SSBC you gotta read this

[DJF]

Hey all,

So after haveing a full force 10 conversion on my dodge for about 2 years now, and having what can only be described as terrible performance from the kit even after speaking to the SSBC tech guys, they all seemed to go take me down the how much vacume have u got at idel, pressure at the pad route. The fist question is easy i have a vacume gage in the car, and yeah given its not up to spec coz of the cam i have. line pressure .... it not enough that is plain and obvious.

So I came here and found others with such problems and found out about hydro boost. I said id post to say how i got on with this kit so here we go.

Its an awesome piece of kit!!!!! Its expensive though and really for the price of the ssbc kit, why should you need it? My car stopped on a dime and really did give change finally what i wanted. The complete system comes with a new master cylinder, lines the works. Its expensive but for the performance gain over the stock ssbc kit was giving me I was happy. ....Until today!!!!!!!!

So its a beautiful weekend im heading out to meet the guys to cruise on over to a show, on the way i go to slow down and BANG!!!!!! iIpulled the car over only to find the calliper hanging trapped between the wheel on the front right side and the lower control arm. The alloy on one of the calliper lugs is missing .... so i walk down the road and i find it. Along with a bolt that was left on the other one which looks mangled theads done in the works..... Hmm nice!!!
Man im so bummed out broken down side of the road i had to get my dad out to bring a jack, tie up the calliper and put a socket between the pads to get home. This aint right surly? Did I pay all this money for a kit that doesn't work, when i do make it work the metal on the calliper fails? Im thinking this kit just isn't up to the job in hand never was never will be. Gutted I didn't order Willwood 
I will get it off tomorrow and post some pics  

[tan top]

aww no not good  , could of been alot worse      ,

been looking into getting a hydro boost set up my self  once i fit discs 

[Silver R/T]

what's the plan now? If I had money I would go with Wilwood kit instead since they have been proven on the street.

[DJF]

aww no not good  , could of been alot worse      ,

been looking into getting a hydro boost set up my self  once i fit discs 

Yeah your right I could of really needed to stop and hit something, smashed the car or hurt someone. So i consider myself let of lightly.
The hydro boost system is great I think a lot of the performance comes from the pivot point being changed. The pedel bolts srtaight to the pushrod, rather than having the stock setup where u dont directly push against the old vacume booster. That and the master cylinder is greatly different from the one supplied in the SSBC kit. The Hydro boost does take the car to a modern spec where u only have to touch the pedal and your really stopping.

What Disc Brake kit are you gonna use?

[DJF]

what's the plan now? If I had money I would go with Wilwood kit instead since they have been proven on the street.

The plan now.... I dunno, I really stretched myself to get the hydroboost, it took a lil while to come, once it did this happened. Its getting to that time of the year now. I guess I will leave the car in the garage until next year and scratch some more cash together and see what the options are then. One things for sure this SSBC stuff is coming off. I dont know how someone could take it to market. When it arrived I was disapointed. Spacers in the installtion where surely they just shouldnt be needed if the kit was actually intended for this car. In short it looks like a set of calipers and a high school metal work project to Bodge it to the car. And it is a bodge.

[tan top]

aww no not good  , could of been alot worse      ,

been looking into getting a hydro boost set up my self  once i fit discs  

Yeah your right I could of really needed to stop and hit something, smashed the car or hurt someone. So i consider myself let of lightly.
The hydro boost system is great I think a lot of the performance comes from the pivot point being changed. The pedel bolts srtaight to the pushrod, rather than having the stock setup where u dont directly push against the old vacume booster. That and the master cylinder is greatly different from the one supplied in the SSBC kit. The Hydro boost does take the car to a modern spec where u only have to touch the pedal and your really stopping.

What Disc Brake kit are you gonna use?

what disc set up good question  , was either going to be from SSBC or Willwood , or master power , although i had planed years ago to fit a Disc set up i got off a mid 70s police car , with  single piston slider calipers  with  graphite pistons , had this set up under the work  bench for 20 years

[mauve66]

i was always told the Wilwood was a race only setup, not sealed for continuos street duty??

[DJF]

well Im beat I dunno what to do. SSBC IMO are a waste of space. I need to think of a new solution. any suggestions anyone?

