Even though we love Ford's Mustang to death, we can't deny that she's kind of a fatty. There hasn't been a single stock Pony under 3,000 pounds since the third generation Fox bodies, and after throwing on some our aftermarket performance gear, your Mustang will get even heavier. Our 2007 Trak Pak race car weighed nearly 4000 pounds AFTER being gutted and upgraded with racing modifications including a ROUSH TVS2300 supercharger, P51 short block and a complete SCCA-compliant roll cage, on top of other add-ons. Installing tons of power-enhancing mods will make all that mass less noticeable while cruising, but stopping is another story, and last we checked, braking was a fairly integral part of driving. Upgrading the braking system in one form or another is a practical must for any Mustang pilot from the daily driver to the Trans Am racers and hardcore dragsters. Let's face it: the factory two-piston front, one-piston rear calipers and blank rotors present on stock Mustangs just can't do an adequate job of slowing Ford's beastly Pony car down. The aftermarket, however, is a different story. Massive power and massive weight deserve massive brake systems and we here at Stage 3 Motorsports have brake combinations that fit practically any need or potential application.
The most important rule of thumb when shopping for uprated brakes is to focus on the front. Each Mustang since its 1965 birth has put the vast majority of its weight on its forward half. Even the newest 2012 GTs feature 54% front and 46% rear weight distribution that, combined with the huge mass of the motor, puts most of the car's strain on the front brakes and very little of it on the rears, especially under high g-loads. Only the most aggressively powered and track-ready Mustangs need to upgrade all four brakes, and even then that need is arguable at best. Brake packages from big names like ROUSH and Saleen don't come with rear brake upgrades at all. If rear brakes are an absolute must-have for you, we do carry a fairly wide selection.
While street driving doesn't have the huge brake demands as high performance racing, the threat of a busload of starving orphans, a long row of fluffy ducklings or single mothers with strollers suddenly appearing down the sights of your Mustang's roaring engine are reason enough to want your Mustang to actually stop when you tell it to. That being said, the only real overhauls that need to be made are the rotors and brake pads. Power Stop rotors and pads are a great money-saving option that also give a little extra bite when you most need it. The drilled and slotted rotors included with every Power Stop kit dissipate heat and clear brake dust mush more efficiently than the factory blank rotors to generate less fade for a even braking curve. The ceramic pads included with their [[complete kits]:search=Mustang power stop brake kit] produce less dust and heat under heavy braking while being extremely quiet. There are some concerns about drilled rotors cracking near the holes and causing a complete failure, but in all our years we've never had more than hairline fractures occur and those were on slotted brakes being used on high performance race Mustangs. Go figure. In any case, keeping the stock blank rotors is all well and good, if you upgrade to a set of Hawk ceramic pads. Hawk manufactures each pad out of a unique ceramic compound that gives uprated stopping power with low dust, low noise that also extends the life of both the pad and rotor. While a few mild upgrades can keep your street-driven Mustang from becoming a huge insurance liability, track and off-road applications need far more substantial overhauls.
Your autocross, time attack or light drag Mustang needs to stop at some point, hopefully sometime shortly after a lighted board or checkered flag. The higher brake demands of fast driving, quick turns and high-g maneuvers require a full makeover for the calipers, rotors, pads and potentially the brake lines in order to keep you from becoming "that guy" with too close of a relationship with the retaining wall. Our newest additions to the Stage 3 Motorsports inventory are Wilwood brake kits that are practically built for track duties. These "Superlite" kits feature 13" or 14" rotors from 1994 model years onward that can come just slotted or drilled and slotted. Each Wilwood Superlite kit is based around huge six-piston calipers that come in either a black or red powder coat finish and gives even seriously modified Mustangs a quick stop and linear braking through hard corners. The baseline options with only slotted rotors and black calipers for the front wheels are the perfect answer for the autocross Mustang, while the full drilled and slotted rotor kit that upgrades all four brakes lean more toward full road-racing and drag applications.
The huge horsepower Mustangs found in extreme drag racing and SCCA or NASA professional or league road-racing scenes require some of the most powerful braking systems currently on the aftermarket in order to successfully compete. ROUSH, Saleen and Baer Brakes all offer Big Brake kits based around high performance six-piston calipers and performance rotors with new braided brake lines and top-quality pads. Both our 2005 and 2007 Trak Pak race cars had a set of ROUSH Trak Pak brakes and Hawk HP-Plus brake pads that offered spine-crushing stopping ability that could put all of the 2007 car's 540 horsepower to a dead stop in a matter of seconds. The ROUSH Trak Pak kit and others like it are the last brakes that even the most heavily modified Mustangs will ever need. The six pistons give a crushing, T-Rex bite onto the specially designed, heavy duty rotors that laugh off the high heat and dust generation common at the track and drag strip. These brake kits are top-notch and are virtually unrivaled on the Mustang aftermarket. Baer also manufactures a set of huge six-piston rear brakes to go along with their six-pot fronts that absolutely guarantee a face-plant into your dashboard when you slam down the brake pedal.
Now your Mustang can actually stop and you have a well-rounded sports car that can not only launch off the line, but stop after putting down solid times. At the very least, a set of aftermarket braking components prevents you from having to deal with angry folks whose bumpers wind up in your Mustang's vicious grille. With the right modifications the Mustang's huge mass can be adequately controlled and make Ford's Pony a more nimble beast. One of our brake kits, pads or rotors will meet the needs of any possible application and keep you safe on the road or track and make the heavy Mustang feel like it only weighs as much as purpose-built race cars instead of your average Holstein.
