I have had soft brakes before and after my engine rebuild. I have a mild/moderate 350 build .474 lift cam.
I have replaced pads, booster, master, front hoses, all the slides on the brakes should work. I have 4 disk.
Assuming next I should try and aftermarket proportioning valve? I did some research and found this one that has been used by another member on the board for an 82 Camaro 4 disk
https://www.danchuk.com/ItemForm.aspx?item=2521B
Any suggestions or experience doing that would be helpful.

I'm reading on rotor and pad upgrades and it seems to take a lot of work to upgrade lt1, ls1 etc.
I'm looking for a good product that is basically a direct or easy swap. Pads and rotors for the front, and rears eventually. Is there any good aftermarkets for our gen? I just have a street car that might see a track once a summer.

 

Some more good reading here, may help, may not... Works great on my '86..

https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/brak...e-upgrade.html

 

My totally uninformed guess, would be that you have the original '83 rear disk brakes. Those use the Delco-Morraine iron calipers which are notorious for not working right. I myself, having an '82 with enough HP to break several 7.5" rear ends, have had experience with at least 4 sets of these rear disks and never did any set work properly for more than a few weeks. My Dana 44 rear end, even came with a brand new set from the factory. Those didn't work right either.

One of the best upgrades I ever did was to replace those with a set of LT1 4th gen rear calipers and rotors, known around here as "PBR"s.

My swap, for various reasons, was not so easy. But without any other changes (proportioning valve for example), it made two big improvements. My brake pedal no longer was soft and my parking brake (for the first time ever) worked properly.

The good news is that most of time, swapping in PBR's will not be nearly as difficult as mine were. The easiest way is probably to find a junk yard 4th gen rear end (with wheels) and bolt it up, bleed the brakes and call it a day.

If I am right and the early style rear calipers are your problem, spending money on other fancy parts (p-valve, disks, pads) will just be a waste.

 

I want better gears, I need an axle seal on at least 1 side and its also leaking ou t of the rear diff. This might be the way to go. I thought it was a big ordeal to swap rear ends with getting everything lined up correctly?
I don't really mind the back brakes as much as the fronts do most of the stopping power, but that it might be part of the problem with my soft brakes?

 

The rear end alignment isn't adjustable, unless you already have some aftermarket suspension. The problem with the old style calipers is that the adjustment mechanism never works right (never did for me anyway). The play in the rears make the whole system soft.

'93 -> '97 disk rear end is an easy swap. You just need new parking brake cables. Everything will bolt right up. Just make sure you have 4th gen wheels to go with it.

 

OK thanks this helps.

So there is no way to use my wheels I have?
I assume I can swap the fronts to use 4th gen wheels too?

Thanks everybody.

 

The 4th gen rear is about 2"s wider. Depending on what wheels you have, they might work, but they won't be a very good fit.

4th gen wheels will fit the front...if you use (I believe) 2" spacers.

I recently put some C5 wheels (18 x 9.5) on my car and had to use 2" spacers on all 4 corners. But I did that to fit the C7 Z51 brakes that I took for the first test drive today. I'm pretty happy with that mod.

 

I should have some wheels from an ls1 powered Corvette lying around.... I have the fin wheels? From 83.

I have a 94 v6. Should they be the same if I play around swapping wheels?

 

One possible issue that I just thought of is the rubber brake line going from the body to the rear end. The later cars use a different style of flare, so it will probably need an adapter or something. I'm sure some else here who knows better can fill in the details.

 

I don't know how wide the V6 wheels will be..probably 8". But they will have the same (or close) offset as other 4th gens. They will probably hit the tie rod on a 3rd gen unless you use spacers. But this is well outside my area of expertise.
I don't know anything about the C4 wheels.

 

Thanks for the help

Still looking for information on front brake setup. They are warped anyway.

 

I would be inclined to go back with stock rotors and maybe a better pad in front.
Fancy rotors with the stock caliper would be kind of like lip stick on a pig.

If you are ready to swap out the whole front brake system, you have lots of options. The process is about the same no matter what brake upgrade you go with. The limiting factor will be what will fit under your rims (and your budget). But they will all be about the same amount of work ... which isn't really that much.

 

Does anyone know if 15" 83 ta turbo rims would fit?