I'm sending out drawings for quote for cambered axle snouts and billet hubs to convert the stock axle to floating hubs, I'm familiar with problematic.

 

That is easy, just throw money at the problem

The 9" pumpkin is so big and sits so much further to the right that I have very little room between the pumpkin and the exhaust pipe for the bellcrank. I eventually decided on about 20mm to the right of the original pivot point, 40mm lower, and I will extend the top half about 80mm or so. And I might have to reposition my 3rd link to clear the now-higher long Watts link.

But on the bright side, no more destroying impossible to find 35 year old Japanese parts. I *have* a GSL-SE rearend. If I stuck it in the car, it would last about three months and then it would be another twisted pile of scrap metal. So I am only using it as a measuring device. Plus the last time I added up the numbers I was well over $2000 into this rearend and that was before the latest round of buying stuff (bellcrank/new mounts/flex hoses/misc hardware) and might as well not let that expense go to waste...

 

you want to camber a live axle? It's actually fairly simple. Check out Griggs Racing for info on how to do it.....if they are still in business

 

the panhard bar / exhaust interference issues is REAL. I half blame that for the reason i have a fuel cell and an a transverse mounted RB muffler now.

 

Circle track guys figured all this out long before Griggs. You can camber live axles by bending the housing (whether by heating or with a press) which is easy but kills the bearings and axles and doesn't get you as much camber as radial slicks want, or you can camber it with floating hubs, cambered snouts and crown spline (or CV ball) axles. I can just buy the latter option from the Aussies, but I have a thing about not wanting to have parts coming from different continents with unknown wear parts, and also I want a different wheel bolt pattern.

 

So does anyone know of a caliper to use instead of the GSL-SE calipers then those are now unobtanium?

 

I have a set of rebuilt rear GSL-SE calipers for sale..!! I managed to find a set, but for now I am going in the GSL direction with my rear end.

I do not know of anything that will 'drop-in'.

The swap is to make up new brackets and you can run larger FC or FD rear calipers with some mods to the ebrake cable assy. These get matched with larger rotors and would require similar changes to front brakes to maintain proper bias, etc.

 

are the pistons similar enough to refurb them using nonvented FB or FC components?

 

Piston size is the same as far as I can tell, should be possible.

 

SO people should not be tossing away those calipers.

 

I've only ever seen one piston go bad, but lots and lots and lots of seized hangers after the boots disintegrate and the slides rust.

And the boots are also apparently NLA.

 

I'm about to say **** it and run a Ford 8.8 with a 5 lug disc conversion.

 

That would be the smart way to go, to be honest. I did the 9" because I wanted acres of gearsets and tons of cheapo NASCAR takeout diffs and it has the shortest pinion length of all of the common rearends. With a Thunderbird/Mark IV flange machined to accept the Mazda driveshaft, it's barely a quarter inch longer than the Mazda diff, meaning I don't need to spend $500 to have a driveshaft made.

For my RX-3, I'm going to get a Ranger 7.5" and narrow the long side and use two short-side axles, redrilled to 4x110. Keep the drum brakes because rear disk brakes suuuuuuuck. And I am thinking Volvo 240 crossmember in the front with FB control arms and struts, because why not. Keeping it 4x110 is important to me, and I have a friend with a yard full of Volvo 240s and he probably won't miss a couple. (He also has an XR4Ti, between that and all the Volvos it is like RallyAnarchy threw up in his backyard)

 

The rear discs are 10.65 inches with a reliable caliper on the Mustang 7.5 and 8.8.

 

The Ford calipers with integrated parking brakes are the opposite of reliable. When Ford was using them on the Taurus, I could reliably replace them every twelve months on most customer cars. Juuuuuuuuunk.

They probably last on Mustangs because most Mustangs get driven like 3000 miles a year, on sunny days only.

The Lucas calipers are the only ones I have ever seen that don't have massive issues, which is part of why I went with them. Part of it was also because VW put them on, literally, everything they made, in aluminum. Part of it was the A8 used the same caliper but wider for vented, with ridiculously grippy pads (GG, not FF or (ugh) EF) ) so you can get awesome pads for $20 over the counter. And part of it was I could make the Mazda cable mate up to it without drama.

 

in almost 20 years and half a million miles of Mustang ownership I had one rear caliper fail. The Taurus also uses a different caliper.

 

I got 7.5 axle from my buddies wrecked 95 Mustang. It's a little rusty from sitting but I pulled the cover and it is good inside.

 

Would it be that hard to make brackets to bolt on different calipers? I am thinking about running 4x114 on my GSL rear end and then making a dual caliper bracket so I could use all S13 stuff.

 

Well, how good are you at making things? Caliper brackets aren't that complicated - at the same time they're the sort of thing that no smart fab guy is going to want to do for you due to liability.

 

Lol I am an engineer and already made my own Turbo II front brackets and shortened my knuckles...I do understand the liability thing though, there's no way I would sell anything I made

Edit: I also realize being an engineer does not mean you can actually make anything!!

 

So there ya go. A couple ways to do brackets - peejay pointed out one - and then you can bolt any rotor you want up with any caliper you want. It's going to be a bit more work if you insist on hubcentric rather than lug centric as the RX-7 axles aren't designed that way, but that's just a bit of lathe work and welding.

I never want to assume that people can make things because, well, over the internet who knows?

 

I have seen the cheap brackets for circle track brakes too, but then obviously you lose the hand brake, in this day and age there are alot less "car enthusiasts" that can make stuff and instead just bolt things together

 

It's an 8.8. No SN95 got the 7.5.

By the time you narrow it (pay another shop $200-250 or so or buy the tools to do it yourself, and then $400-500 or so for axles) and add the housing brackets, you could have just made your own brackets to put whatever caliper you wanted on an RX-7 rearend. A drum rear would be easier starting point than disk. Too bad people scrap drum rears.

The money that Granny's gets for a bolt in rearend solution looks really cheap once you start trying to do it yourself.

 

A caliper bracket is just a flat piece of steel with some holes in it.

That said, the Lucas calipers that VWAG used for 20 years or so have the same 3.5" bolt pattern as some Wilwood (Superlite?) calipers, which makes a kind of sense since a lot of brake hardware is descended from UK companies in the 1960s. The "downside" is that the only ones that will work with RX-7 cables without work are for solid rotors. I say "downside" because I don't think vented rear brakes are really necessary for an RX-7, it just adds a bunch of weight in the worst place possible.

 

it's a 7.5. All V6 and 4 cylimder Mustangs until 2010 had a 7.5. All 79-85 Mustangs had a 7.5