custom drum setups anyone?

[hedz]

just curious if any of you are running any modified drum braking systems

a friend just informed me of a shop in town that will replace my asbestos pads on my shoes with ceramic pads. guy at a custom shop told me there was a advantage to brass brake plates on drum shoes. i thought that sounded insane so i thought i would get your 2 sense.

i know drilling drums can improve the cooling. i wonder if there is a deeply finned 12" drum that was used on other cars...

i just finished moving and rediscovered a 79 lincoln hydroboost and a 91 astro van hydroboost that i had lying around and it got me to thinking about my old trucks braking system again.

i know i know forget it swap to disc but there is the cool factor that i like with a full drum setup powered by hydroboost

[ultraranger]

Drilling the drums might be fine if you race your truck in open track events. For any other use though, it's a waste of time and would actually make your drums less effective at stopping the truck --removal of material takes away the heat sink ability of the drums to absorb heat.

Holes in the drums would also make them flex more and they would be more prone to distortion to cause stress cracking.

A change to semi-metallic brake shoes may help braking performance but, it will also decrease the time it takes to saturate the drums with heat. Once this happens, the drums can no longer convert friction energy into heat energy. This is otherwise known as "brake fade."

If you need greater performance out of the rear brakes, consider a switch to discs. They are fully exposed to the air and don't as easily suffer from brake fade as drums.