I have a koln cortina rear axle on my Supersix with drum brakes, I am wanting a little more braking at the rear as the fronts have been upgraded, even with the bias lever to the rear I want more braking so my options are to convert the tina axle to disc (expensive) or another would be to get the brake shoe material changed to a race compound, I have found a company that will do this but my question is has anyone else gone down this route?

Ed

You'd be better looking at cylinder bore sizes to make the difference. Harder compound brake shoes will take longer to heat up the drums and not work as well as standard.

I wouldn't use a different friction material.

I went the route of a larger wheel cylinder bore. Ford drumbrakes use the same wheel cylinder design between different models - have a chat with your local dealer.

This is a far better way to increase rear brake output.

Brake balance bars only really work well within a few turns of the centre position and also need sufficient side clearance to allow the bar to pivot sufficiently.
The answer is either fit bigger bore on the wheel cylinders on the rear or a smaller bore master cylinder in the rear circuit.

Changing the the friction material isn't the answer because the coefficient of friction will change with brake temperature.

ok thanks for that just to clarify this is my current set up

hi spec four pots up front
single master cilinder
brake bias lever on dash (not balancr bar)

sounds to me i should get another master cylinder, how easy is it to do? and how do i know what size and spec i need, do i speak with rally design?

Ed

Remove the valve and very carefully test without it. some of the lever adjustable valves on sale don't actually have any effect at the low pressures in seven style car brake systems. Test a slow speed on good smooth clean dry tarmac

A lot depends on which Cortina rear brakes you have they come in 8" and 9" varieties with different size wheel cylinder options.

If you have a Sierra master cylinder then you can reduce the pedal effort by fitting a smaller bore master cylinder.