If you do a lot of driving in the twisties or on the track, the stock brakes may fade or otherwise lose effectiveness. Basically, brakes fade when they get hot from repeated use. And under severe use, the DOT3 brake fluid can boil and become useless.

Stock pads are semi-metallic. Other pads available thru specialty shops include 'carbon-metallic', 'carbon-kevlar', 'cool-carbon', and racing compounds. These all claim more fade resistance. Warning: these harder pads may not be suitable for cold weather. My [Scott Chan's] carbon-metallic pads take noticably longer to stop when cold. I would not want to try them on a cold Rocky Mountain morning.

The stock brake fluid is DOT3. There are DOT3/DOT4 fluids available which have a 27F higher boiling point. Silicone DOT5 fluid has even higher boiling point, but is not compatible with ABS. [Ed: Some silicone brake fluids exist which do not carry DOT approval; these are for racing only and for liability reasons should *not* be used on a street legal car.]

Cooling ducts from the fog-lamp mount to the caliper have been used with success on other street cars.

There is a $1300 kit which includes bigger rotors, calipers, and pads. Only fits stock suspensions with 16" wheels or bigger. See Super Ford mag June 94.

Special warning for Baer brakes owners 4/19/96 (thanks David Zeckhausen):

There are two serious errors in the instructions which may lead to sudden catastrophic brake failure.

In step 8, the instructions state that the (4) caliper bolts (supplied by Baer Racing) should be torqued to 110 ft-lbs. The correct torque spec is 65 ft-lbs. The included bolts typically fail at 120 ft-lbs. I was lucky and had one of the heads shear off while I was tightening it. (I didn't feel very lucky at the time!) When I called Baer Racing, they asked me to send the "defective" bolt back. It was only when I was explaining what happened that they realized there was a typo in the instructions which had been fixed on their computer but had not made it into their master instruction book. They immediately sent me 4 new bolts and hardened washers and asked me to replace all of them.

In step 12, the instructions state that the stainless brake lines supplied by Baer Racing should be ty-wrapped to the tab on the front shock. If you do this, the normal motion of the suspension will cause the tie-wrap to tear out and the hose will be kinked. The kinked hose could eventually rupture leading to loss of brake pressure.

If you followed these instructions, please contact Baer Racing immediately. They will ship you 4 new caliper bolts and washers and if your front brake lines are kinked, theyu will send you new ones.

Finally, ignore the maintenance procedures printed on the last page of the instructions. Those procedures only apply to the Mustang spindles.

Despite these problems, the folks at Baer Racing have been very supportive and the new brakes are fantastic.