Stopping a Square

INSTALLING CPP’S DISC BRAKE KIT

IF YOU’VE BEEN a Street Trucks enthusiast for a while, we’re sure you’ve heard the term “big brakes” or “big brake kit.” Have you ever thought about what those words mean? Obviously, a larger set of brakes or a rear disc brake swap will draw the eye to the wheel well, but have you ever thought about the performance gains you could achieve by swapping out the stock brake system?

We did, so we reached out to Classic Performance Parts (CPP) for help. Since CPP has been building brake systems for classic trucks for about 25 years, we knew the company would have the right kit for our ’79 C-10 project. Sure enough, CPP offers a complete bolt-in kit to upgrade the C-10’s front brakes, swap the rear drums for discs, and the kit also includes a brand-new booster and master cylinder. Of course, the complete kit also comes with all of the necessary hardware and brake lines.

Now that we’ve found a kit for our truck, how will it help our stopping performance? The physics of starting and stopping are basically the same: Kinetic energy applies to both. Just like a high-performance engine launches a truck off the line when you put your foot on the go pedal, a high-performance brake package is necessary to bring the truck to a stop faster when you put your foot on the stop pedal. CPP designed its brake packages to maintain the effectiveness of stopping power consistently.

We will get more into the specifics as we install the individual components. Follow along and we’ll show you how to swap out the factory brakes for one of CPP’S complete brake kits.