Bal-Bar™
Bal-Bar™ Patent-pending Ever see a race car with a booster? Racers have been using pedals with balance bar assemblies for years. Simple just build your chassis around the pedal assembly. Camaro, Corvettes, Cudas and Mustangs used to cost $3,000 to $4,000 new and used a lot less. No big deal just cut it up and make a race car. With today's values we can not cut these cars up. The Bal-Bar™ system bolts to the stock pedal and uses two (2) 0.75" master cylinders. Each .75" mc has an output pressure of over 1400 psi with a stock pedal. The brackets are designed to fit four (4) different ways and fit most applications with very little modification to the firewall. The best part is it only takes up as little as 16 square inches or a maximum of 30 square inches with the larger master cylinder. The firewall brackets can be mounted together or separately. The Bal-Bar™ can be adjusted manually or with a remote adjuster, no proportional valve required. Compare this to our competition's 50+ s.i. Now, how much room do you big block Mustang and 1st Gen Nova owners have?
All kits include universal firewall plate for your pedal bracket making installation easy. Special firewall pedal plates now available for the 67-69 Camaros and 63-82 Corvettes.
Parts: Bal-Bar™ Assembly, Bal-Bar™ Brackets, SS Hardware and Instructions. Life Time Warranty.
Color: Black Anodized
Optional High Volume Master Cylinders
Optional Girling Style Remote Master Cylinders Plain or Black Anodized.
Optional Bal-Bar™ Clutch Bracket
Optional Remote Adjusters: Knob or Lever Type.
Optional Billet Remote Cool-Tank™
Optional Kevlar Covered Lines with Black Anodized Fittings.
Pictures below shows the 67-69 Camaro and 63-82 Corvette pedals. Pre-welded Camaro bracket #M781000 makes conversion easy.
1. Camaro Pedal Carrier Modified, 2. Firewall pictures, 3. M78100 Camaro Pedal Carrier Bracket
1. Corvette Duals w/Clutch, 2. Corvette Pedal Carrier, 3. Top view with Clutch
1. Corvette inside view, 2. Corvette Pedal Carrier Bracket, 3. Upside Down view of Modified Corvette Pedal Carrier.
Additional Information by special permission the information below was provided by Dean Oshiro and was originally posted on the Mustang Forum:
The purpose of this Dual Master Cylinder setup is to get rid of the booster altogether because the engine does not produce the required amount of vacuum to operate the booster effectively. Here is a link about boosters to assist you: Boosters
Formula for Booster Pressure can be found here: Formula Booster
It takes about 1,000 psi to lock up your wheels, you need 1k psi by the master cylinder alone or the combination of a booster/master cylinder. The only thing that stops you from using a 3/4" bore "Tandem MC" is the fluid demand of the calipers. If you use a "Tandem MC" with too small of a bore the pedal travels a long ways and you might run out of brake fluid. If you put a large bore "Tandem MC" such as a 1 or 1-1/8 or even the 1-1/4 inch bore the pedal will be hard and will require a lot of foot pressure to stop the brakes.
To properly understand calipers here is a link that will assist you: Calipers
Here is a quick Formula on output pressure is different size master cylinders with a "6 to 1" pedal ratio. BEFORE you use this you need to calculate what your pedal ratio is. There are two types of brake pedals manual and power brake pedals. If you use the manual pedal with a booster/mc the brakes would be too sensitive; if you use the power pedal on without a booster the pedal will be too hard. Generally manual pedals are set up at 6.0 to 6.25 to 1 and power pedals are 5 to 1.
To calculate your pedal ratio use this formula: Pedal Ratio
On GM car they put two holes in the pedal, one for manual (upper hole) and one for power boosters (lower hole). If you will notice the GM cars have the booster tipped up in front and the booster bracket it at an angle. The reason for this is to point the booster rod to the lower hole of the GM brake pedal, to produce the manual ratio of 5:1. The advantage easy to change from manual to power brakes. The disadvantage is little or no hood clearance because the MC is close to the bottom of the hood and your reservoir volume is reduced because the fluid is tipped at an angle.
FMC did it correctly by using two pedals. Mustange owners all know what a pain it is in a 1967 Mustang to change to a power pedal. The 67 was the first year of this design so the upper bracket mount was not drill for both the manual and power pedal. Early cars only had the manual hole. Now you know why your booster master combination sits level in a FMC vs GMC.
Mustangs all have limited engine compartment space because of the shock towers and 428 even less. Now how many of us are running stock camshafts? How many have over 18 inches of vacuum to run a booster?
Ok, no vacuum so the booster does no good. Use a 7/8" or 1" master cylinder to get the pressure up. You have 764 and 998 psi with a 6:1 ratio pedal. Formula can be found here: Formula Master Cylinder Pressure
Advantage vs disadvantage is purely physics and math (assumptions: 6:1 pedal ratio, 100 psi applied foot pressure) :
1. A 1 inch MC manually has output pressure is 764 in order to lock up the brake you have to apply about 130 pounds of foot pressure to the pedal to produce 1,000 psi. Not very much for someone 250 lbs and 6-2 but what about the wife that is 110 lbs and 5-2? Or you 16 year old daughter that begged to take your car to the prom?
