 |  | | | Decades before Jim Carrey's now famous "Somebody stop me" line was uttered in the comic movie "The Mask," many drivers were probably thinking the same thing when braking their early Pontiac musclecars. In fact, not until 1967 did Pontiac even offer a front disc-brake option. Rear discs were not an option until 1979, and then only with the WS6 package. In 1964, metallic drum brakes were available on the GTO, but suffered from a malady then known as "morning sickness." In other words, until you warmed up the brakes, the car was downright dangerous to drive in a must-stop scenario.
'66 Meets 2003 | Back To Top
Factory disc brakes were quite an improvement. However, many racers still turned to the aftermarket for lighter brakes in order to improve their front-to-rear weight distribution. Unfortunately, most of these lightweight kits were not suited to street driving. In addition, some of these early conversions required a great deal of home engineering to install in certain vehicles. All that has mercifully changed.
When it came time to arm the re-created 1966 Pontiac GTO "GeeTO Tiger" with sufficient stopping power to match its superior horsepower, we called Stainless Steel Brakes in Clarence, NY, provider of a wide variety of conversion kits. For the front, we ordered the Super Duty A 123-6 Disc-Brake Kit. For the rear, however, we thought we might have a problem. The Moser 12-bolt rear end we obtained was assembled with Ford bearings and flanges. The Stainless Steel A 125 disc brake conversion kit was available for the traditional 12-bolt. Fortunately, Stainless provided us with special mounting brackets to accommodate our particular rear end.
Installation | Back To Top
Compared to the jerry-rigging some of us suffered with in years past, these kits practically fell on. Instructions supplied were well written and easy to understand, as were the component illustrations—and no "missing parts" here. Because the GeeTO Tiger sports a very aggressive camshaft with idle vacuum well below the required 16 inches, we ordered and installed a special vacuum pump kit, too. Click on the accompanying photos illustrating the installation.
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