Factory Big Brake Kit

Necroing this thread...

I'm in the middle of this conversion because I wanted to reduce the 5/16" extra track per side added by the TCE brakes since I'm lowering my truck. I'm already going with narrower tires to tuck in further, and I want to keep the stock wheels for now.

Yesterday I put the two setups (TCE and E150) on the scale and was astounded at the difference. 25 lbs per side. The E150 brakes add 50% (from 50 lbs to 75 lbs for assembled spindle/rotor/caliper) per side over the TCE. Man, that van hardware is heavy compared to the Wilwood pieces!

Anyone have a stock caliper handy? Mine are in storage somewhere. It would be interesting to see the difference in weight between the van hardware and the stock.

The change in unsprung weight, some of it rotational in the rotors, is enough to make me consider changing wheels, but I want to live with the conversion a bit first before changing course. I fretted about it yesterday afternoon, but then got to thinking about the unsprung weight the rear springs have to contend with and decided maybe I was overthinking it. Plus, I haven't done any performance driving that included turns (other than the one onto the return road) since I left California in 2004.
 
It’s awesome to see someone weigh the difference in the two options, 25lbs per side is HUGE!

There is a local road course up here in Millville NJ that I really want to try out some time and the TCE brakes I have sitting on the shelf and the custom rear gas tank I made both have that in mind.
 
I weighed the stock stuff when doing the CV swap,one DJM beam,spindle,rotor/caliper assy was 90lbs. Just FYI,all I got.
 
The beams are 25 lbs for the passenger and 27 lbs for the driver. So the van setup weighs 10 lbs more per side than the stock Gen 1 brakes.
 
Following up on this, I can definitely feel the weight difference in the rebound/crash. I'd imagine that the van brakes with low profile tires would make for a pretty abusive ride.

With the TCE brakes, I can't see there being any way to run the stock wheels without extremely low profile tires, and I'm not even sure about then. The outer edge of the tires would be directly under the fender arch. Maybe with a much more aggressive fender roll than I did - I wanted to keep the inner fender liners, though.

I need to pull the calipers back off and paint the brackets. The areas I had to grind show a rust haze pretty quickly when it's been damp.
 
I fixed it for you

YES! You're absolutely right. Taking my statement out of context with the other things I've been doing would've been really misleading. I ran stock wheels/tires with the TCE brakes for a long time with no issues at all with the Eibach springs.
 
Definitely not something I can really comment on yet. The van brakes have pedestrian pads and I haven't tried to see how well it'll stop yet because I've been sorting out the lowering gremlins. Without comparable pads, the van brakes definitely have no where near the bite that the Wilwoods had, and that's not at all surprising.
 
Probably worth mentioning (it may have already been documented, so if it has, I'm just reiterating), the stock spare will not fit over these brakes. I realized I'd better test fit it since I can't run a rear tire on the front of the truck anymore, which would've been my plan if I had a flat when I had the TCE brakes and the truck only slightly lowered.

Thankfully I have quite a few stock wheels laying around, so I can put together a spare.
 
I never even thought of that. I'm also running 12" Cobra discs in the rear and I don't even know if the 15" spare will fit over that. I might be carrying a spare that is useless on the truck. Then again, I don't have a jack or wrench in the truck so it's kind of useless anyway.:gl:
 
I finally sourced a set of spindles from a 2006 van... still have to source everything else, but 1 question I have is am I correct in thinking the stock F-150 brake lines fit the E-150 calipers? I have SS lines and hoping I can reuse them.
 
So after reading over this forum for a few months now, I'm pretty excited to do the upgrade. I've decided to swap out my rear axle with an Explorer 8.8 to gain the disc brakes, and also to narrow the rear so I can squeeze some wider wheels and tires underneath and still keep a good sized lip on the wheels. And so since the explorer axle is gonna have the 5 X 4.5 wheel bolt pattern, has any one in here SUCCESSFULLY redrilled the front rotors from an E150 to the 5x4.5 or even possibly a 5x5 bolt pattern? Any help is appreciated!
 
I'm using SS lines for a Lightning from LMR (I think they're Earl's, but I'm not looking at them at the moment to be certain) with mine. However, they attach at a different angle, so they drag on the shocks. I'm not crazy about that and may have some custom lines made to replace them.
 
To answer the question if these brakes will fit factory wheels... no quite in my case. :rolleyes: Had to grind the caliper mount bracket some because there just wasn't enough space. Otherwise the install went great and I just need an alignment and bed in the pads. I'm not really satisfied with the peddle feel as others have mentioned so I'll probably look into master cylinders soon as well.

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After grinding
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Might as well add 1999 Expedition master cylinder to the lists of parts needed for this upgrade. It made all the difference if pedal feel!
 
A question that has come up a few times is how the van conversion feels compared to the stockers. Even with new rotors and good pads on the '94 with the stock configuration, the pedal (with the bigger Expedition MC) and stopping feel of the van brakes is all far superior.

I'll probably start collecting parts to convert the '94. Or I could throw the TCE brakes on it, though that seems like overkill. But hey, they're just sitting on a shelf, so...
 
A question that has come up a few times is how the van conversion feels compared to the stockers. Even with new rotors and good pads on the '94 with the stock configuration, the pedal (with the bigger Expedition MC) and stopping feel of the van brakes is all far superior.

I'll probably start collecting parts to convert the '94. Or I could throw the TCE brakes on it, though that seems like overkill. But hey, they're just sitting on a shelf, so...
Those need to head to Tennessee

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