats the deal? Thanks.

REVLIMIT

When it comes to how much a system can grab. Drums grab alot harder. Which is atcually one of hte reasons I swapped my Borg Warner rear for a stock RS rear end O_o cause it locks up. (this is good if you drift) But for performance disk is better. Cause drums overheat way to fast.

Dr. Pepper

I haven't heard or seen it done with 3rd gen cars but 2nd gen cars have a trick of swapping the brake shoes. I don't remember the exact part numbers but you are supposed to be able to swap one of the shoes with a longer one to increase brake power. You should also be aware that some of the early 80's GM cars (including Camaros/Firebirds) came with aluminum rear drums. They had a steel liner pressed in to them. The aluminum drums run much cooler than their cast iron equivalents. They also are lighter. If you are looking for a low dollar rear brake upgrade I would first recommend rebuilding them and finding a set of these aluminum drums. Some people actually favor this arrangement over both types of rear discs. I have used it myself and found that the front brakes were the weak link in the system, not the rears.

I should make one other note, if everything is working it should be next to impossible to lock the rear brakes. The reasoning is this, if the rear brakes lock that means the rear tires are sliding. The car will want to swap ends very fast like this. On the other hand if the rears never lock the car will tend to keep straight even if the fronts are locking. Sometimes this means you aren't getting 100% of the braking available but it is far safer. Through an adjustable proportioning valve it is possible to increase the rear braking but I advise against it. The only circumstance I could advise it with is where you are compensating for a much better set of rear tires. Still you should keep with GM's original idea, the rears never lock. Brakes don't do much if you are sliding sideways, and even less if you hit a tree sliding sideways.

Ex-Ford guy

I was thinkin about getting an adjustable valve, but im short on money right now, big time. But anyways, I guess my best bet would be to go with an eventual drum to disk conversion, im looking for performance, not kicking the rear out. Thanks guys. Later.

AFrikinGoodTime

Pull the e-brake up 3 clicks or so then hit the binders. If the rears then lock- you only have an adjustment problem. This is common with the rear drums. Just dial out the shoes through the backing plate.

Unlike what the Dr. said, ALL 4 WHEELS SHOULD LOCK AND THEY SHOULD LOCK SIMULTANEOUSLY.