[Musicman]

Farg'n SSBC   
Why do people continue to waste money on these "highly advertised, big name, big money" products that don't work 

[69bronzeT5]

I'm either going with Baer or Wilwood for the Charger and Coronet. The Duster has factory power front disc brakes so it's good enough for now.

[Just 6T9 CHGR]

My SSBC kit has been working fine for the past 4+ years so far.  I got the base kit with the cast iron calipers though....

[Rolling_Thunder]

I've never had a problem with the SSBC kit...        hmmm         

[DJF]

spoke to SSBC tonight they seem helpfull so just waiting to see how this pans out.

[firefighter3931]

spoke to SSBC tonight they seem helpfull so just waiting to see how this pans out.

That's good to hear. It sounds like the caliper body was defective and possibly a stress riser where it bolts on to the hanger. 

I've had my kit on a short while and i'm still tweaking. Gonna try a WillWood master cylinder next. So far it has worked slowing the 4100 lb Charger down from 115mph at the track. The kit definately needs a better master cylinder and a residual pressure valve for the rear brakes. 


Let us know what SSBC has to say...



Ron

[bill440rt]

Oof, I'm not liking the sound of this.
I have a 4-wheel SSBC disc setup on my '69, I have yet to drive the car so I cannot comment on performance. But, I can tell you that while bleeding brakes I had a front caliper break apart at the bolts! They are the Force 10's. I also had a hell of a time with leaks from the stainless crossover tube.
I sent them both back to SSBC, they replied that they were assembled at their factory with incorrect hardware. Freakin' scary. 
Of course, they swapped them out with new ones with the correct hardware. I reinstalled them, bled them, and now they're fine. Hard pedal pressure, too.
I've heard other horror stories about the MC, seems to have something to do with bore diameter. I'll address that issue once I test drive the car.

[b5blue]

  WOW I slobbered over that stuff for years and now I'm glad I stuck with the old/heavy factory type upgrade stuff!!!

[Rolling_Thunder]

the force 10 stuff is the problem - Chris and I both run the standard iron calipers and have had no problems (not speaking for Chris here)  - 

[charger2fast4u]

what's wrong with the force 10 kit  compaired to the iron calipers? what makes one have problems and not the other? i bought the force 10 big brake  kit from SSBC i haven't installed them yet and know i would probably have the same issue as almost everyone else not enough pressure to stop the car i always figured from all the threads i read on this the problem solver to this is going with a different master cylinder and booster am i wrong?

[Rolling_Thunder]

what seems to be the issue with the force 10 calipers are the mounting tabs breaking (going by what people have said on this thread) - this is because they are aluminum...   the iron calipers are umm   stronger.   

[charger2fast4u]

if people's calipers are breaking with the force 10's wouldn't ssbc have a recall on these? they could get in some real trouble couldn't they? and not to mention the person driving the car could get hurt. maybe theres just a handfull of bad one's that got air pockets in the castings. i see this at my work from the foundry  from time to time.

[DJF]

Hi all,

wow this seems to be a can of worms here.

ok firstly anyone with a factory powered charger i belive will suffer from not enough line pressure. Others that had a non powered car and bought a kit that supplied a booster seem to have less problems as far as I know, I could be wrong. What I do know is that my factory powered 70 B-body charger was awful with the kit and as per other posts i blame the master cylinder. Now also look at the pivot point of the brake pedal, you can see power is being given away. The brake pedal acts on the lower part of the arm than the booster connects to. The hydro boost solves this problem. You have to remove the adapter plate to get it mounted straight to the firewall and the dodgy lil assembly on the brake pedal is disregarded. You press the pedal straight to the hydro boost arm. I hope you know what I mean if not please let me know I will post pics.

As for the ssbc caliper braking... I believe the issue is not the caliper but the spacers moving them out. This just encourages movement, once you have a lil bit or movement it will just get wose, the bolts will loosen and the caliper will fail. perhaps a big spacer holding the caliper all the way along to the correct shape would be ok, but the spacers supplied are no more than thick washers.

SSBC told me the problem is that the caliper bolts were loose which is what caused he failure. welll .... ok yeah I do agree but I torqued these down as specified and I thred locked them as per the instructions ....  Been ok for 2 years .... First time out working good with hydroboostd and enough pressure. Booom!!!! Im not convinced im actually dumb enough to have not tighened it enough .... I mean lets face it when I built the motor..... did I re-tighten the rod bolts 2 years later.... NO!! They aint loose.