Hello all. My son and I just got a '80 RS project car and are excited to get going. The car needs some brake work (among other things). Question is.. the calipers are single piston and relatively cheap to replace. Is there a multi piston swap from a donor car that is a bolt on upgrade? I see the $300 options from Summit and other vendors. What have you guys done?

 

Get a set of spindles from a b body. Then use a D52 caliper and a I roc 12" rotor. This is know as the 1Le conversion. Junk yard parts are easy to come by. A Bbody is Impala, Park Ave and Delta 88. These have bigger bearings that work with the Iroc rotors. The lug nuts will need to be changed to metric though.

 

I depend on what you want to do with the car,and your check book. Because there are some really pricey upgrade out there.

 

You need to go back to the manual and also check out the latest upgrades that have worked before you change the brakes. But I think its possible.

 

There's a manual for upgrades to tell us what works? Wow! All this time I didn't know they had one to help us!

 

Power Disc brakes are safer

 

Safer than what? Any well set up brake system will work great if it's in good condition. The stock power disc brakes are a very good braking system for almost any driving, with maybe the exception of autocross. Many owners go to non power disc brakes on cars used for autocross or racing, as engines built for all out performance don't build enough vacuum to really work well on power brakes.
Power brakes do have one drawback. When the engine dies the braking pressure assist goes away, and it takes a huge amount of pressure to bring the car to a stop.