Putting 2003 Cobra front brakes on this weekend. Parts needed?

tykempster · Jan 7, 2015

Hey guys, I got some 2003 Cobra calipers and rotors from a guy who was upgrading. Bought some Hawk ceramic pads and painted the calipers, think it should stop and look nice. Do I need a special tool to disconnect the stock caliper brake line and connect the new one up in the fender? Since the calipers are under no pressure, I shouldn't need anything to compress the pistons in order to install them should I? Thanks!

Orange 94 · Jan 7, 2015

Moved to brakes section, had nothing to do with a 5.0

95opal · Jan 8, 2015

tykempster said:
Hey guys, I got some 2003 Cobra calipers and rotors from a guy who was upgrading. Bought some Hawk ceramic pads and painted the calipers, think it should stop and look nice. Do I need a special tool to disconnect the stock caliper brake line and connect the new one up in the fender? Since the calipers are under no pressure, I shouldn't need anything to compress the pistons in order to install them should I? Thanks!

a line wrench for the brake line and you should be able to compress the pistons before you install them pretty easily.

ReplicaR · Jan 8, 2015

Don't forget a Cobra master cylinder, otherwise the brake pedal is going to be extremely hard, and the car will stop worse than it did with stock brakes. I assume the car is a 94-95 GT

GEORGEKLASS · Jan 8, 2015

ReplicaR said:
Don't forget a Cobra master cylinder, otherwise the brake pedal is going to be extremely hard, and the car will stop worse than it did with stock brakes. I assume the car is a 94-95 GT

I'm going to be doing my swap in spring and that's what I'm worried about. It seems like some people like the way the pedal feels with the GT MC and some don't. I'm going to do mine with stock mc and if I don't like the feel I'll change the master.

*I'll be using the 38mm calipers I don't know if that makes a big difference VS the 40mm

ReplicaR · Jan 8, 2015

When I did the Cobra brake kit, it was a FRPP kit that came with Cobra MC. Unfortunately for me, the MC had a cracked reservoir, so I could not use it at the time of install, and I had to drive the car with stock MC. The car barely stopped. It's not about how hard the pedal feels, it's about the stopping power, and how little of it you get with incorrect MC. Do yourself a favor and get Cobra MC to begin with. You will have to modify the brake lines going from MC to distribution block, which is a pain in the ass, but you can avoid all that by buying a prebent kit from Maximum Motorsports at a very fair price.

GEORGEKLASS · Jan 8, 2015

ReplicaR said:
When I did the Cobra brake kit, it was a FRPP kit that came with Cobra MC. Unfortunately for me, the MC had a cracked reservoir, so I could not use it at the time of install, and I had to drive the car with stock MC. The car barely stopped. It's not about how hard the pedal feels, it's about the stopping power, and how little of it you get with incorrect MC. Do yourself a favor and get Cobra MC to begin with. You will have to modify the brake lines going from MC to distribution block, which is a pain in the ass, but you can avoid all that by buying a prebent kit from Maximum Motorsports at a very fair price.

Thanks for the heads up I just checked the MM kit at $20 it's a no brainer. So it seems like Cobra MC it shall be

9838stang · Jan 8, 2015

I don't know if this matters at all, but when I did my swap on my v6 I didn't need to anything with the master other than bleed the system. I notice much more stopping power but a lit more nose dive. Will be address that in a few weeks with a rear baer kit. Also I do not have and on my car either

9838stang · Jan 8, 2015

I also added mm from stainless lines

tykempster · Jan 8, 2015

I'm going to try with the stock MC first, and if I don't like the feel then I'll switch. I haven't heard that there would be much of an actual difference in stopping other than the pedal effort needed.

ttocs · Jan 8, 2015

Did you rebuild them?

Tally_4.6 · Jan 8, 2015

ReplicaR said:
Don't forget a Cobra master cylinder, otherwise the brake pedal is going to be extremely hard, and the car will stop worse than it did with stock brakes. I assume the car is a 94-95 GT

Is this like a '94-'95 thing?

RichV · Jan 8, 2015

The biggest difference is how you use the brakes. With street driving, you probably would never feel a difference. Track driving is a different story.

Until I put the Cobra MC on my 94 the pedal was actually soft. You'd lock up without any brake feel whatsoever. With the Cobra MC I can modulate the brakes correctly and can feel a gradual stiffening of the pedal until you hit threshold.

1bad95 · Jan 8, 2015

I did the cobra brake swap on my 95 and left the gt master and gt distribution lines. Loved the way the brakes felt.

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RustangJeeTee · Jan 14, 2015

I have the Cobra brakes on my 95. Never changed out the MC (I didn't even know that was a thing), and the brakes feel fine to me.

DavidBoren · Jan 21, 2015

I understand that there are those who have done the swap without changing master cylinders, but let's be honest here... different sized rotors with calipers containing additional pistons... what part of any of that would make you think that you shouldn't change your master cylinder out for the one designed to be used with those brakes?

As Hunter Thompson said, anything worth doing, is worth doing right. So do it right. Especially your brakes... why would you ever take a shortcut when it comes to the brakes?