Mustang rear brake swap with Taurus calipers?

[97Ranger3.0]

I'm wondering if anyone has tried this yet - I recently came across something about SN95 mustang owners when upgrading their front brakes will also replace their rear calipers with 90s Taurus calipers. They look almost identical and are a bolt on, but have a 43mm piston vs the mustang's 38mm. So it got me thinking about something I had read the other day about putting Mustang discs on the back of your Ranger not really being an "upgrade" compared to the stock drums or when compared to swapping to Explorer rear brakes. So I did some research on rock auto. Explorer rear rotors are about 11.2", and the calipers are 48mm pistons. The Mustang V6/GT rear rotors are 10.5" or 11.6" if using Cobra brakes. So, I'm thinking using Cobra rotors with Taurus calipers would put you a lot closer to the spec's of the Explorer brakes but with the benefits of using the Mustang brakes (don’t need to change the axle, simpler parking brake etc.)

So I'm curious if anyone has tried this yet, or has any reason as to why not to do this.

 

[pjtoledo]

FYI
90-92 Taurus SHO rear rotors are 1" vented
93+ are 1/2" solid.
the caliper and mounts are not interchangeable.

 

[SenorNoob]

Sounds plausible to me. If it works on the Mustang, it should work on a Ranger.

 

[JoshT]

I'm not familiar with this Taurus thing on the Mustangs, so don't know what's involved there. If you adapt the rear axle to bolt on the Mustang brakes, you should also be able to use any bolt on any modifications that those Mustangs run.

The front Cobra brake swap was the same way back when it was a thing for the 2wd trucks. Once you had the adapters in place for the Cobra caliper and rotor, you could run pretty much any bolt on upgrade for them. Brembos anyone? Most of us felt that the Cobra brakes alone were more than enough of an upgrade.

Reasons not to do it? Upgrading the rear brakes and leaving the front stock might mess with your brake biasing and make it easier to lock up the rear brakes. It also might not be an issue since most of a truck's braking comes from the front anyway.

 

[97Ranger3.0]

I'm not familiar with this Taurus thing on the Mustangs, so don't know what's involved there. If you adapt the rear axle to bolt on the Mustang brakes, you should also be able to use any bolt on any modifications that those Mustangs run.

The front Cobra brake swap was the same way back when it was a thing for the 2wd trucks. Once you had the adapters in place for the Cobra caliper and rotor, you could run pretty much any bolt on upgrade for them. Brembos anyone? Most of us felt that the Cobra brakes alone were more than enough of an upgrade.

Reasons not to do it? Upgrading the rear brakes and leaving the front stock might mess with your brake biasing and make it easier to lock up the rear brakes. It also might not be an issue since most of a truck's braking comes from the front anyway.

My understanding is you still use the mustang bracket, the Taurus caliper bolts to the Mustang bracket so yeah I agree there’s probably no reason it shouldn’t work in this application.

And yes the brake bias was my only concern. However, considering that the Explorer’s used the same master cylinder and same front brakes as Rangers but with 11.2” rear rotors and 48mm piston calipers - I’m thinking that either the GT rotors or Cobra rotors with the 43mm piston Taurus calipers would still be smaller than Explorer brakes. So I’m thinking it probably shouldn’t change the brake bias? But it should improve it by bringing it closer to the Explorer spec’s when compared to running just the mustang setup, especially when using the smaller rotors.

In my 97 Ranger I have a rear axle from an Explorer Sport Trac which has larger rotors than the Explorer’s (11.8” instead of 11.2”), with the stock Ranger brakes up front. The braking on that truck is excellent, but it does go through rear brake pads faster than I’d expect. I’m guessing those brakes are probably a little oversized without upgrading the fronts. If I decide to try these Taurus calipers on my other truck, i’ll be curious how it compares.