2. A 7/8 inch MC has a 998 psi, and you only have to apply 100 pounds to your pedal to lock up the brakes, GREAT! The disadvantage is pedal travel. When your pads are brand new with ZERO wear, the pedal will travel 130% further than the 1 inch master cylinder. Who cares? ..... the guy road racing and the guy that has 10k miles on his car with the pads almost wore down.
Unless you have actually raced (road race, auto ross, hill climbed, rally.....) a car, the hardest thing to do is braking and shifting in a corner. A pedal that travels too far complicates having to use the "heal and toe" method of brake/gas/clutch, almost impossible with a long stroke pedal. The racer's reading this can relate to the braking comparison of new pads vs worn out pads. Much easier with new pads, because of the pedal travel.
As your pads wear out with the Tandem MC setup your pedal travels further, until you have no pedal or not enough brake fluid. This is no problem for the more knowledgeable muscle car owner, he knows what the limits of his system is. The same knowledgeable owners forget that they are the smaller percentage of muscle car owners.
This is the most over looked factor when sizing your brake master cylinder effect pad use and safety. Piston travel and pad thickness is directly related to the MC bore size. For more information on calculating volume of master cylinder go to: Formula Master Cylinder Volume.
The advantage of the Dual Master cylinder is with a 3/4" bore the output pressure is 1400 psi and there is no wasted energy when using a balance bar. This is a copy of a link from the Brake Article on the internet and I quote (Dual MC's):
........."There are major advantages to using dual master cylinders: (1) Smaller diameter master cylinders can be used to increase output pressure. The design allows the application of two master cylinders being applied at the same, thereby doubling the volume output. Because of this high pressure output you will not need a vacuum booster. If you are running any type of camshaft, chances are you do not have enough vacuum to run the booster anyway. (2) The balance bar eliminates the use of a proportional valve and gives you the optional remote adjustment. (3) The remote fill applications deletes the need for residual valve normally used when the reservoirs are lower than the calipers.
When calculating the output pressure of each master cylinder you can not say that applied pressure is “shared” equally between the two (2) master cylinders. If the two master cylinders did not have a balance bar between them and the application of force was always equally distributed this statement would be true. The balance bar allows the applied pressure to be distributed unequally.
Example:
6:1 ratio pedal assembly
¾" master cylinders
Applied force of 100 pounds with your foot
The formula shows that this combination produces 1359 psi, however if you apply the 100 pounds of force to both of them equally it will only produce 50 percent or 679.5 psi.
What the balance bar allows you to do is apply 65% of the force to the front and 35% to the rear so the actual output pressures would be 883 & 475 psi.
This is how you are able to obtain maximum braking with the same amount of applied force. When you are using a tandem master cylinder (OEM type inline bore) the output pressure is equal in both ports and the only way to reduce the pressure to the rear braking system is through metering (distribution block, combination valve or engineering in the master cylinder) or proportional valve. This works fine when you have more than enough pressure with a power booster but when you are using a manual master cylinder this energy is “wasted”.
The easiest way to test this "wasted energy" is to apply 100 uniform pounds of pressure to a 6:1 pedal ratio and measure the pressure at the front calipers and the rear calipers with a pressure gauge. You will find that you will not have 763 psi you will have a reduced amount directly related to your proportioning or reduced pressure in the rear. If you reduce the pressure in the rear by 15% the out pressure in the front system will only have 648 psi at the gauge. The 648 psi is not taking into account "Friction Lost". Friction Lost is the amount of pressure lost from length of travel and the size of the piping.
The only way to know the effective actual output pressure of your system with a proportional valve or distribution block installed is to measure it with a pressure gauge when using a Tandem MC setup. You get 100% when you do not have this restriction on dual master cylinders. So how many pounds are you actually pushing with your foot when you use a Tandem MC?
The only disadvantage is higher cost..... but what is your car worth? What is your life worth?
Everybody has their own preferences, priorities, driving styles and disposable income (for our babies i.e. cars). Just give a formula or Physics reason why a Tandem MC works better than a Dual MC setup. FYI you can look in "Handbook of Physics" by Condon & Odishaw for any Physics rebuttal you might have. To an Engineer give him Physics and Math or give him a black and white answer, if you can't prove it on paper he won't believe you.
This setup is not for everybody, it is only another solution to no or little vacuum on the muscle cars we are building today. We did not have the horse power or speed 10, 20 or 30 years ago, so we did not need as much braking as we do now. With today's technology the sky is the limit and the only thing holding us from going faster is the tires, suspension and brakes not so much the engines. Band-aids like hydro-booster and vacuum canister/pumps are just one more thing to go wrong.
The above information provided through special permission by D. Oshiro.
Cool-Flow™ System
Patent-pending - This is our answer to reducing the temperature of the rotors and thereby control tire pressure in the middle of a race. Please make written inquires and we will then send you information about the Cool-Flow System™. Guaranteed to revolutionize racing.
